The Unconditional Love We Receive

Calm Morning on Rainy Lake by Gary Alan Nelson

It’s the unconditional love we receive
which is our grounding, even when
we believe it leaves;

Far different the counterfeit: with fits and starts, 
impure motives,
or confused heart;

Freedom, our own evolution, is our journey
to protect our authenticity;

We need the purist water, a steady stroke,
the soul of waters' ripples as if God Himself spoke;

Compassion, our lake or ocean, is self acceptance
in the open; then, arms & affirmation to love our very self - 
Unconditional love is within ourselves;

The Divine, the Divine, shines, shines
in Light, in Light, as
Christ or Buddha Consciousness, like a prayer,
evolves inside;

Unconditional love, I believe, nestles, 
supports our body and never leaves. 

Connie Nelson Ahlberg
All Rights Reserved.

I Am Honoring You, Dad!

My father, Willard Charles Nelson,

pouring over a page in A History of Lutsen

Gateway to the Wilderness 

by Robert Mc Dowell

When I last saw my father in January of last year, he was so dear, so present, and the Dad I've always known. Little did I realize, the runny nose, which was beginning to be a great bother, was to precede his final days. 

In the course of our visit, I told Willard when he arrived in heaven--that I wanted him to tell me he reached his celestial home. He smiled softly and tapped his left temple as if to say: I will try to remember. This past Sunday morning, he did.

I wasn't sound asleep, but somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. This scene came before me: a moment of wonderment. My arms were outstretched and I was walking toward someone--yet, I knew not who it was to be. But suddenly I see my dad's face with a soft smile on his lips. 

My joy leapt within this cosmic mystery.

I hugged him fiercely. 

By now, I was as electrically charged as a thunderbolt. It was the affirmation I have been seeking. The dear communication my heart sought. 

Today, Tuesday, September 24, 2019, I admittedly have wiped tears, but I also feel rejuvenated to lean into all the notes I have on my dad who lived to be 103.

And Willard? He's alive and spiritually well. 

Friends, Family and Bears:

                                       I Never Met A Bear I Didn't Love

 Pardon me if in the attic I reminisce

About each bear I once hugged and kissed;

They may have lost a seam--

A bit of stitch, where once I dragged them,

Or forgotten--ditched;

Whether lost buttons or worn out paws,

My bears never met a heart they couldn't thaw;

But some bears can become overextended:

When they see a broken heart, they mend it;

Yet, age seems to bless tattered bears

Who may have lost their style on the stairs;

Like friends and family, bears, you see,

Leave us love as their legacy.

©1996 All Rights Reserved

Connie Nelson Ahlberg

Trump Basher

 La Penitente
By Pietro Rotari

On a precise day in time several months ago, I was startled to find I had been added to a list on Twitter, a list not to my liking.

The List: Trump Basher

As Pema Chodron has written, whatever your next lesson: it's going to pop right up.

And so it did. I'm stressed just revealing this to the world. Would it help to say I've prayed for 45POTUS twice? Or, I have never been profane in my Tweets? There is room for improvement--obviously.

When I come home to my core beliefs, I am grounded in Christ Consciousness.

At the same time, I can lose ground with all the wars, conflicts, terrorist attacks, reveals from whistle blowers, and certainly my candidate losing in the last election.

I was never able to be an advocate for Donald Trump in the primaries due to how he chose to run for the Presidency. It took my beliefs and turned them on it's head.

I feel we are here to honor each other vs berate, shame, or bully. Indeed, in seeking to help the planet earth evolve, it is only the former which I believe will get us there.

I confess if I was back at St. Richard's Parish in Richfield, Minnesota, I can envision waiting in line for the light to go off outside the confessional and a penitent pushing through the curtain, showing I could confess next.

Today while shopped with a dear friend, I apologized for being in someone's way. It was actually  a pre-apology as no violation had transpired. I said to the shopper: Catholics like to apologize BEFORE the sin as been committed!

As my old and now deceased priest revealed in a station wagon on a basketball game day: Hell isn't going to be any better because your friends are there. Wow.

Those are statements that burn through your brain - and called forward at will 57 years later.

It turns out: I believe in social justice, the Beatitudes, and honoring all. So it is quite a quandary for me. Do I remain silent and pray only? Or do I over-Tweet as I'm now doing as a daughter raised on the news?

I do know this: even if, boy, this IS a HUGE even if--Even if Hillary Clinton had won the last election, we have massive problems to solve, many of which are being kept secret and revealed only through whistle blowers. Some of these truth tellers have been killed because they spoke out.

These issues are beyond party affiliation. They are about our survival. Good vs Evil.

As I pray, I hope someday--I am taken off the Trump Basher List. I care about us all. My apologies to you.

Like a Tulip Resting

Like a Resting Tulip

Under the wintered grass of the finest, fallen snow;
Like a resting tulip, tulip resting:  I'm buried way below;

Sleeping bulbs are held like seemingly dormant, human souls;
Dissent is silent under the inches I know;
Just say I'm taking, taking a natural pause to again regrow.

Connie Nelson Ahlberg
All Rights Reserved.

The Dream that Came True: Loving and Laughing Now

 

Last week offered what became a joyous, eternally sweet afternoon. It came about because I found the Swedish newspaper article I was looking for.

In fits and starts since I humbly began, I resumed my effort to make my parents' trip to
Norrköping, Sweden come alive thirty-six years after it took flight.

.

The actual publication is the Norrköping Times dated September 12, 1980. The long article is about my parents trip to Norrköping, Sweden to research my father's paternal Swedish roots.

On that same trip to the continent, my mother and father visited Kongsberg, Norway, as well. My mother stood on the hill where her mother's family had lived with but a dirt floor under their feet.

Because translating has been so arduous for someone who doesn't speak Swedish, I have only a page or two completed and certainly not honed to perfection.

Yet the sweetest part of this endeavor is that I am a privileged daughter: my father is still living and loving at close to 102 years of age.

I called my dad and read a paragraph from the newspaper I'd just translated. It was in a rough form. At first he wasn't sure what word he was hearing which was "Swedish."  I had to explain several times what I was reading and that he was quoted in the article.

The words I read were:

“Finally I found the house my grandfather lived in before he emigrated to America,” said Swedish-American Willard Nelson. “Thanks to the Norrköping Times, on Wednesday I heard Lars Gunnar Jonsson himself, tell the newspaper that the house has been in his possession. They use it for summertime fun.”

Willard was delighted!

 "You deserve a pat on the shoulder and another on the top of your head."

We both laughed with glee--love flowing up the road as I often tell him.

We have a birthday to celebrate on November 11, his lucky number. And I'm his lucky daughter born on the 13^th of April--cherishing the loving and laughter now.

Sisters are Like a Summer's Day

Canova: The Three Graces

Photographer, Mik Thorpe 1999

Sisters are like a summer's day
you wouldn't dream of changing;
then suddenly, thunderstorms at 3:00
leaving twigs and branches strewn about,
but flowers exquisitely fresher, taller,
more vibrant because of the rain; then
the perfection of late afternoon and twilight when
the sun sinks low and gold and mauve change the 
sky again so that you could cry over such a 
wondrous, changing, beautiful day which leaves
you aching for another day just like it.

Connie Nelson Ahlberg - All Rights Reserved