Category Archives: Creating Space

I Can Do This

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I’ve always been an odd duck in my family, so when I informed my siblings that I wanted to bathe my mom’s body and prepare her for burial, they just shook their heads and said, “That’s fine, just don’t expect us to be in the room.”

We discovered mom was dying after she fell the day after her birthday in 2005. She went to the hospital with 2 black eyes from where her glass frames smashed into her face as she hit the floor. She had no major injuries from the fall, but her examination and tests for what may have caused her to fall, led to an unexpected discovery that she had colon cancer which had metastasized to the liver. After 2 weeks of intense pain and high fevers, mom died.

After everyone left her room, I got a basin and filled it with soapy water. The hospice nurse joined me as I began to bathe the body of the very woman who brought me life. I washed her face, her arms, her hands, her breasts, her belly, her genitals, her legs. The nurse gently lifted her up on her side and held her so that I could wash her backside. As I brought the wash cloth down her back, my younger sister, Kari, walked into the room. Standing next to the nurse she held on to mom’s upper body, until I was finished. Then she and the nurse gently laid mom down. I lifted her from the other side, handed the cloth to Kari and asked her to wash mom from that side. She handed the cloth to the nurse and said, “I’ll help you hold her.” As she reached the foot of the bed, she stopped in her tracks and said “I Can Do This!” She then turned around and took the cloth from the nurse. Tenderly, she washed the body of our mom.

After mom’s body was clean, I brought in a basin of warm water.  I infused it with the essential oil of rose.  And then we used this fragrant water to rinse and bless her body.

When we were finished, we were preparing to wash Mom’s hair when my sister, Jill, walked in. When she discovered what we were doing, she said, “I used to do Mom’s hair every week. I can do that.” So with the help of the nurse and Kari, Jill washed Mom’s hair. Then she and Kari blow dried and curled mom’s hair. They put on her favorite lipstick and we dressed her in a pair of silk pajamas that Mom had been saving for a special occasion.

When we were finished, the rest of our brothers and sisters walked into the room and stood around Mom’s bed. Tears flowed as we gazed on this woman, who looked like herself for the first time in 2 weeks. This healing image of Mom replaced the images of her suffering. It is our final memory of our beloved mother.

As I reflect on this experience, I am struck by Kari’s courage. When Spirit beckons, the easiest response is to step back to a safe place. Our insides quake and we think we cannot possibly do this thing we are called to do. We run to a safe place… food, alcohol, facebook, computer games, television, anything that insulates us from the voice of our spirit calling us into life. The easy thing would have been for Kari to hold onto Mom. She didn’t. She stopped. She moved into her courage. And with a courageous, “I Can Do This”, she followed the voice of her Spirit

Surrender: A Homily Given by Shannon Harder Ronald at St. Leo’s Catholic Church on Trinity Sunday, May 21-22, 2016

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My father died in February.

This community held us with much tenderness and compassion.

The two month journey for our family was marked with much grace.

On Thanksgiving, I held Papa in my arms as he cried and was anguished over “Johnny who took the bullet for him in the back of the plane, and Sam who took the bullet for him in the fox hole.”  He hadn’t shared about his former comrades much, but his distress came out of him as we shared thanksgiving for our lives.  It was an anguish of prior parts of his life that still needed reconciling.

A week later Papa ended up in the hospital.  Mom said to me, “This is sad.”  And I asked her why.  She said that Papa was wondering if he would get out of the hospital, and then answered himself, “its ok if I don’t.”  I asked Mom how she was with that, and she said she was ok, since Papa was ok with it.  Just like that something shifted for them.  There was a surrendering so profound that it stayed with our family the two months he journeyed to the other side.  It framed how he and we lived those days.  It was like he chose a high bar to walk this walk, Mom joined him right away, and the six of us kids did the same.  It was like he let himself fall into the loving arms of God.

I don’t want to make this sound easy and carefree.  It is never easy to surrender, to take peace in the unknowing that lies ahead in our lives.  We had the family dynamics to work through, hard medical decisions that would support Papa’s desires, our sadness and grief to express, and the final saying goodbye.  But Papa modeled for us how to do that with much grace and dignity and truth.  He called on the phone everyone he knew to say goodbye, to made amends where needed, give thanks all around, while continuously keeping his humor and wit. We prayed together as a family and gathered around his bed often for him to bless us and for us to bless him, and to thank him for being such a wonderful step-father.  We were in it together and leaned on each other.  We cried together and laughed together.

On this Trinity Sunday, it is similar.  God’s grace and love permeates and is omnipresent in our entire universe.  This is the glue that holds all together.  Jesus’ incarnation brings God’s presence into our world in a way that we can see, understand at some level and model.  The Holy Spirit, the breath of wisdom, blows through us.  It is a weaving of life force within us and throughout the entire universe.  We and all of creation are connected, woven together in a love that sustains us.

We can choose to be connected with God and with each other, or we can choose to be disconnected from God and from each other.  We have free will to make this connection or not.  And continuously throughout our days we go back and forth, of being connected and being disconnected.  Our egos, busy lives, insecurities, our unawareness gets in our way of not being connected and thus being lonely, and alone.  It takes much courage to lean into life, the pain, the unknowing, the heartache.  But it is only in leaning into what comes up in our lives, of embracing all of what shows up each day, of trusting that each moment is presented to us for learning, growing and becoming closer to God.   It takes faith to surrender to God’s promise, to surrender to what we don’t know what lies ahead.  What if God doesn’t catch me when I take this step?!  Am I going to let this fear paralyze me from entering into a life fully lived?

Surrender – it’s a big word to me.  It seems like it would take a quantum leap to truly surrender.  So how about if we break it down.  How about if we look at it backwards?  How about if we take it in smaller steps?  Can I look at it as having less resistance?  I can do small steps when a quantum leap feels like I am coming too close to the abyss, when it feels just too dangerous.  God works with us in little and big steps, each is movement that’s keeping us going, that is moving us closer to God.  It is in the movement that we have a chance of transformation, of possibility of new life, of growth and of joy.

So what comes out of surrender?  If it has a potential of being difficult and scary why would we even approach the subject?  In surrendering into the arms of God, being fully present with Jesus, of inviting the wisdom of the Holy Spirit into our lives there is a joy that bubbles up within.  It transforms and molds us into joy-filled people.  It is like nothing has changed, and everything has changed.

I am struck by the irony of this situation – God offers us to fall completely and fully into the love of God, to be surrounded by the peace and joy that comes with such an action.  How do we do that?  How do we take such a leap?  Well God models that action for us because God has completely surrendered to us; God has scooped us up and loves us unconditionally and without any attachment.  A love that is so deep that it penetrates our beings and all of the universe, and at the same time with such love that we are totally free to make our own decisions.  Now that is non-attachment.  That is true love.

One last point, back to Papa.  Surrender wasn’t close to the top of the Lieutenant Colonel’s vocabulary.  His job for 30 plus years of his life was to get his men out of three wars, alive.   The military had been his identity and his life.  For me, I had been in the Jesuit Volunteers and had walk 200 miles through Kansas with the Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage and Fr. Jack Morris and Brother Fred Mercy.  Papa and I came from two different perspectives on this, but we didn’t look at it as a right or wrong way.  Our love and respect for each other was able to span the divide, our care of each other transcended our differences.  A week before he died as I sat by his hospice bed at the house, he said – “Shanny, you have to tell people that war is not the way.  You have to tell people war is not the way.”  I was flabbergasted.  This had been his identity for the vast majority of his 92 years.  His total surrender to what lay ahead for him took my breath away.

He died in peace.  He died in joy.

I end with a poem by the French poet, Guillaumen Apollinaire

Come to the edge.

We can’t. We’re afraid.

Come to the edge.

We can’t. We will fall!

Come to the edge.

And they came.

And he pushed them.

And they flew.

Creating Space

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Above a doorway in our house is a sign that reads, “Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much.” This is the theme that we try to live by as a family. Some days we get closer to the mark than others. Either way, it is what we hope for and stretch towards.

Being intentional about our environment how we want to be in it, how our house is set up and how it looks to us is part of creating a space that will be conducive to building community. Are things in working order? Is the space arranged in a way that invites “hanging out” and conversations? Is there a place, or “home,” for everything in the house so the space can be clear? How is the ambiance smell, sights, sounds? Does the package make a warm, welcoming home where people can be themselves and the best is developed and nourished in each person?

–Shannon

Final Celebration

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Some have said that the funeral is for the living, not for the dead. I believe that the more the funeral or memorial service reflects the one who has died, the more healing and meaningful it is for those who are left to grieve..

A few years ago my husband, Niko, and I went on a date to plan our funerals. Though it may not sound like a very romantic date, we had a profoundly beautiful evening together. We went to a favorite, cozy tea house, armed with our favorite holy books and a hymnal from our church. After ordering tea and dessert, we each took some quiet time to think about the readings and music that had meaning for us. From those, we chose the ones we most love, or which most convey our feelings about our life, our death and our faith.

As I began to reflect on my funeral, I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life and for each person I imagined gathered for my final celebration. I wanted my funeral to reflect that deep gratitude. I therefore chose readings and music that spoke of the wonders of living on this earth and the precious gifts of friendship and family.

As Niko and I shared our selections, I was surprised by the results. None of the readings Niko had chosen were readings I would have chosen for him. One of the passages I had never before read. I gained new insight into my husband that evening.

In addition to readings and music, we shared with each other who we would like involved in our service, who we would like to do our eulogy, whether we wanted to be cremated or buried, where and how we wanted our ashes scattered, and to what organizations we wanted memorials to be donated.

We wrote down our choices for one another as a guide to planning our service. We left room for creativity and for the needs of those who will be grieving. And yet, there was enough recorded to truly reflect our spirit in the service.

As you reflect on your final celebration, who would you like to have involved? What readings and music have meaning for you? What symbols, flowers or rituals best depict your spirit?  Record those answers in a Lasting Gifts Manual, so that when the time comes, your loved ones will have a base in which to create your final celebration.

-Kim