Author: Susan Minarik

In Celebration of Moms

As I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you today, I remembered that it’s Mother’s Day here in the States. For me, it’s a day filled with happy and meaningful memories of a woman whose character I find myself appreciating more and more deeply with every passing year. I genuinely hope that you can say the same, and that, if your Mom is still living, you’ll tell her so.

The thought occurred to me that in today’s climate of speech policing, this day set aside for honoring mothers will probably soon become “Parents’ Day” or “Caregivers’ Day” or some such thing. But that’s a topic for another time.

Right now, it’s still “Mother’s Day,” and I asked myself what the essential quality is that all mothers share. I had to think about it for a while, because mothers, being human after all, span the whole spectrum from “bad” to “good.” But I think I finally put my finger on it–at least if we set the truly pathological ones aside.

The one thing all mothers do, the one quality that behooves us to be grateful for them, is that they nurture us. Even the most disadvantaged ones, the most disinterested, the most careless, did what was needed to keep us alive. Even if that meant, in some cases, giving us away. Here we are; they did what it took to make that happen.

For the ones who did the bare minimum, let’s use this day to offer them our forgiveness and compassion. They don’t know what they missed. And they did the best they could.

And for the ones who took the time and spent the energy not only to feed, clothe, and house us, but to nurture us with an abundance of love, let’s take the time to reflect that love back to them, whether they’re still with us or not.

Let’s think about what they nurtured in us—what they taught us to value and appreciate, how they instilled manners in us and showed us ways to successfully negotiate in the world, how they passed on traditions so we would feel linked to the past, how they said that the only thing they wanted was for us to be happy in our lives and how they did all they knew to do to make that possible. Let’s think about the pride they took in our achievements, and their unqualified forgiveness when we fell short of the mark, about the way they comforted our hurts and celebrated with us our moments of joy, about how they instilled in us the meaning of the word “home.”

Let’s think about the sacrifices they made for us, the events they attended they didn’t want to attend, the things they did without in order to serve our wishes and needs, the fulfillment of some of their own dreams so that some of ours had a chance to come true.

That’s an awful lot for one human being to be able to do for another. And the wonder of it is that most moms–and stepmoms, and foster and adoptive moms–consider it a privilege and wouldn’t trade their roles for anything in the world.

It kind of gives you hope for the world, doesn’t it?

Wishing you a day of happy and grateful reflection about the special nurturers who mothered you. And if you are a mom, thanks from all of us for all you so tirelessly do.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by RENE RAUSCHENBERGER from Pixabay

Song for the Hidden Ones

It doesn’t matter that you grow in a tangle of weeds
or that you’re hidden in some corner where few ever pass.
You’re still exactly where you were destined to be,
where you were meant to unfurl your colors,
where you were needed to sing your song.

The sunbeams will still find you, the stars
will light your nights. Soft rains will come
to refresh you and to quench your thirst.
And when you least expect them, friends
will appear who see your beauty and strength.

Through your petals and leaves and stems,
life extends its blessings to the world.
So blossom and dance, dear child of the Yes,
and hear the wind whisper that you’re known
and seen, that you’re cherished and dearly loved.

The Ferns

The rains left behind a sea of ferns,
their green waves rolling in the breeze,
sparkled by celandine poppies
who pretend they are bits of sunny foam
atop a creating wave. I, who am still
recovering from winter’s drab days,
take this as a reward for my endurance,
the waves sloshing over my soul
with their green, healing joy.

White Lilacs in the Rain

All of a sudden the lilacs
are trumpeting their arrival.
Here. In the cool May rain.
When the sun reappears
they will open white petals,
and oh, the sweetness
they will give to the air!
Meanwhile, don’t you adore
their long, smooth throats? And how
their leaves glisten in the rain?

At the Wetlands After Rain

You would think that after decades
the world would cease to amaze,
to stop making that voice inside you
whisper, “Look!” But it doesn’t.
Every single year, it brings on spring.
Spring, with her whirl of changing moods,
tossing lightning bolts and wildflowers
and everywhere fresh green.
Last night it was thunder and buckets
of rain. Today, the newly mown path
that circles the wetlands is dry.
But spread on the floor of the woods
to the east, a sudden lake mirrors the sky.
and there it is again, that voice,
whispering “Look!”

Epitaph for a Tulip

The tulip had given its best.
It pushed itself through near-frozen soil
and withstood cold nights that took some
of its companions. It formed its bud slowly,
holding it closed until it was sure the threat
of freezing was gone. And then it opened,
full of splendor, its petals painted in a rainbow
of pinks, and corals and orange
For days it stood, offering its song to the garden,
to the sky, to all who chanced to pass by.
And when it finally spent itself and bowed
to the ground, the sky wept in pearly droplets
that bathed its dying petals in a wash of love,
in honor of all it had given,
for all that it had been.

One Night at Sunset

Having completed their evening chorus,
the songbirds are still now, nestled
in their leafy shelters, dreaming
of flight. But from the upper woods
on the slope of the south hill, a turkey
calls, its sound linking in my mind
to the call of a loon that I heard
at sunset when I was ten
and spending a week at a camp
by a lake in a Michigan woods.
I remember the temperature
and fragrance of the evening air,
the sky’s colors, the cracking bonfire,
and how we all joined hands,
and facing the sun as it melted
into the lake, sang “Taps.”
As I gaze at the sunset’s lingering colors,
the turkey calls again, and I hear
a choir of children. “All is well,”
they sing. “Safely rest.
God is nigh, God is nigh.”

After the Rain

A curtain of rain had covered the hillside
for what seemed like endless days.
When, finally, it lifted, the world
was drenched in green and you
found yourself breathing emeralds
touched with honeysuckle perfume.

One Heart, Opening

I ran across a quote from the Buddha this week that touched me with its simplicity and wisdom:

“Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

We have but to look around us to see that humanity is in need of renewal—on so many levels. We need a renewal of our ideals, of our morality, of our sense of decency and of neighborliness. We need to renew our vision of what humanity can accomplish, of our reverence for life itself and of our personal responsibility to contribute to life with whatever gifts we have been given.

It seems a monumental task sometimes. So much is broken and crumbling; so much is in need of healing and repair.

And yet, in one simple sentence, the Buddha has given us the way. Be kind. Care about each other. Do what you can to add ease to someone’s day. That’s where all healing beings, after all—in one heart opening to another.

In the neighborhood grocery I frequent, a special young woman works as a clerk. She looks each customer in the eye and smiles a cheerful hello as if she were greeting an old friend that she hadn’t seen for a long time. And without fail, the customers smile back and each one, no matter how weary or old or burdened, leaves the store feeling renewed. It doesn’t take much. One heart, opening to another.

Who knows? Maybe her smile changed someone’s attitude, prevented an argument, eased someone’s loneliness. Maybe it got passed on. Maybe it spread to a hundred people before the day was through, and the world was made a lighter place, a hundred times over.

It sounds like a trifling thing, a friendly smile. But once I heard about a man who was on his way to jump off a bridge and end his life when the eye contact and a smile of a stranger shot a ray of hope into him and gave him the courage to let his life continue on.

We get lost in our electronic gadgets, ignoring the person beside us while we busily fiddle with our little hand-held screens. We forget to speak to one another face to face, and more importantly, to listen to one another with caring and compassion and interest. And yet we’re starved for human contact, for conversation, for an hour spent with an engaged companion who is as interested in us as in herself, for the touch of a hand, the sharing of ideas and laughter and play.

To live a life of service and compassion means to live with awareness of the needs of others, and to address those needs with whatever level of kindness you’re willing and able to provide at the time. Your actions don’t have to be grand or daring. Service doesn’t have to be a profession of anything except your empathy. Profess that, in whatever way you can. Let your heart be generous and your words be kind. Do that, and you will have done your part to make the world a brighter place.

Wishing you a week of gentleness and joy.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Birthday Present

Over the decades of birthdays past
life has grown complex. You think,
when you are young, that you will reach
a point of dreams come true, maybe
by the old age of forty or so,
and coast to the end from there,
fulfilled and at ease.
Then reality happens, revealing a world
that’s nothing you had supposed
or wanted it to be. Life, you discover,
can be tough, it’s lessons hard, its pathways
often rocky. But, oh, the treasures
it bestows along the way! The rays of truth
and wisdom, the touches from loving hands,
the songs of Silent Teachers singing
through the seasons, smiles of strangers
and children, the stream of companions
and friends, and always, the infinite
sky, painting the unfathomable Yes
to remind you, despite any evidence
to the contrary, that you never truly
left home and have always been
known and dearly loved. And so, arriving
at this birthday present, my 78th, I celebrate
sunlight spilling through green branches
onto pink azalea blossoms and give thanks
for another day of waking
on this wondrous and challenging globe.