I bet I can live to a hundred if only I can get outdoors again. Geraldine Page (as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful)
Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit it. Will Rogers
I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot. Ralph Waldo Emerson
I don't know about you, but I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves "Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment." Kurt Vonnegut
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It is festival weekend here on our island. Beginning with a parade, including old tractors, Samba dancers, bagpipes, rescue dogs and a grocery store shopping cart drill team. It is a day to run into old friends, sip a micro brew in the beer garden and let the sun soothe your regrets and the music still the spirit. Last night, sitting in Ober Park, listening to Rumor Has It (one of our local bands), I smile watching one of our more eccentric islanders (trust me, eccentricity is a sliding scale here), dance alone to the music that has now saturated this early evening air. I sit, parts of me nicked and depleted by a long and trying week. What I needed to do was get up, and dance.
What I did was remember a walk along the shore of Lake Michigan, on the campus of Northwestern University, our backdrop the straight-edge line of a powder-blue horizon toward the east, and the Chicago skyline to the south. My friend and I had nowhere to go, and weren't in a hurry to get there. It seemed a good day for a long and restful nothing.At the entrance to an inviting tree-dotted and grassed area, a prominently placed sign greets all who walk into this place of respite, rest and sanctuary with this unusual and curious caution: "Enter at your own risk." Yes. The sign stopped me. Literally. I did a double take. And I laughed. And of course, I took a picture of the sign (with my new phone -- after all, what's the point of having a new phone if you don't take pictures). And then it made me sad... and made me wonder, "what's the point?"
Okay. At one level, I get the "risk" part. Everything now in our world is
tainted with the fear of liability. After all, someone may get hurt. (Although it doesn't read well on your medical report,"Injuries sustained while loitering.")
So, risk becomes a double-edged sword. However, I believe that in our fear-induced world, our energy is given to casting a watchful eye to the danger always lurking (or the enemies always at bay). We live tense and on edge.
"Be careful!"
You could be injured, frightened, attacked, alarmed, or worse, sued. And our life is now predicated on limiting liability. I know what that feels like.
I mean physically.
Viscerally.
Emotionally.
And spiritually.
Isn't it interesting what happens when we choose (or live by) that particular choice of words?
When I use the lens (or perspective)--"enter with caution"--I instinctively see (perceive, view) my experience in a narrower or more restrictive framework. In other words, I live this moment anticipating fear.
So it's not just about caution. Yes, I do understand that there are times when caution is called for. What troubles me is that more often than not, I trade in my freedom or imagination or choice or intention or unabashed delight or even my contentment, because I am certain I may offend.. or that I don't deserve it, or that I haven't earned it, or that I have colored outside the lines, and must pay the price. (Like the faithful band of "believers" in the movie Babette's Feast, who, when offered an extraordinarily generous gift of the feast-of-a-lifetime, make the decision to "taste" the wine, but not "enjoy it.")
I read a story about a neighborhood (near San Diego, California), where fifteen years ago, children climbed trees, built forts, floated homemade boats in the stream, fished for bluegills in the little pond near the public library and savored their days in a community cherished for its "open space"--a community boasting on its welcome sign, "Country Living." And then, it all stopped. "Authoritative adults" from the community organization intervened. "Somehow," resident John Ricks reported, "the tree house was now a fire hazard, and the 'dam' the children created in the small stream might cause severe flooding."
So the children adapted. They moved their "play" space from the woodland to the asphalt. Families erected basketball hoops in driveways, and kids created ramps for skateboards on the sidewalks.
And the community association reminded the residents that such activities violated the covenants they had signed when they bought their houses.
Right. We wouldn't want to do that now, would we?
Down came the ramps and poles, and indoors went the kids... to their Nintendo Game Boys and screen time.
No. Life isn't what it used to be. And yes, we do make choices regarding safety, which require wisdom.
However. I don't want to live my life in fear.
We quote Thoreau, longingly, "I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Which all sounds admirable and dauntless.
But what does it mean?
Perhaps, that is where the sign should be--any place we choose to live deliberately.
Because to live deliberately is risky.
And caution is warranted.
Here's the deal: To really care, grieve, love, begin again, give birth to passion, open your heart, accept loss, be overcome by beauty, sustain friendship, sit in stillness, wrestle with prayer and faith, tell the truth, and offer sanctuary to sadness or joy, requires a heart willing to accept the risk and be broken. To be broken wide open.
It's interesting to me that I found this sign in a place of sanctuary. That is the flip side of the coin. And the truth is, they may be right. The truth is that if I do enter a place of sanctuary, if I do practice Sabbath, or if I do honor stillness, or if I do give up my diversions to be at home in my own skin, or if I do choose the courage to be fully present, it may not be easy. It may, in fact, be risky.
This is the great irony. "Enter at your risk" need not mean, "shut down your heart"... or restrict your life or your passion or your sorrow or your joy. It is the opposite: enter at your own risk, precisely because your heart is fully engaged, fully present, fully alive.
I wish I could tell you that I have given up all my fear.
I have not.
Not yet.
But I do have a picture of that sign. Just to remind me... maybe today I will take the risk and open my heart.
Notes: -- Elements of the San Diego suburb story drawn from the book Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv
Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. Erica Jong
Stay connected:
terry's schedule
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Poems and Prayers
Get a Life
So here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life.
Get a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone.
Find people you love, and who love you.
Anna Quindlen (Commencement Villanova University--2/99)
The Garden
What I want to know, please, is
what is possible, and what is not.
If it is not, then I am for it.
My heart is out of its flesh-phase.
I am done with all of it, the habits, the patience.
Whoever I was, it is growing hazy and forgettable.
Whoever I am, it is for mere appearance's sake.
It is for coin, and foolishness,
and I am thinking of something better.
All morning it has been raining.
In the language of the garden, this is happiness.
The tissues perk and shine.
Truly this is the poem worth keeping.
A mossy house anyone with sense would enter
as soon as the soul begins
to desire the impossible.
I have never felt so young.
Mary Oliver
LORD,
walk with me,
talk with me,
be with me
in the cool of the evening.
Be with me
as we walk down the different paths
in the garden of my life.
Find me when I am hiding.
Reveal to me how everything
that has ever happened to me
had to happen that way
in order for me to begin
to enter your glory.
Don't walk on.
Stop and rest.
Eat with me.
Help me to recognize you
in the broken bread of my life.
Andrew Costello
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Be Inspired
Give a little love. This video is of hope, inspiration, giving, helping each other, the kindness of mankind.
The power of words
This is the true story of a football team that lived on a little island in the south of Thailand called "Koh Panyee". Koh Panyee is a floating village in the middle of the sea that does not have an inch of soil. The kids that lived there loved to watch football on TV, and really wanted to play for themselves. Watch this short film on how they used innovative thinking, hard work, and determination to make their dream come true.
Favorites from last week:
Kat Edmonson -- Be the Change
Children sing for peace. Made in Kabul, Afghanistan and Palm Springs, CA--this moving anti-war ballad is a reminder that the pleas of children are universal--They do not want war.
Redemption Song (Bob Marley) -- Playing for Change
Tracy Chapman -- Change
Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl - Audiobook excerpt
Alabama police chief APOLOGIZES to Freedom Rider congressman John Lewis
A Puerto Rican, a South Korean and a New Yorker (group name - Forte) stun the audience and judges of America's Got Talent with their rendition of 'Pie Jesu'
The gift of a meal. The Blue Smoke restaurant in NYC started a program providing meals for families caring for loved ones in hospice. I tagged along one night, to see what happens when you give the gift of food.
Living without Fear: The truth about intimacy --Terry Hershey (Anaheim Convention Center) --2013 Religious Education Congress.
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Notes from Terry
(1) Sabbath Moment is possible only through generous donations.
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And I am always glad to hear from you... comments... stories... poems... YouTubes... please email me tdh@terryhershey.com
If you are uncomfortable using PayPal or the internet , please write me: Terry Hershey PO Box 2301, Vashon, WA 98070
Or call me: 800-524-5370
 (2) Without Fear: the truth about Intimacy. Most of us don't want intimacy, we want security. Because vulnerability can hurt. Why are we afraid to be real? What does it mean to be real, to be honest or open? What do we desire in our relationships? And why do we settle for less? How do we name our fears and move beyond them? Is it possibility to love someone even with doubts, mystery and upheaval? Order Today
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