Closing Out The Journal

A new year has begun, and so I must here report the last bits from last year's journal.
Not a whole lot of poetry, actually, just short observances.

12/28/16

Travel on,
Fair Princess
You have the guts
And the humor
And the intelligence
To win over the very stars
In the heavens.

Your lady mother follows -
She died of a broken heart
We who remain will not
Forget your gift of laughter
Or her gift of song.
Thank you both for the memories
And the upbeat melodies
To help us along the way.
Hope to see you again
One day.

12/31/2016

I am being haunted
By Leonard Cohen
I don't know why
But So Long, Marianne
Will NOT stop playing
In my head.

To appease the gentle spirit,
I have ordered a book
Of his poetry
And his song lyrics
To be the basis
For my writing study
In the year ahead.

Why are you haunting me,
Leonard Cohen?
What does my suburban, mundane
Library lady life have to do with you?
Is it because I've been known
To dabble in poetry, too?

But why So Long, Marianne?
Why that one?
Why not Anthem?
Or I'm Your Man?
Or Hallelujah, even?
Why So Long Marianne?

Is it because we're saying so long
To this annus horribilis
When we had to say so long
To you,
And so MANY, MANY others?
Is it because we lost
Our princess, and her mother,
Who died of a broken heart?

We've had to say a lot of
So longs this year.
My Mom, you, David Bowie,
Our national dignity,
So much loss.
Please sing a song for our
Princess and her lady mother,
And remember those of us
Left with this world of struggle
If you really want to hang around,
I don't mind
I could use a little help
Now and then
With my Muse.

Our lives these days
Are full of anxieties
Not just the time honored worries
Like am I too fat?
Or will I have enough to retire on?
Or such as that,
But
Will anyone see my witty post?
Will anyone respond?
Am I important
To anyone
In that vast digital pond?
Sometimes
Feedback is good-
But just being able
To say hello to the whole world
Is pretty cool-
Even if they don't hear you.

Another year
Just about gone
Day after day
Time moves along
Dragging us nearer
To the end
With a laugh, a song,
A tear
And fences to mend
More hugs given
To old friends and new
Have I remembered
To tell them
How much I cherish then?
Cheering each other's successes,
Helping bear the losses-
Friends are necessary
As life's waves toss us
Here's hoping
The New Year
Brings more joy than pain
More love than hate
More compassion
Less fear
We are all on this rock
Together
No matter what we believe
Or how we look,
When you get down to brass tacks
All any of us has
In this immense universe
Is just all the rest of humanity.
Good or bad,
Light or dark,
We belong to each other
And we succeed,
Or we fail
Together.
We had best remember that
Especially
When the rich and cynical
Seek to divide us.
We cannot escape
Each other
And we need each other
To survive.

I kissed this sad year goodbye
With one last drink
A nice, refreshing cocktail
One I learned to mix this year.
I lift my glass to those who have left us
And pray they are at peace.
I lift my glass to all of you still here with me,
And I pray we are granted peace
And joy
And light
And love
Always love
The can't take that away.
Love is stronger than death.
Love lives forever.

Be well and filled with light in this new year, my dear readers.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this blog.
May you know every good blessing in the year ahead.

For All The Saints

This Sunday is the day our church celebrates all the faithful who have gone before us into that unknowable land beyond this world.  We remember them, the ways they touched lives while they were here on earth, and how their examples and deeds continue to touch lives. 
Not just the "official" saints, but the everyday saints, the ones you probably have in your own life. 
We remember Sunday school teachers we have known, family members, neighbors, friends, people whose love and caring influenced our lives.  We remember them.  They live on, both in that land beyond, and in our hearts.

After the service at church this morning, I found a text from my sister telling me that our aunt had passed on into the nearer presence of God.  We were afraid this was coming.  She had been very ill, and had lost interest in things that she used to be very involved in.  Not a shock, but still a sadness.  Won't get to hear her heavily southern accented voice again, she won't hug my neck again in this life.  But she is still with me.  She lives on, just as my Pop, my Uncles and cousins who have gone on.  The impressions they made on the lives of others live on.  They are remembered, and remembered with love.

There is a movie out right now that I highly recommend, especially to those who have recently lost a loved one.  The Book of Life is a lovely tale, well told, of love and loss,  and the triumph of love.  In this movie, the afterlife is explained as containing two kingdoms.  Not Heaven and Hell, as we sometimes think of them, but the Land of the Remembered, and the Land of the Forgotten.  The Land of the Remembered is colorful and beautiful, and there are fiestas every day.  The Land of the Forgotten is bleak and colorless, and everyone  there is very quiet and sad.

My aunt will forever dwell in the Land of the Remembered.  She touched SO many lives.  In the town she (and for the last 20 plus years, my Mom) lived in, she is surprisingly well known.  People knew we were relatives, and on our last visit, my sister and I were asked repeatedly how our aunt was doing, and heard many stories of how very much she is loved.  Nearly everyone I met in that town who knew her, adored her.  She was so loving and giving, and until very recently made birthday cakes for LOTS of the people in town.  She taught Sunday School at one of the largest churches in town, and there are legions of former students who will never forget her caring and her teaching. 
All of us in the family will remember her with love for the many wonderful vacations we spent being overfed and spoiled by her.  I have a few recipes that she gave Mom over the years, and all of the congregation of the 11am service at St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City should call her blessed, because she gave me the recipe for Sausage Balls.  Nearly every time Matt and I did refreshments for the "After the 11" fellowship, I took Sausage Balls.  If I didn't, there were disappointed people who always looked forward to them.  So, all my fellow St. Paul's 11 o'clockers, please say a prayer of thanks for the life of Margaret Smyly, who helped teach me how to always bake with love.

On this day set aside in the church to remember those gone on before us, please think about those folks that you remember from the past, not just family, but friends, coworkers, teachers, anyone who made a difference, however small, in your life.  Remember them, say a prayer of thanks for their lives on this earth, and thereby know that they always dwell in the Land of the Remembered.

I leave you with the words to this hymn we sang today at a baptism.  It is a bit saccharine, but the last verse is so very true.  There are hundreds of thousands still today who do the right thing, the good thing, the difficult thing, the thing Jesus asked his followers to do.  They love their neighbor and show it in their actions.  Like my Aunt Margaret.  May we all do the things that will keep us in the Land of those Remembered with love.


I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God - and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus' sake,
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there's not any reason, no not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,
there are hundreds of thousands still,
the world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will,
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,
for the saints of God are just folk like me,
and I mean to be one too.

Words by Lesbia Scott
From the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, # 293