Wildflowers (Tom Petty, cover by The Wailin' Jennys)

I first discovered Glennon Doyle (she dropped the Melton a few years ago) in January 2012, when I was doing research for a UU church service I was presenting, based on the theme of my singer-songwriter friend Nick Annis, whose new composition of You Can’t Be the Good Guy If You Do What the Bad Guys Do was my new favorite of his.  Inspired by Nick's musical conundrum, I contemplated exactly what "good guys" do, from ethical buying to considerate interactions to compassionate politics.  I read the story of Ferdinand, I quoted from Dar Williams' song Buzzer (based on the Stanley Milgram Experiment in the early ‘60’s), I mentioned The Paradoxical Commandments by Kent Keith (often falsely attributed to Mother Teresa), and I quoted Martin Niemöller's "When the Nazis came for the communists".

I then went on to say that I was turned on to the coolest blog by none other than Tracey, our former RE Director, and I quoted from the website:

“Although our meeting place is a Momastery (www.momastery.com), we’re no monks. We’re Monkees. And we’re too busy singing to put anybody down.  The Monkees are a group of women with nothing in common other than these beliefs:

1.    We Belong To Each Other
2.    We Can Do Hard Things
3.    Love Wins

We are Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and atheists… but we are kin, so we are kind. Our goals are to be careful with each other… to pay attention and look closely and think hard and pray and feel and wake up and care and connect. So we can become braver and live bigger and truer on this Earth.”

At that point, I was hooked, read each new blog entry as soon as it posted, bought both of her books as soon as they were published, contributed to her Love Flash Mobs (up to a $25 maximum, raising millions of dollars), witnessed her Compassion Collective collaboration with Brené Brown, Cheryl Strayed, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Rob Bell, and even had the chance to see/hear her speak a few years ago.  She's been married and divorced, has three children by her former husband, and is now life-partnered with Abby Wambach, the soccer player.  Glennon continues to face life with humor, wisdom, and compassion, and I could not wait to buy her newest book, Untamed, pre-ordering it months ago through Barnes & Noble so I could get an autographed copy.

Well, even though we moved from our suburban home to our 55+ condo community almost two years ago, I never changed my address through B&N, so the book was sent there last month and then, through a crazy set of well-intentioned circumstances but ultimately life glitches, when I finally figured out why I hadn't received it yet, the book had been sent back.  Oh [three-second pause] well.  I could order another one via Amazon, right?  First world problems.

I was planning to blog about this today anyway, and mid-afternoon yesterday I received a text from my friend Michele, asking if I had the book and, if not, she'd be glad to send me her copy.  Wow.  Synchronicity strikes again, and I am beyond grateful, as well as amazed, that The Universe always seems to have my back.  Thanks, MW.  Can't wait to read it...  💖


SONG:  Wildflowers by Tom Petty (cover by The Wailin' Jennys)

BOOK:  Untamed by Glennon Doyle

POEM:  The Sea by David Whyte

The pull is so strong we will not believe
the drawing tide is meant for us,
I mean the gift, the sea,
the place where all the rivers meet.

Easy to forget,
how the great receiving depth
untamed by what we need
needs only what will flow its way.

Easy to feel so far away
and the body so old
it might not even stand the touch.

But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside
toward the place to which we go
washing over our worries of money,
the illusion of being ahead,
the grief of being behind,
our limbs young
rising from such a depth?

What would that be like
even in this century
driving toward work with the others,
moving down the roads
among the thousands swimming upstream,
as if growing toward arrival,
feeling the currents of the great desire,
carrying time toward tomorrow?

Tomorrow seen today, for itself,
the sea where all the rivers meet, unbound,
unbroken for a thousand miles, the surface
of a great silence, the movement of a moment
left completely to itself, to find ourselves adrift,
safe in our unknowing, our very own,
our great tide, our great receiving, our
wordless, fiery, unspoken,
hardly remembered, gift of true longing.

QUOTE:  "You can be very wild and still be very wise." ~ Yoko Ono

Angel Dream No. 4 (Tom Petty)

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of Vietnamese monk, writer, and activist Thich Nhat Hanh, born in 1926 in Tha Tien, Vietnam. He became a Buddhist monk when he was 16 years old. During the Vietnam War, he decided that monks shouldn't just stay in monasteries and meditate all day long while a war was going on. So he founded an organization that helped rebuild bombed villages, set up schools and medical centers, and organize agricultural cooperatives. He traveled to the United States to urge the American government to withdraw its troops, and he persuaded Martin Luther King Jr. to publicly oppose the Vietnam War. But both the non-Communist and Communist governments banned him from Vietnam in 1966, and it was just a few years ago, in 2005, that he was finally allowed to return for a visit. Since he was banned from Vietnam, he set up a monastic community in southern France, called Plum Village.

Thich Nhat Hanh has published more than 100 books, books of poetry and Buddhist thought. About 40 of them are in English, and many of those have been best-sellers, including Peace Is Every Step (1991), Call Me by My True Names (1993), and Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995).

P.S. Thanks to Sam Pacetti for the inspiration, and dedication, of today's song... <3

SONG: Angel Dream No. 4 by Tom Petty

BOOK: Thich Nhat Hanh: Essential Writings by Thich Nhat Hanh, Robert Ellsberg (editor)

POEM: Call Me by My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second

to be a bud on a spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

in order to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and

death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time

to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,

and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,

feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to

Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea

pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and

loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my

hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my

people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all

walks of life.

My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be left open,

the door of compassion.

QUOTE: "My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Waa-aaa-iiiit-ing (Tom Petty)

Okay... I'm at Kinko's again - took off work at 1 this afternoon to be home for my scheduled AT&T appointment. Fought with people in India three times, who told me there was a miscommunication and they'd have to reschedule to *Sunday* - then someone showed up at 7 p.m., only to tell me the problem was not inside, but outside (duh - that's what my computer consultant told them last night!). Trying to breathe - meeting friends at a local bar to hear another friend's new trio. Think I'll have a drink... or three - knock on wood, all will be fixed tomorrow between noon and 7 p.m. This is a test, this is only a test - ack!

SONG: The Waiting by Tom Petty

BOOK: Taming the Tiger Within: Meditations on Transforming Difficult Emotions by Thich Nhat Hanh

POEM: I am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
Of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the second coming
And I am waiting
For a religious revival
To sweep thru the state of Arizona
And I am waiting
For the grapes of wrath to stored
And I am waiting
For them to prove
That God is really American
And I am waiting
To see God on television
Piped into church altars
If they can find
The right channel
To tune it in on
And I am waiting
for the last supper to be served again
and a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the great divide to be crossed
and I anxiously waiting
For the secret of eternal life to be discovered
By an obscure practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and TV rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting for retribution
for what America did to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeting lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

QUOTE: "One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life." ~ Chinese proverb