May All Grievances Be Forgiven

My Brother's Fireplace / Lutsen, MN

Because of my dear dad's 100th birthday celebration, the family gathered last weekend (vs Thanksgiving) from as far away as Tokyo, Japan, Sterling Springs, CO, Midland, Michigan, and the Twin Cities in MN.  

You always wonder when you're coming together if members will be able to forego old sibling rivalries, flare ups, or painful assessments and all that goes with family tension at the table, kitchen, or fireplace. You go determined to be above the fray. I'll draw from Jesus or Buddha you say. 

Sometimes you feel you've nearly had a clean get-away, but comments follow you out the door as if they were stuck on the doorknob like infectious cells. *

The truth is frequently we gather without all the "I'm sorry/s" you hoped to receive in years past. Some never come; and it's hard to know if they ever will. 

A Buddhist teacher, however, answered my concerns one way as we sat in a small classroom.

"It never, never, never, never, never, never, turns out the way you think," said Flying Fish Barbara Murphy at Clouds in Water Zen Center. 

Those words have stayed with me as well as Pema Chodron's "Drop the story line."

Betrayal I've come to learn, is woven into families like the afghan you were gifted years ago. It's hard to separate out all the yarn. Years pass and you pray your way forward past the hurts that make rough rocks smooth. 

Even if you've been carved out like a hand-honed canoe, you realize resentments only give you acid and make you bitter. You realize your own health is too high a price to pay. 

I loved my Aunt Bobbie's words: You become bitter or better, she used to say. 

Flying Fish Barbara, now a Teacher Assistant at Clouds, gave a talk on forgiveness several years ago. It was such a thoughtful presentation on this word that is so hard to reach we need a chair or step ladder as it rests on the highest shelf.

With candor she admitted: I've been working on forgiveness for four years. Her talk was so good you knew her words were in earnest. It ennobled the whole passage we all come to know. 

Years ago I even bought a plaque which says: FORGIVEN and put it on my book shelf. It's literally right above Jesus. 

So yes, it's early to say Happy Thanksgiving, but since I've just had mine in a sense, I want to hold out hope for you and offer a blessing. It is softer than life is. But blessings often are: that's why we need to read them and allow our hearts to transcend adjectives like sniveling or spiteful or--trying to get the last word in a passive aggressive retort.

In the end the only assessment that matters is how you feel about yourself. Or how you  feel when you talk or pray to God. If we take the high road, we are lifted and evolve. It's delicate, I know. When do you stand for yourself and when do you let it go? We all ask the Solomon in our own souls.

So, I humbly extend: 
Blessings of the Thanksgiving Season

May your mashed potatoes be smooth;
May your stuffing not turn to mush;
May you win the wishbone;
May there be no guilt to pass; 
May all grievances be forgiven
(At least until the dishes have been put away);
May your stomach be glad and
May your memories be like a broth you savor for years.

Connie Nelson Ahlberg

*A Post Script - Actually an issue raised as I sought to leave in my clean-getaway, was one I needed to hear. Though I wiped tears from my eyes in the car, I knew I was hearing the truth. As Pema Chodron says: Whatever your next lesson is--it's going to pop right up!

God Bless Your Honey Hearts as my college landlady used to say! 
And God Bless each day in Earth School for us all.

Blessings of the Thanksgiving Season

Norman Rockwell's Thanksgiving 

Blessings of the Thanksgiving Season

May your mashed potatoes be smooth;
May your stuffing not turn to mush;
May you win the wishbone;
May there be no guilt to pass; 
May all grievances be forgiven
(At least until the dishes have been put away);
May your stomach be glad and
May your memories be like a broth you savor for years.


Connie Nelson Ahlberg

Prayer of the Giraffe

Mikumi National Park

Prayer of the Giraffe

Lord, There is so much politics

in Thy jungle;

such an endless struggle!

Forgive my awkwardness,

My inability to hide;

My long neck careening

Side to Side!

Yet I, Your giraffe, 

want to keep 

My gentle side;

Allowing my head

to rest on clouds but...

My vision unclouded to You.

Pat my funny head

so I know you've heard

the prayer that I've said;

Protect me, as

I stick out!

Yet, my heart

Wants to shout:

I'm totally

Yours.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg

Waves To Call Me Out

©  Layne Kennedy/www.laynekennedy.com

May nature renew me

And waves crash to me;

So there is only sea and salt

Or waves--to call me out;

And antlers in holy arc

Nearly home before the dark;

Where evergreens creek

and sway;

or whisper low in their

sounds of broom 'n rush:

Nature sweeping while we rest;

Where memories, no, feats of the soul

Push me,

Push me,

Push me,

So I am whole,

Further--in my growth...

Yet quite near

The Highest Plane

Which whispers,

Whispers,
Whispers,

My given name.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg

October 12, 2014

Making Pearls

For those who have struggled with physical pain, emotional pain, or both.

I sought from life to cast

Or far away to hurl;

All the pain in my days;

But then, through Grace,

I just Made Pearls.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg

All Rights Reserved.

Light, Shadow, and LIGHT, Again

Crepuscular rays at sunset near Waterberg Plateau, 

Wabi Game Ranch, Namibia

Going to where the news is--is going where the suffering is. cjna

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined." Isaiah 9:2

"James Foley was the kind of person who could talk to you for a minute and call you brother." Nadezhda Kevovorka


Going to where the news is--is going to where the suffering is.
Just as journalists and aid workers go to the suffering like our Saints, some of us traveled there in our minds, lamenting the death toll and suffering in Lybia, Gaza, and Syria.

On the mainland and Europe we debated within ourselves, we should do something. And governments debated: we should do something.

But the news reporters, journalists, aids workers and volunteers: humanitarians all, were already there. They were there documenting human rights abuses, starvation, death by mortar fire, and death by gas.

But we can't let the darkness imposed upon the American and British journalists, news reporter and aid workers *cloud the very lives of these visionaries who lived in purpose and courage.

With rousing applause to @allinwithchris on his Friday, October 3 broadcast, Chris refused to cover the death of aid worker Alan Henning as those in the media had treated the deaths of those before him. He deliberately chose to show no visual of the images that ISIS prefers: their own with the threatened victims.

Because James Foley *ascended on August 14, 2014, there has been time for his family to establish a foundation in his name to both honor James and his life.  This news reporter who paid $30. for a hotel in Benghazi somehow gave an ambulance to a hospital in Aleppo. What a beautiful gift. All altruism.

One of his last Tweets was about Palestine according to Nadezhda Kevovorka in James Foley: A Lot of Questions and No Answers.

If we wish to futher the dreams of his lifetime goals we can donate to The James W. Foley Legacy Fund. We need truly ponder here, but not in the way the Dark Side wants.

*I used the word ascended above because my readings on grief, loss, and healing informed me of something I want thousands of loved ones to know. In the event of a violent death, or sudden accident resulting in death, spirit leaves the body ahead of time--because it can.

Instead of allowing ISIS to dictate what we in shock draw from recent events, we need, as many journalists and soul leaders have done--make sure we take time to study the young lives we've lost.

We can add to the caring on the planet and the mission they began which illuminated their lives to the end and beyond. Sadly Free James Foley became The James W. Foley Legacy Fund.

Like visionary souls--they went where most of us did not want to go. They went to report on the truth of what they saw; they went to lend a hand; they went to buy an ambulance and aid the suffering.

In the old canonizing days of the Catholic Church...Saints were sometimes canonized for similar selfless acts.

I have been both lifted and stunned by the humanity and beauty of what these young men were doing with their lives. No hesitation. Commitment.

On the soul level we chose our parents and life mission. I feel each of those we've lost in recent months may have known on the soul level how their life may end, their mission, & the impact of their life work on the world.

James' foundation and, for example, Doctors Without Borders, can enable us to lift their lives by not shrinking back in the horror of how each died.

James Foley, everyone loved him, it's said.

While I intended to honor each journalist, reporter, and aid worker in one post, I will write on each life separately.  I offer sympathy, peace and prayers for Steven Sotloff, David Haines, Alan Henning and their families. We are diminished by their passing. Prayers for all held by ISIS.

In compassion we need carry on.

http://jamesfoleyfund.org/

www.doctorswithoutborders.org/



* by the Total Darkness of the Underworld, aka, ISIS/ISIL

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

Friday night getting ready for Saturday inspection

Camp Claiborn, LA

Walt, Corporal Nelson, Jackson 7/01/1940

I am fortunate, profoundly blessed. One of my greatest gifts is that my father is still living. In a few weeks, he will reach 100 years of age.

Some time ago my father, a champion newspaper reader (Duluth Harold, Star Tribune, and St. Paul Pioneer Press), told me: I only want good news.

Hmmm. I thought. Okay. (Though he did say, when asked, that he wanted to be kept abreast of news in the family.)

Last night I called him, reminding him of his comment: I only want good news. He laughed. I told him I had good news for him.
First I had good medical test results, which prompted my call.

Secondly, I told him that he is well received on Twitter, that some Followers are happy to see a man just days from turning 100, out on a walk with his walking stick, determined to get there.

He couldn't get over it. Really, he said?

I said Really.

Then I told him that someone has already booked a flight from Japan to be there on his birthday, Nov 11.

Erik? He asked mentioning my son.

I said, Yes.

Well, you tell him I'm as anxious to see him.

I will.

Then we talked about my mother who flew up (as I say) nearly 15 years ago next February 19. From time to time I tell the true story which happened to me five years after my mother died.

It was the wee hours of the morn. I was between sleep and wakefulness. Then I heard it: my mother's voice. An electric current went through my body, my reaction to this joy. She only said my nickname, but a name she used endearingly for me. Yet it was as if she read War and Peace to me, so resoundingly was it my mother's voice.

As I always say to my father. This was my mother's way of saying - I'm just somewhere else. And why am I so sure? It was my mother's birthday, May 10th.

For someone not too far from the thought of heaven's gate, it is a caressing story--which, of course, is why I keep telling it to him. I am lifted everytime I do.

Then we sign off with the promise of forehead kisses and hugs.

Have a good sleep I say, which is a direct quote of my mother's.

Each phone call is a treasured moment reminding me of what a lucky girl I am.