What would I have liked to have been taught in school
You asked
And my immediate thought
So immediate that it does not feel like a thought at all
But like a feeling
Like a cloudburst
Like a big bang
Like a revelation
Bestowed by some Higher Power

I would have liked
I would have loved
I needed
To be taught a lot fewer truths
About God

I learned so much about their god
About that god I was taught to believe in
That it took long decades to unlearn
Enough
For me to find God
Shining
Solid
Beyond their truths
Behind their great cloud of doctrines

Bonhoeffer
(for whom I have the greatest respect)
Notwithstanding
Grace is never cheap
Nor ever expensive
But always free

What if we be but worms
Mortals doomed to die
Yet we are silk worms
Cocooned in eternity

We die
It is true
And then…
God uses our cocoons
To fashion yet more grace
Free and freely
Colorful and silky
In which to wrap Her creations

I am
Most decidedly
Not
A morning person

My preferred time
Of rising
Would be
The crack of noon

For long years
Of school
Motherhood
Career
I learned mornings

I admit to loving
The quiet stillness
Ringing with bird calls
The soft light
Requiring no sunglasses
The freshness
Revealing new times

Still
Schooling finished
Children grown
Retired
I now often
Forget mornings

I return to my native love
The cool dark 
Of deep night
The luxury of being awake
While all around me sleep
The wide freedom
Of aloneness
When even the birds
Are quiet

I don’t have a clue
How to transform violence
My original thought was
I don’t have a fucking clue
But that seemed too violent
For this poem reverie

I remember a few years ago
Lying in the dentist chair
Instruments, lights,
Masked technician
Looming over me
Violently looming over me

Does a dental technician
Ever feel non-violent
With whirring instruments
In someone’s mouth
Chipping away at
Hard earned plaque
Through the blood and spittle

I remember telling myself
Breathe in calm
Breathe out fear
Breathe in quiet
Breathe out anxiety
Breathe in peace
Breathe out terror

Then I stopped
And would have laughed
Except laughter is as impossible
As speech
Lying back in a dentist chair
Bright light overhead
Masked technician looming
And scraping away inside your mouth
I have GOT to brush more regularly
Because I know after the pain
Will come the lecture
No lollipop for me

But I digress
I stopped breathing out
Anxiety, fear and terror
Because this thought came to me
The world has enough
Anxiety, fear and terror
The least I can do is
Hold onto my own

I began, a few years ago
Choosing a word to guide my prayer life
My first word
Held on to, cherished for a year
Was gratitude

Last year my word
Softening my too often hard heart
Was compassion

This year my word
Filling my soul with the universal
Is glory

How long it has taken me
To recover the comfort, the rest
Of glorifying that which is owed glory

Gratitude opened my eyes
To all the many privileges
For which I am thankful now
Always

Compassion opened my heart
To all the privileges
That so many – most really
Lack

Now glory opens my soul
To the oneness beyond privileges
To the unprivileged, unrestrained,
Untainted, unapportioned
Unearned, unmerited
And all too often unappreciated
Glory surrounding us all
Glory within us all
Glory creating this wonder upon wonders
This universe that we inhabit
That I inhabit
Often too easily
Forgetting, too often, to see 
Glory

Like trees walking
I dream of People
No, that’s not quite right
I dream of persons
Individuals
Species pre-determined
Mainly by ancestral genes
But sometimes by a fortuitous graft
That brings new veriditas
To a strong root and stem
I imagine each tree person
After I pause for a bow
To Tolkien’s Ents and Entwives
Formed early by genes and grafts
But then shaped by wind and water
Earth and fire
By other individual trees
Perhaps blocking necessary sunlight
Perhaps shielding from damaging winds
Perhaps doing both
By other tree individuals
Crowding close
Or keeping distance
But communicating
Conversing
Sharing communion
Through roots and biomes
Through chemicals
Unseen
Circulating amongst them
Beneath the surface

I imagine them
After I pause again for a grateful nod
To Ram Dass
Each with their individual glory
That sometimes looks like no glory at all

I imagine myself
Walking through a woods, a forest, a grove
Admiring and sympathizing with each individual
While appreciating the wonder
Of the whole

I imagine myself
Appreciating humans as trees
And, thanks again to Ram Dass,
Withholding judgment
Conferring only appreciation
And gratitude
For communal and individual glory

Perhaps I have mentioned before
My usual Thursday mid-morning routine

I join my mother
(Who is mainly enjoying her 100th journey around the sun)
In saying the rosary
With others who live with her
(Though each isolated within their high walled histories)
In assisted living

I finger the golden beads of the rosary
Blessed by the Pope
(Pius the something or other I think)
In the year 1942
Which is the year inscribed 
On the back of the cross
That begins the golden beaded rosary
That also has my name inscribed
Just above the year
Adrienne
1942

But I was not born until 1947
I can imagine this confusing
The granddaughter
Who will one day inherit these golden beads
From her mother
Who will one day inherit them
From me

The secret
The family truth
Of that inscription
Is just this:
My mother’s father
A career military man
Who served in both world wars
Was in Italy in 1942
And bought the golden beaded rosary
Blessed by the Pope
In Rome
Then used them himself
Throughout his remaining years abroad
Organizing medical units
In Italy, France and Germany
During the war
And in refugee camps
After the war

He had the cross inscribed
With the year
And with my grandmother’s name
Adrienne
1942

My grandfather, Daddy George,
Gave them to my grandmother, Mamman
When he returned
In 1946
Just in time for my parent’s wedding

And so
Because I bear my grandmother’s name
The golden beads that run smoothly
Through my fingers on Thursday mornings
Bore my name
Five years before I was born

And so
Because I bear my grandmother’s name
These golden beads became mine upon her death

But they cannot go to the granddaughter 
Who bore almost our name, my grandmother’s and mine
Combined with almost my mother’s name
And honoring the inspiration for her mother’s name
Arwen
Because she died
That already beloved granddaughter
With her twin
Before birth

So Lorien and Madeleine
Will never finger these golden beads
Nor wonder at the inscription on the cross
Nor ask their mother when her mother was really born

So I finger these golden beads
For them
For my grandparents
For my family, known and unknown
Most Thursday mornings
With my mother Lorraine

I once knew
With heaven-blessed certainty
The way, the truth and the life
And I knew that I had it all
I walked on the one, true, holy, catholic, apostolic
Way
I learned the one, true, divinely ordained
Truth
Not of the Bible
But of the Church
I wanted the one, true, only saintly
Life 
Living, dying, rising again, immortal
In accordance with Catholic theology

Later, I knew
With rationally-sanctified certainty
That all I once knew
Was best unlearned
And I knew
In that then that was once my now
I was finally on the right way
To the only real truth
By which to guide my life

Now, I know
The wonder and the rest
The glory and the peace
The blessing and the grace
Of Unknowing

Now my way, my truth, my life
Rests upon Divine Unknowable Love

Earth will be healed
Perhaps
When we forget about Eden
That too ideal garden
When we eschew heaven
That too perfect eternity
When we know
And feel
And love
That here and now
With all its bumps and bruises
All its beauty and beastliness
Its dirt and dust
With all its imperfect perfection
Here and now
Is our divine birthright

Unfortunately
It really does seem easier
For a camel to galumph
Unconcerned
Through the eye of that needle
Than for us
Who are so rich right now
To heal this
Our heavenly home
Our homely heaven

Earth will be healed
Perhaps
When we know
And feel
And love
THIS here and now