Million Dollar Moment

Posted on February 13, 2014 by harasprice

I am incredibly fortunate that, for the most part, I have been able to spend my career doing things I love to do. That does not mean that I enjoy every moment of my working life…not by any stretch of imagination. On a good day, I go home feeling like I have been sufficiently challenged, and that I accomplished some degree of positive change in my corner of the world. This is what separates the good days from the not-so-satisfying ones.

Into our lives, some of both kinds of days will inevitably fall.

In my mid-twenties, I made a decision that made logical sense at the time. I was recruited to a job that paid a lot more than I had been making, doing similar work to what I had been enjoying in a non-profit setting, but kicking it up a notch to work in a corporate setting. I was determined and idealistic. I worked hard and chose to take the high road through some particularly nasty days. For example, the person several decades older than I was whom I supervised, and who would come in dressed in perfect Talbot’s Petites attire, look over her glasses at me in my inexpensive, larger woman’s clothing and say, “What a lovely outfit you’ve chosen to grace us with today!” with a piercingly smug look on her face. I would ride the wave, focus on the clinical issues of the clients, and let the water roll off me. I would go home an emotional wreck, but no one knew that. I was still effecting some change, so I sucked it up.

After about a year, my corporate employers also started showing their true colors. One day, the day of the “Million Man March” to be exact, we (supervisors) were asked to write down the name of every employee of color who didn’t show up to work or called in for any reason and tell them they may lose their jobs if they failed to report. I refused, and when my anger at racist injustice started to rage, they suddenly said it was “just a joke.” It wasn’t funny. The final straw came for me when I worked really hard to resolve some concerns regarding dignity and quality of life in the most run-down of the nursing facilities the company owned. I was called in to the corporate office one day and commended for my work. I began to have hope, to feel like I was making a difference, when my supervisor burst my bubble and told me that my work saved them a lawsuit, and he was giving me a bonus of a percentage of the money that they would have paid to settle out of court. He pledged to do this every time I worked my magic and convinced a family not to file a law suit.

There’s an old adage about knowing what you are and realizing that at some point, you’re just haggling over the price. I looked in the mirror that night, and I looked at my bonus check. Yep, that was me. But no, it wasn’t me. I started sending out my resumes, and I handed in that bonus check and my resignation shortly after.

I moved from that job to an amazing, wonderful workplace where all my skills, my heart, and my values were put to work and supported. I took a huge cut in pay, and times were tight on my budget. But, I had great colleagues and a meaningful role in the lives of people living with grief and loss.

One day, about a year into my new job, my phone rang. I picked it up, and it was one of the nursing staff members I used to work with at my former job. She had tracked me down, she said, because she now worked for the corporate office. “We’re trying to turn things around,” she told me, “and we realize we need you back. I want to set up a time for you to come and meet with us. You can name your salary. We just want you back.” I told her I would think about it.

During the next hour, I raided the snack cabinet for our children’s support group and found a bag of Doritos (sorry, Jill…I did replace them, though!). I felt a queasiness overtaking me that wasn’t even related to the fake orange cheese I was ingesting. Why is it that ethical conflicts always seemed linked to money? I was so tired of struggling to make ends meet. Was it so wrong to try again, to be paid well and possibly make a difference? Maybe it would be different this time.

–crunch, crunch–

More Doritos and more queasiness. My next client appointment was about to arrive. What was I doing eating all these damn cheesy empty calories, anyhow? I had started exercising, I was eating healthier in spite of my reduced salary. Well, maybe just a few more.

–crunch, crunch–

I was standing at the cabinet getting one more handful when I had the epiphany. I hated that old job where every day, I was asked to compromise my values for the almighty dollar. Here I was, already trying to fill the void with anything that could compensate for the fact that I was thinking about selling out. Ten minutes until my client would arrive. Just enough time.

I called her back. “That was fast!” said my former colleague as my call was routed through. “I know,” I said. “I just called to say that I wouldn’t go back to work for you, not even for a million dollars.”

I hung up, smelling the smoke from the bridge I had just burned. Someone else would have to tend that fire, because I was done. I tossed out my crumbs of Doritos, poured myself some water, and went to greet my client.

It is now almost 20 years later, and I still remember that moment. I was young and impetuous. But I was also wise. I knew myself, and I knew when to walk away. You cannot put a price on being able to look yourself in the mirror and respect the person looking back at you. That is priceless.

There was a reason I needed to remember this story during this past week. It provided exactly the right-sized beam of light I needed to make a good decision. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to move my focus away from all the things, paid or unpaid, that bring such great fulfillment to my life right now.

That realization is tonight’s small point of light.

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Windows to the Soul

Posted on February 8, 2014 by harasprice

Yesterday, I woke up looking like a blood-hound, with two bright red, aching eyes staring back at me in the mirror. The day before, I had tried out a different shade of deep slate blue eyeliner that felt a little more daring than my usual moss green. My eyes are very sensitive, so that little foray into something new came with a price.

I was scheduled to sing with my choir at an ordination that was being hosted at our church. This event was important to me on several levels. First, our little church is not the typical site for a Diocesan ordination, and I wanted to do my part to help us shine for the simple, lovely inclusive elegance of who we are. Second, we were singing an amazing piece by Brahms which I love and which makes my spirit soar. Third, we were bringing our authentic selves to this event, complete with own choir, “Bluegrass Mass” musicians, and a youth gospel choir from the school where our soon to be ordained friend, Rock, currently teaches. Most importantly, we were witnesses to this journey for Rock, who is taking in and taking on this role of ordained priest in the Episcopal Church after his own lifetime journey of faith, challenges, questions, and renewed commitment and belief.

My red eyes were not going to keep me from this auspicious day. But, I was keenly aware of my eyes, reflecting all day on these windows to the soul.

Eyes are a highly sensitive subject for me, I have to admit. This is difficult to write on a public blog, although I know I must, because it is part of my story, a pathway that leads to today’s small point of light.

I was young, in first grade, when eyes started to be a focus for my inner turmoil. I was sure during those years that I was one of the unworthy. The church we attended in those mid-1970’s years preached an apocalyptic message of an “anti-christ” coming and stamping everyone left on the earth with the mark of the beast, so they could neither buy nor sell. Children and parents would be separated. Co-workers and friends would suddenly disappear. At best, I would be flying up to heaven amid dead bodies being ripped from the grave during the rapture. At worst, I would be “left behind.” It was like going to church to have a Grade B zombie movie described to you in pamphlets, sermons, and sunday school lessons. Except, that was supposed to be the basis of your faith. I did take that in, and it scarred me deeply. I am sorry to those who remember this time differently or practice in these traditions still, but to me it was my own personal horror movie. I was terrified, constantly. I developed a habit of sitting with my eyes closed, rolling my eyes around in a self-comforting way while I prayed (more like begged) the god of wrath to not leave me behind. I made up a little “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” prayer to go along with it. And I started pulling my eyelashes out as proof of how sorry I was.

It has taken me years of grown-up therapy to come to terms with the origins of the repetitive behaviors that plagued my childhood and adolescence, and that still sometimes linger. I am the eyelash-less girl in the school pictures. I fielded countless questions about my eyes, I was called, “pig-eyed” even from people I loved. I lied and told people my eyelashes all fell out; this gave me yet another thing to beg forgiveness for. It was a vicious cycle. My parents did the best they could with what they were seeing. I didn’t tell them what was happening, what my real fears were, because I didn’t want them to know I had thoughts of being “left behind.” That confessional would mean I didn’t have faith, and that meant I was an unbeliever, marked for eternal destruction. I wish now that I had said something, but I never did. They took me to an eye specialist at Children’s Hospital. I was prescribed sunglasses for being outside, the optometric specialists thinking that maybe I was having a sensitivity issue. I couldn’t really say to them what was going on, either, and I felt badly that people were trying to blame my eyes. It was my spirit that was broken. My eyes just took the hit.

I was thinking of all this yesterday, as I grow into new iterations of my life and my faith where I have to confront the painful places, where growth requires reconstruction of my understanding of divine presence, even in our darkest moments. We have to tear open old wounds sometimes, to allow the brokenness to make room for the small points of light to pour in and illuminate the dark places.

Because our friend Rock spent years as an ordained clergy in another tradition, we sang many songs yesterday that were familiar refrains from my own childhood, blended together with the liturgy I now know and love in the church I have joined, the voice of Christianity I am reclaiming, in the path I myself am walking into a renewed vocational calling. Yesterday, different tears were forming in the windows of my soul. Reconciliation. Grace. Healing. Reclaiming music and spirit and preaching as transformational forces not for fear and judgment, but for divine love and growth.

The windows to my soul are not so red and swollen this Sunday morning, physically or spiritually. Yesterday, eyes offered me a lens to ponder, reflect, and offer up in prayer the petitions of a small child that I now know were never ignored, that were always heard. An answer that was there in my fervent prayers all along, the still small voice that also echoes through the spheres: you are loved, because I am Love. That persistent, divine presence has always been with me, patiently awaiting me to be still and know.

When I greet my friends and neighbors today, when I offer them the gifts of welcome, hospitality, peace, Eucharist…that light is what they will see reflected in the windows to my soul.

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Sometimes

Posted on February 7, 2014 by harasprice

Sometimes I find myself in a group of strangers
and I realize I am looking for myself.
Usually, we are gathered in a place together for some reason–
common interest, perhaps.
A compelling topic,
a common cause,
or at least, children of the same age.
A common chord is among us, something
stirred us from complacency to presence.
We are all in this place.

People mill about, making conversation
and I wonder if I am here, too.
Or at least, another incarnation of me, a soul sister.
Someone whose spirit brought her body into this venue
seeking something.
Something similar to what I am.
Assuming, of course, that I know what exactly that is.

I haven’t lived here long,
but long enough
to know that the probability exists
that I will know someone
or be known.
But for now it is just me
in the midst of them.
Soon, one or both of us will break the ice
and we will become us.

I haven’t seen her yet.
But I know, in the midst of this crowd of strangers,
she is also looking for me.

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getting to “yes”

Posted on February 2, 2014 by harasprice

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

I woke with these words from e.e. cummings running through my mind. I have two musical settings of this poem that I know well. The first is a complex, modern choral piece by Lloyd Pfautsch which is a vocal arrangement filled moments of complex harmonics mixed in with lovely, deep and strong unison. The other version is an upbeat camp song that my daughter and other youth love to sing, complete with a series of hand motions and ever increasing, frenzied speed as the verses continue.

Both versions seem to provide quite a good metaphor for me this morning.

There is something about these poetic words of e.e. cummings that is so deeply human. Many of us see the divine in the splendor of nature, or the powerful presence that overtakes our senses and leaves us convinced there is something more than merely the touchable, observable world. These are the mountaintop moments that stick with us, that fill our spirits with divine longing to stay in that space where it doesn’t really matter exactly how it all works: it’s enough to feel like it simply is.

And then, we walk back down the mountain, and life resumes.

It seems to me that getting to “Yes” is about what we do in the everyday to respond to that sense of something greater. This brings me back to my musical selections. We can say “Yes” in an ever increasing fury of voice and activity that spins us into a happy exhaustion. Maybe a few of us have done that in our lifetimes. Its great, but it isn’t sustainable. Others of us see and hear the complexity of the “Yes” and wonder if learning the discordant places is worth the power and strength of Unison that eventually will emerge. It can keep us out of the proverbial choir loft, assuming there are plenty of other singers who can do it better or with more ease. The truth is, it takes every voice to get through the discord and harmonics, and it isall the more powerful when diverse and plentiful voices pull together in Unison.

I am heading into the Annual Meeting at my church today, not generally considered a mountaintop moment on the liturgical calendar by most, I realize. But, this past year has been an important one for me to learn something about the divine Yes. Last year, I said yes and was elected to vestry, something I swore I would never do. Church politics had burned me up before in other times and other places. I was terrified of mixing all that “real” of budgets and property and organization with my faith journey, which sometimes felt needed to be tucked up inside and protected. I had every reason to be cautious, too. But, every sense of my being also asked me to leap in faith and say a divine Yes. I took the risk. I have not one regret.

This year has brought me so many opportunities for reflection and growth on my journey of spirit. Not all of those moments occurred over budget spreadsheets and property estimates, nor can I profess my vestry colleagues and I were in divine unison all the time. But, my faith community is accomplishing something together that is greater than the sum of our parts, and I am so grateful to be in the midst of that. It has restored my faith in the Presence which is greater than we are, that allows us to do and be more than we could have asked or imagined. That has changed my own journey of faith in community, and my understanding and experience of the divine constantly working in us and through us in our daily lives.

Now, the ears of my ears are awake. Now, the eyes of my eyes are opened.

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Compelled

Posted on January 31, 2014 by harasprice

Its 1:00 a.m. as I sit to write.

It amazes me that I am awake, and that what I am choosing to do at this post-midnight, pre-dawn hour is to write here on my blog. I have been doing a good deal of contemplative work, and writing quite a bit of it in my reflective journal this week. I am excited to have scheduled a personal writing retreat for tomorrow as part of my New Year resolution to formalize a sustained, year-long writing project. I am also working hard to pull together a Lenten project for my faith community; I was just engrossed in music, art, and writings in preparation for “Cultivating Sacred Space” in the coming liturgical season. None of those noble pursuits involves this blog, though. I feel like with all my other projects, I have neglected this little space that has, in the past year, become a home for my stories and my snapshots of divine light and inspiration. Who knew that would happen? Surely, not me. But undeniably, it has.

I had just stretched out to rest when my blog entered my mind, and I was compelled to write.

Compelled to write.

I heard those words in my mind, and suddenly I was awake. Those words are important to me, and deeply familiar. I have struggled with this notion of being compelled to write for nearly a decade. I came to the academic life not really knowing what compelled me to write. Certainly, I was compelled to write my dissertation so that I could complete my PhD. I was compelled to publish articles to climb my way to tenure. But, that kind of “compelled” is really about feeling obligated and goal-driven. I was writing for an outcome, and that is perfectly fine and utterly reasonable in the academy. But, I was always hoping and searching for something more. As the song goes, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

In the office I worked in for the past six years, I lined my ample desk space with many quotes to inspire me in my academic work. Together with my card deck of famous women writers, I always hoped they would free up my inner muse. One of those quotes that I hung up stood out to me in particular because it reflected a mysterious longing, something that I wanted to feel and experience, but really couldn’t quite imagine:

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I had never felt that. I imagined that people did, and I longed for it. But for me, writing remained a chain-myself-to-my-chair proposition, just as it had been all throughout my life. I wrote because it was necessary to document my words and experiences. Writing was evidence of what I had done, peer reviewed proof of something observed. Sometimes, I have even had moments where I enjoyed it, and I felt like I was contributing to the academic dialogue. I even thought, and occasionally was told, that I might be pretty good at it (except for the dubious Reviewer 2 who loves to break down any shred of remaining ego). But to feel compelled to write? That one must write? Or die if forbidden to write? That seemed mysteriously distant and utterly unattainable.

But here I am. I am in the deepest hour of the night, and I cannot rest. I must write. It doesn’t even matter what I write, because I have come to know…experience…believe…that inspiration will find me. It doesn’t matter for whom I write, because the message finds its way to where it needs to go without my directing that process. My words take root and sink more and more deeply into my own soul, spreading their reach to others whose words also touch me. The roots spread in the darkness and emerge into light. The words are life, and light. I am simply setting them free.

I didn’t know when I first began this blog, nearly a year ago, that I would start to take in those mysterious and elusive words of Rilke. I didn’t know that their mystery would become real, words made flesh in my visceral experience of spirit finding free passage through words, phrases, stories. But now, I must write. I am compelled. Writing is living, and breathing, and being.

Writing has become my small point of light.

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I Pray

Posted on January 25, 2014 by harasprice

Today, I was checking my Facebook during a break at Diocesan Annual Council. I read a status update from someone who shared a personal tribute to and extended a desire for prayers for a loved one. I wrote that I would be keeping her in my prayers. Within a few minutes of writing that, I bought a new chaplet of prayer beads that caught my eye. They are made of olive wood beads, and have a tree of life pendant. My personal, daily centering prayer has been focusing on roots…which I suppose is not a surprise to those who read my blog…but these simple, rustic beads seemed very fitting for this wintertide contemplation in which I have been engaging. I am reaching down deeply into the soil of my soul, finding treasures and nourishment I hadn’t realized were still part of what grounds me. I have put my new prayer beads in a place I will use, daily, keeping them close to me.

I pray.

I have been doing that lately. Not just the praying, but actually saying it. Writing it. Acknowledging that I pray. Putting down the “P” word unabashedly. Reclaiming this word that I had run away from. Although praying has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, I also have avoided the word with fierce intentionality. “I will be thinking of you.” Fine, but it has always been more than that, really. “I will be sending good vibes.” Of course, but those vibes come from somewhere. They source with intentionality in my spirit, with a belief that all that which is greater than we are connects us, beckons us, reaches to us. When I sit in that space, holding those I love in my mind, caring for them and loving them in my heart with all that is within and beyond us, sending those good thoughts and positive vibes…I pray.

Maybe it was growing up a child of the 70’s, caught in rhetoric about prayer in schools or other public venues that gave the word “prayer” a distasteful, partisan flavor. Maybe it was something more noble, like the socialization in the self-determination and person centered dignity and respect of my social work training that made me temper my words, to insure that my beliefs never privilege me over any other person’s beliefs or uncertainty. Maybe it was that prayer held a very concrete meaning and purpose in my early life: intercessing, asking, directing the course of divine energy to a purpose I was instructed to believe. Prayer equated with highly specific lines of communication from the humans to the divine. Certain prayers were privileged, apparently, if answered. But some of us begged and still did not receive, so what did that say about the divine if that is what prayer meant?

Maybe that is why many of us stopped saying it. We stopped talking about praying.

But, some of us who didn’t speak of praying walked through the majesty of nature and felt the warmth of the sun touch our spirits. We breathed in and out thankful gratitude as we opened our hearts to what was offered in that moment of spiritual connection. Others of us walked quiet paths of stillness and solitude, listening. Still others heard the music of the spheres or saw the artistry of colors or words or images. We connected something within us which also enfolded us, connecting us. We tried to give other words to this experience, an attempt to make meaning for something we craved but shied away from at the same time. We engaged in patterns that were familiar, words that were comforting, rituals that gave meaning. We didn’t call it prayer. But, we prayed.

I pray.

I pray in the quiet hours of morning, breathing in gratitude and hope for all that will unfold. I pray with prayer beads in my pocket or a touch-stone in my hand when no one else even knows, or needs to know. I pray when someone comes to my mind, or a familiar memory catches me off guard and makes me pause. I connect, remember, hold sacred the person or experience that chose to find me in that moment. I also pray familiar words, alone or in the company of others. I pray in liturgy. I find meaning in the tradition that connects my spiritual ancestors and I, who could only ever know each other through that ritualistic connection of human speech and divine longing. I pray with my fingers, slipping over beads. I pray with words, and images, and stillness. I prayed when I had no church, and no religion. I pray now that I am part of a community of faith, in my times of certainty and in my times of doubt. I am prayed for, for which I am grateful. And I pray.

So, if you see me and share with me a piece of your life and spirit, I may tell you that I will pray for you. And I will. I hope you will pray for me, too, in whatever way or form is meaningful for you. I take back this word, reclaim it for its simple mystery and divine promise that transcends creed, dogma, or division. We are beings of spirit, whose lives touch each other in divine and meaningful ways. I am grateful for that connection, and transformed by its divine power.

And that is why I pray.

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Blizzard

Posted on January 22, 2014 by harasprice

Like most people who have spent a chunk of time in cold, snowy climates, I have no shortage of stories about ice storms, snow storms, and frigid cold weather. In Buffalo, snowstorms are measured in feet, and continuous days of snow under seven don’t really count. I have driven to comedy club shows in what others would deem a blizzard, and I know what a sidewalk plow looks like. If it weren’t for the chaos created on my schedule, I would find it hysterically funny that many children living here, in Virginia, will be getting their third day off from school for two inches of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. While I scoff, a part of me also yearns for those snowy days past. I pause tonight to remember what I learned from growing up in a rural town amid the snow belt of Western New York. There are some really valuable life lessons hidden among my treasured memories.

I was in first grade when the Blizzard of ’77 struck Buffalo. That storm still lives in people’s memories as if it happened yesterday. The Blizzard even became a popular board game, which is practically poetic. We were house bound for around 2 1/2 weeks that January. We had plenty of food because we squirreled away non-perishables and our own canned peaches, pears, beans, tomatoes, and grape juice all through the summer and fall. We had water to drink and to use when the pipes froze because we quickly filled all the metal canning kettles and roasting pans we could find with water and set them on the porch to freeze when we heard that the storm was brewing. When the taps wouldn’t work, we carried the frozen pots in and thawed our water on the wood stove that heated our little house. The worst part for me was dragging frozen firewood from the woodpile outside to the house, which I did grudgingly even with a metal sled to pull the wood on. It was a different time, and a different age. I learned somewhere deep down that I must always be prepared. No running to the stores for milk, bread, and eggs at the last minute (everyone wants French toast during a blizzard here in Virginia it seems). Instead, I learned to value slow, steady preparation across weeks and months. Squirrels know this instinctively, and we learned it, too. Blizzards were the ultimate test of endurance.

Blizzards also taught me that we are all a little crazy around the edges. OK, maybe “crazy” isn’t the best word to choose, but I want to get this point across. If you talk to birds outside your window as though they are people on an ordinary day of the year, others may deem you crazy. After 2 1/2 weeks where the same three people look at each other all day, I contend it’s perfectly fine to strike up conversation with a black-capped chickadee scavenging for the seed and suet left in the trees before the storm. Preferable, perhaps. In no small way, blizzards taught me we are all frayed around the edges, and we need to be able to take ourselves and each other lightly, and respectfully. Over my years of counseling and social working, I have learned that we are all much more empathetic people when we realize that none of us are are truly normal all the time. Put us in the crucible of a deep freeze and some will start to get angry, others withdrawn, others manic and giddy. We know to grant some space to each other but not lose sight of the core person we know is there in spite of the rough edges that start popping through. When we connect to the human race and see ourselves as all uniquely and beautifully frayed, we become less judgmental and more compassionate. We are capable of greater love.

It was in a blizzard that I remember sitting and pondering the deep meaning of life, the “why” and “how” of what makes us tick as human beings. In blizzards, I finished cross stitch projects and latch-hook rugs instead of abandoning them after start up. I read voraciously and transported myself to King Arthur’s court, or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s prairie. If we were lucky and the mail came, spring bulb catalogs would fill us with joy, imagining the white tundra surrounding us on all sides spotted with bright yellow daffodils and fiery red tulips. It is an act of faith to believe that spring will come again under five feet of snow. It is divine grace and eternal mystery to find a purple crocus or pink hyacinth blooming through the snow, or pushing up sideways from under a snow bank or a tipped over flower pot. Magic and mystery are ever present in the glinting diamonds that form at dusk when freshly fallen snow meets moonbeams in the darkness. It is deep, beautiful, and soulful. I source my mysticism in the snows of winter, and I close my eyes and take in those images even now. These images are guardians of the sacred spaces in my soul.

Even our two inches of swirling snow holds some power over my mind and imagination tonight. I felt some righteous indignation today sitting in a meeting during a snowy day. Snow is so rare here. A typical day was too ordinary, too matter of fact. Snow beckons me to somewhere deeper and further in my soul. I couldn’t concentrate, and started wondering what some of my sacred spaces looked like on this snowy day. I began to picture the labyrinths I have walked this year dusted with snow, before I was called back into the here and now. These are my own beautiful, frayed edges showing through. I am happy, finally, sitting down to write this, looking out my window and see glinting, icy white against the night sky and hearing the passing crunch of icy snow beneath feet or wheels. Bliss.

If there was a chickadee nearby, I would tell her or him about this small point of light. And I know my bird friend would understand.

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Fish and Frogs

Posted on January 17, 2014 by harasprice

I write this blog post from San Antonio, where I am attending a Social Work Research conference. This conference is always a reunion for me, a time when my own cohort from my doctoral program shares our stories, and catches up on current happenings in our lives. People who “knew me when” ask how my baby is doing (since my daughter was born while I was working on my dissertation) and when I reveal she just started middle school, we become keenly aware of the passage of time, and realize we are shifting into new phases of life and career. I also am grateful for reunions with my close, soul-friends I have been so fortunate to encounter along the way. These moments occur in the midst of presentations of research which strive for rigor and relevance, while there is an undertow perpetuating the status quo of the academic life where formulaic and measurable procedures rule over intuitive serendipity. Head over heart, so to speak. This is a conference full of academics, so a lot of ego and upward momentum of the career ladder is also floating around these walls with us: stories of tenure expectations, funding challenges and successes, and changing University policies and demands intermingling with our life chatter.

I find that I am seeing all this with renewed clarity this year. Maybe its that I am solidly mid-career, post-tenure. I have enough of a reputation to no longer have to prove myself, but I still see myself as one fish in a big pond. I can float through the waters as myself, sometimes being unknown and other times getting to interface with people who know me, and others who are passionately studying some of the same things I am and whose work builds on mine, or mine on theirs. These academic waters are still my world, but my vision has expanded so that I can see the flowing currents moving toward a wider sea. This small point of light emerges in the confluence of these streams in my own vocational life.

Last night, the conference’s opening plenary featured two respected researchers whose work I know well. They, like me, choose to research in community and embrace the messiness of addressing issues of health and wellness from a cultural and community perspective. I could go on about their talks, but my point isn’t just the academic resonance and respect I hold for them. My point is to illuminate a small point of light that emerged for me in the midst of the research presentation given by Karina Walters, whose work is promoting health and wellness with Indigenous peoples. At one point in her presentation, she went off her slides a bit to tell the story of how she came to her most recent research. She had worked with her community to design all the “right” interventions, the community was embracing them, they had received funding; they had all the pieces together that should have produced success…and yet, it didn’t work. She described going to the tribal elders and talking about this, wrestling with why change was not happening when all the right pieces were in place suggesting that it should. Then, she said an incredibly brave thing on that academic plenary platform. She said, “I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to pray. I went away, I did some ceremony, and I waited.” What came to her in that time was that the pieces cannot work together if the soul is not connected to the person and the process. The amazing work which resulted from her soulful approach brings the soul of historical trauma experienced by indigenous people into the realm of health promotion. Karina and her community are literally walking the trail of tears together, reclaiming a traumatic history as a new opportunity to embody health into future generations.

I had the opportunity to thank her both publicly at the plenary, and to talk in more depth afterwards at a reception. Several of us gathered there, speaking about the soul of our work, but also the authenticity of acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers methodically occurring in logically ordered ways. Sometimes we pray, we engage in ritual, we meditate, we move into stillness because we need to align our spiritual with our rational, just like the people and communities with whom we work. Without that alignment and authenticity, we may have all the right pieces, but the results can still fall flat. It was the first time I have spoken of “soul” and “research” in such a public forum, and I was grateful to her for opening that door.

Before Karina Walters closed her talk earlier that evening, she also turned the tables on a colloquial micro-aggression: “being low on the totem pole.” This, she explained, is one of those culturally laden expressions that makes her and others cringe. But, she reminded all of us, traditionally the frog is the lowest on that totem post. But the frog is also the communicator, the translator, and the one most filled with potential for transformation.

So, I have been thinking today about fish and frogs, these seemingly low creatures that so beautifully illustrate my days. I decided to write a blessing for those of us who swim or take our courageous, forward leaps into new places. We may feel smallness, but I am reminded today of the brilliance and greatness of being exactly who we are, where we are. We experience wholeness when we align our souls with the positions in which we find ourselves. Living authentically in that space allows amazing changes to unfold in our lives, and the world around us.

May those of us who leap as frogs find our voices for change. May we swim with the currents and emerge in new waters, carrying our soul with us always. May those of us who work in our heads always align our hearts with what we do, and encourage others to do the same. And may all who walk through life on paths of authenticity allow our stories to reveal ourselves, and our selves become the change we wish to see in the world.

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Magnetism

Posted on January 11, 2014 by harasprice

I could smell the coming of a new millennium on that autumn morning. I stepped outside the Albany hotel where I had been conferencing with my colleagues. Suitcases and supplies were packed for a trip back to Buffalo. My colleagues drove West on the New York State Thruway, which was the logical thing to do. A different magnetism pulled at my spirit in September 1999, and I drove East, crossing from New York State over the Hudson River and into the Berkshire mountains.

It was ridiculous, really. I laughed at my own peculiarity. It was a Sunday and I had a full client caseload back home the next day. I could have been home by afternoon, unpacked, watching some television, relaxing. Instead, I felt an adventure brewing. Given a choice between what is logical and what draws my heart, though, my heart generally wins. And so it was that my Jeep and I went East while my rational friends headed back West for home.

I wasn’t sure what I was heading toward, but something was undeniably pulling me. All the town names were strangely familiar, mystery and nostalgia drawing me in. My father had been raised here 70 years ago, in an orphanage. A welfare home, as they were referred to in post depression area history. He didn’t speak of this place much, but we had come here in search of his birth documents when he crossed over into retirement age a few years earlier. There was more unknown than known about his early life. I knew that he may have had siblings according to the baptismal records we had found, and I wondered sometimes if I had long-lost family in this area of the country. It seemed ridiculous to be so close, but not to visit. I was compelled to visit, actually, for reasons that did not find words. These were my thoughts as I drove and wondered exactly what I was hoping to find.

I stopped first at a Gem Show at a local school. The gymnasium was filled with gems and jewelry and other such treasures. I bought some small pieces of amethyst and some polished green moss agate. I tucked these in my pocket, craving the clarity of mind, psychic strength, and protection that they offered for the day’s adventures. I left the gym, returned to my vehicle, and drove. My car pulled into a small, rural cemetary, built on a hill. I parked and walked. Autumn breezes blew my hair, and it seemed as if I could hear whispers in the old trees longing to tell tales of those buried by their roots. I looked for familiar names, but probably wouldn’t have recognized any then, even if I could recall them now. It was good to be there, as odd as it seemed. I moved toward a pile of brush that I soon realized were very old tomb stones heaped with leaves that had blown over them. I decided to clean and care for the stones. I carried away the leaves, then brushed the dirt and dust from the marble surfaces. They were worn and the names and years were difficult to read, but what I could read suggested they were the grave markers of a young mother and three young children. I sat beneath a tree, by their resting place. I surrounded them with light and love. I faintly smelled lavendar and remembered the amethyst in my pocket. I placed a piece on the stone of the young woman. Calm in my spirit, I went back to my car.

My travels took me next to a consignment store where I rummaged through the sweaters and found one I liked that was charcoal gray. It was getting chilly, so I made my purchase and wore it out of the store. I wondered, at that moment, if it belonged to someone in my family tree. The thought gave me comfort. I kept this thought close in a local diner as I wondered if my adventure was complete. Something told me it was not.

I drove next toward a state park, and found a quiet place to sketch. I allowed my lines to flow, the day sinking in to the paper as it took hold in my soul. The sun was sinking when I realized I was six hours from home. As strong as the magnetism was that drew me, I felt released. I walked back to my Jeep, hopped in, and finally headed West.

I drove into dusk, sunset, darkness. The night was clear and my spirit felt satiated by a day that I did not fully understand. Only later would some of it begin to take shape, for context to emerge as life continued to open new mysteries. On that day I was simply drawn, magnetically, to a place of unknown meaning in my life.

As I drove the home stretch of the Thruway between Batavia and Buffalo, I was accompanied by Hale-Bopp until I reached my destination. It was awe inspiring. It is hard to imagine a more powerful end to a day rich in both meaning and mystery than being companioned by a comet.

These images, like a dream, remain with me. They were a doorway through which I would…and do…move many times, each magnetic circle drawing me closer to understanding and knowing more deeply why I was drawn to that place, at that time. I am still circling, still learning.

Still finding small points of light.

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Gifts of the Magi

Posted on January 6, 2014 by harasprice

I have been fortunate to have encountered magi several times on this path I am traveling in my life. The magi in my life are not always archetypal robed Kings riding camels across majestic sand dunes. Nevertheless, encountering magi is always an unexpected, eye-opening experience…an epiphany. Magi bring wisdom that is has not been apparent to us in the way we typically move through the world. Magi are following a quest, a higher call to which they are responding in ways that to us seem like blind faith or crazy science. Magi come bearing gifts that are precious and symbolic. We may easily dismiss these gifts as somehow not intended for us. But, when we encounter the magi, we are transformed, and we may come to see ourselves in new and divinely inspired ways. So, on this day of Epiphany, I decided to reflect on these gifts from the magi who have crossed my path, leaving traces of wisdom and precious gifts to guide me on my journey.

In the Epiphany narrative, gold is the first gift bequeathed by the Magi visiting the young Jesus. Gold embodies a precious, gleaming, royal beauty that does not rust or tarnish the way many of our everyday, practical metals do. Gold becomes more beautiful and more valued with time, and is treasured and passed along from generation to generation. Knowledge is gold to me. The magi in my life have gifted me with the precious gifts of knowledge. My teachers across my life span have bestowed knowledge of how to write, how to construct meaning, understand human behavior, conduct research, empower change, think critically and practice reflexively. I can recall the moments when a teacher saw in me a glimmer of something yet to emerge, the spark of knowledge that could be ignited, and treasured. These gifts of knowledge make life rich, rewarding, and precious. I treasure these gifts, more precious on every step of my journey as it unfolds.

Frankincense swirls around me, wafts of mystery surrounding me. I close my eyes and breathe in, slowly and deliberately. I take mystery deeply into my soul when I encounter these magi. The healers and guides who have entered my life, who have given me the gifts of presence, who have welcomed questioning, who have invited me to be still, and know. There are magi in my life who are from many lands and many faiths, all of whom teach me to enter into mystery and welcome the encounter for exactly what it offers. The movement of spirit, the power of mystery, the music of the spheres, the depth of poetry, the imagination of art, the sacred space of divine presence: these are the lingering gifts that remain from my encounters with the magi. I revisit the songs, stories, poems, and prayers, tangible reminders of these encounters of spirit. These perfumes linger, reminders of the gift of frankincense.

“Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying sealed In the stone cold tomb.” I sang this lyrical refrain of We Three Kings as a child, and that verse was always my favorite. I wasn’t depressed, nor was I (or am I) sad or melancholy by nature. I found these words beautiful, resonant, and hopeful. “Sorrowing” and “Soaring” are merely an inflection away from each other. I could hear that similarity in the words, and feel their linkages in my soul. The magi who bequeathed myrrh in the Epiphany narrative must have visited me early in life and whispered in my ear, “do not be afraid.” These magi have crossed my path and guided my vocational choices. I have felt the nearness of the magi during the quiet expanses of time when I am present with the dying. There are earthly magi who have helped me learn, who have encouraged me to be boldly and calmly present with death. There are magi who visit me when I sit with the grieving, or as I surround the dying with my thoughts and prayers. I cannot explain why it is that I am called to this end-of-life work, or drawn to be present with those who grieve. Even now, a time in my life where I research and write and teach, I see magi on the horizon. The magi are waiting, knowing we have a journey to make together. Right now, I am building knowledge like precious gold; my spirit soars like the wafting frankincense as I contemplate where I have travelled already and where my journey will lead me next. But, what I have always known is that myrrh is mine especially, my gift of the magi.

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