Sonflower

Ever Ever

2009-08-17T12:05:00.006-05:00

by Renee Zitzloff

There is no fence-
to pluck a rose is unthought.
Tousled, raucous daisies
are not mowed,
but slumber or wander
with gusto or grace
unhemmed

night is a balm unfurled

* * *
july 09

In The Downpour

2009-06-24T12:41:00.003-05:00

by Megan Brown

"Life is not about wanting the storm to be over, but about learning to dance in the rain."

"I love what this quote says. To me it means knowing when you are down but not giving up. It's about learning to find the silver lining when it all looks black. Like when my 24 year old cousin died by suicide and left our whole family in pieces. We pulled together and learned to celebrate Joshua's life. We shared stories, memories and experiences. As a family we danced in the downpour."

The Basil

2009-05-30T07:28:00.004-05:00

Author unknown

Every evening I water the basil,

patient leaves billow

like curves of the heart,

grateful. I sit near them a while

breathing that one fragrance

like another country.

They remind me

I cannot help but pray

when even one city street

is overwhelming,

the thick elbows

of sorrow endless. Grass folds

back into sleep, the calm yard, large

bodies of trees cradle

the last spill of light.

I wear this sadness like a jacket,

but this song

is for the garden, for everything

that can be named by my nose

as the cool kneels down over us.

The basil, nourished by damp soil, is ready

to begin again. In the summer

of troubles, I touch

the wide generous leaves

that soft perfume, a heart

I am still grateful for.

* * *

2009-05-25T09:54:00.005-05:00

"Not to pray is a kind of dying itself."

Jim Forest,

Old Man Forest

2009-05-16T15:14:00.003-05:00

by Jeremiah Zitzloff
Throughout my childhood, the forests of Minnesota have intrigued my boyish curiosity. Heavily influenced by my father’s hunting and fishing trips, I quickly became acquainted with the expanse of woods and swamp behind my family’s old farm house located in suburbia. Yearning for a place of excitement and wonderment, I began to explore this Maple and Basswood sanctuary, fabricating my own world of adventure beneath a canopy of luscious green hues.

During the late spring and summer months, the forest began to come alive. The fragrance of earth, the damp soil and twisting vines created a world that only a young imagination could fathom. Even after a long and harsh winter, the forest floor completely transformed itself as the earth began wiping winter away with a brilliant rainbow paint brush. Tiny wildflowers of purple, yellow and white, vibrant green plants and berried shrubs—all began glistening in the filtering sun that added its own yellows and oranges, delicately flickering through the canopy like gentle baby’s breath—life. Throughout my excursions into the forest, I discovered places of unparalleled beauty: an old cement well, matted with dark mud and spongy moss; a crystal clear stream and small pond flowing and shimmering between thick cattails swaying to and fro beneath a deep blue sky, and the ever present singing of song birds—paradise.

After the warmth summer bestowed, fall began to creep into the veins of the forest, permeating into its warm blood and offering up its season with crinkled hands of orange and brown. The trees began to change; the once vibrant emerald leaves turned to fantastic shades of carrot, beet and ginger, rustling from their perches high up in the crisp air. One by one, they would slowly fall to the Earth, covering the ground like a blanket that the withered plants lay their heads under to rest. Golden-brown white-tailed deer moving silently on their beaten paths left me in awe; fat wild turkeys and their beautiful plumage was something I had never seen before. The forest and I became friends to an extent I never thought possible—my refuge; an untouched and natural haven where anything was possible, a place that would always welcome me like an old friend.

As I began to grow, my companionship with the forest began to fade, but not my love for it. Busy with high school and relationships, I neglected to wander into its bosom, but rather looked down the hill to its open arms. I thought the forest would always make me feel the same sense of happiness; couldn’t I always enter and know that joy existed there? I believed the answer was yes, until the day my brother passed away under that same green canopy I had cherished for years.

Today, the forest looks unforgiving and wretched, even in the summer when its heart is beating—pulsing with life. The warm colors and fragrance no longer tempt my bare feet to tread once again on its soft soil, and I wonder to myself, “Will I ever be able to renew the spirit I once had for this place?” Sorrow has pierced my heart when I look down to its ever-open arms, but I ask myself again, “How can such god-given beauty encompass so much pain?” After pondering these questions, the answer became real; as real as those vibrant green hues, as warm as the bright sun, washing over me like that shimmering stream. I realized that the old forest had been teaching me its secrets on those long summer days I spent exploring its anatomy; it became my metaphor of life.

This is what the forest taught me: life may become like the winter, pulling me down with its icy, black claws, but I must remain tenacious; I must hold on to life until I can re-grow like the forest. I must hold fast and believe that one day, I too will rise from the cold—bringing with me the pulsating colors and warmth that sustains my very being.

Responsible for one another

2009-05-09T09:09:00.000-05:00

". . .We are responsible, mutually, for one another; because when we look right and left at the people who stand by us, what do we know about them? Do we know how broken they are? How much pain there is in their hearts? How much agony there has been in their lives? How many broken hopes, how much fear and rejection and contempt that has made them contemptuous of themselves and unable even to respect themselves - not to speak of having the courage of making a move towards wholeness . . ."

Fr. Anthony Bloom

Child abuse leaves Chemical marks

2009-04-29T13:22:00.001-05:00

By Margaret Munro, Canwest News ServiceFebruary 23, 2009

Child abuse can indelibly mark and alter genes in its young victims leaving them less able to cope with stress later in life, according to new Canadian research.A Montreal team has discovered large numbers of "chemical marks," which inhibit a key mechanism for dealing with stress, in the brains of young men who were physically or sexually abused as children and later committed suicide."It's almost as if there is an imprint left," says Michael Meaney at McGill University, who heads the team that has already toppled many long-held views of how early experience impacts behaviour and genes.Their new study, published Sunday in Nature Neuroscience, is seen as the most convincing evidence yet that childhood abuse permanently modifies genes."Here is a mechanism by which significant adverse experience becomes inscribed in our brains," says neuroscientist Dr. Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard University, who reviewed the paper for Nature.Not only has the Montreal group shown abuse can cause specific changes in the brain, but also a change in expression of an important gene, Hyman said in an interview.Abuse is believed to be prevalent with as many as 10 to 15 per cent of children physically or sexually abused, says Meaney. "It's tragic," he says.The new findings point to how insidious the impact can be. They also provide clues for better understanding the neurological impacts and devising treatments to reverse the damage, says Meaney.Meaney and his colleagues have long been intrigued with resiliency, and how genes and environmental factors interact. They specialize in "epigenetics" which explores how the genes we inherit from our parents are altered and turned on and off by exposures and experiences through life."Obviously genes aren't everything," says Meaney, noting how identical twins often have very different lives. If one twin develops schizophrenia, he says the chance of the other twin developing the disorder is only 45 per cent even though they have identical genes.He says the new study tries to tease out how one of life's most profound experiences -- the quality of parental care and family life -- can "literally affect the genome and its operation."It grew out of the McGill group's research which showed parental care in rats impacts not only behaviour but also the genes of offspring. Baby rats that were licked more -- the rodent equivalent of hugs and good care -- grew up to be more assertive and confident than unlicked pups. The researchers showed neglect altered an important stress regulation gene in the rat brain, a change that lasted into adulthood.They have now found a similar genetic change in men who were abused. The men had suffered "major instances" of physical and sexual abuse as youngsters and committed suicide in their 30s, says Meaney.They looked for differences in chemical marks on a gene involved in stress response. Such marks are laid down early in life and are thought to be a sensitive to one's environment. They punctuate DNA and program it to express genes at the appropriate time and place.The researchers found that the men who had been abused as children had substantially more chemical marks, or flags, along the glucocorticoid receptor gene involved in the brain's stress response. The marks, which are "methyl groups" containing carbon and hydrogen, were three to four times more common on the genes of the abused men. "It's quite significant," says Meaney.They have also shown excess marks impact the functioning of the gene, reducing the amount of protein produced in the brain's stress response pathway. This would have hampered the men's ability to cope with stress, and could have contributed to their suicides, says Meaney. Extra genetic marks were not however found in the 12 men who committed suicide but were not abused. Meaney noted that abuse is just one of many factors linked to suicide. http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread9644.html--

Invocation

2009-04-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

Sensuous during life,
do not deny me in death!

Wash me with scent of apple blossom.
Anoint me with essence of lilac.
Fill my viens with honeysuckle nectar.
Sprinkle me with perfume of purple violets.
Envelop me in shroud saturated with fragrance of freshly
mown meadow hay.
Rest me in velvet earth.
Cover me with soil exuding flavor of maple and oak leaves.

Command a white birch to stand guard!

by Lois Wickenhauser
From "Earth Prayers" edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon

Spit off the Eiffel Tower

2009-04-29T08:47:00.000-05:00

The following poem by Shel Silverstein was one of Joshua's favorites. He memorized it at a young age, (along with other poems) and quoted it frequently with gusto!

When you spit from the twenty-sixth floor
And it floats on the breeze to the ground
Does it fall upon hats
Or on white persian cats
Or on heads, with a pitty-pat sound?

Oh, I used to think life was a bore
But I don’t feel that way any more
As I count up the hits,
As I smile as I sit,
As I spit from the twenty-sixth floor.

~ Shel Silverstein
Where the Sidewalk Ends

Child's Play

2009-04-23T08:16:00.000-05:00

I see a little child whose eager hands
Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street
For possible things hid in its current slow.
Near by, behind him, a great palace stands,
Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet.
Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go-
There the child's father lives, but the child does not know.

On, eager, hungry, busy-seeking child,
Rise up, turn round, run in, run up the stair.
Far in a chamber from rude noise exiled,
Thy father sits, pondering how thou does fare.
The mighty man will clasp thee to his breast:
Will kiss thee, stroke the tangles of thy hair,
And lap thee warm in fold on fold of lovely rest.

George MacDonald

Penacide- The Name of the Beast

2009-04-22T10:14:00.001-05:00

According to Tony Salvatore, "Suicide" comes from two Latin roots, "sui" (of oneself) and "cidium" (a killing or slaying). This gives us the definition of suicide as the "deliberate or intentional killing of oneself." "Suicide" is inadequate. It omits the role of pain. There is a "killing of oneself," but it is a means to relieve what is seen as interminable pain. . . . Here's a better word for the process: *PENACIDE"Pena" is from the Latin "poena" (punishment or torment), the root of the word "pain." "Cide" is from "cedere" (to strike down). Penacide is "the killing of pain." It incorporates the reason, wanting to terminate one's pain. It eliminates the notion that "wanting to die" has anything to do with killing oneself. Penacide is not a kind of suicide. It's what causes the deaths recorded as suicides. It is the true name of the beast." (http://members.tripod.com/~LifeGard/)

Living Through Death

2009-04-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

A couple of months after our oldest son Joshua died, I published a website in which was included some of the reasons why we believe that Joshua’s earthly life ended abruptly at age 24. Shortly after the website was published I received an e-mail from a young woman I know named Bethany who was stationed in Iraq as a medic at that time: Here is an excerpt from her letter:

“. . . When Joshua left this world, I thought that it was cold and harsh. I hated Iraq even more than I did when I first got there, because it just seemed to me that the world was messed up and that everything was going wrong. And then, a little miracle happened. God called Joshua home and sent out his new little helper. Yes ma'am, I am going to have a baby. I want this baby to have the same love for others that Joshua had. I love the website that you have created for him because it just helps me to remember that the world is still beautiful. And God gave me a special reminder with this baby I have growing inside of me.”

Bethany’s baby, Maximus was born in May of 2008 and on August 17 he was baptized, four days before the one year anniversary of the death of Joshua.

At Maximus’ baptism it shone anew to me that loving Mother Church particularly puts her capable arms of protection around the most vulnerable. During the service the priest also reminded us that baptism is a death; a death to the ego and the self-involvement that is present even in a baby, and which moves every human being towards spiritual and thus physical death. Among other things, the ancient habit of baptism is one tool given us to combat this self-destructive tendency. Within a community being taught faithfulness and committment, baptism is like a seed planted, and, when tended, it is able to impart potency,vitality and strength to the recipient in a world where hatred and lies wound, humiliate, and drain us of the ability to love. Baptism, a death that is lived through, is a reminder of our final death, which our soul will also live through.

Our beloved son Joshua, brother to five, grandson, cousin, nephew, and friend to many has lived through death, as surely as the child Maximus lived through being dunked under water three times. When I am in my right mind I see that it takes no more faith to believe that Joshua still lives (albeit unseen by my physical eyes) than to accept that each year the icy Minnesota winter will end with spring and summer streaming sacred rain and days of sun-drenched plentitude. Listen and hear; where there has been death, there has been life. And where there has been life there will be rebirth. I find immediate confirmation of this by looking through my window. Outside the seemingly barren trees, having lived through the severe baptism of our northern climate, are gaunt and near naked. However, looking closely I can see that they are beginning to be festooned with miniature pea-green buds now inhaling, now gently exhaling the cool airy light. Can the blossom be far ?

Renée Zitzloff
Bright Monday, 2009.

Compassion and truth in labeling

2009-04-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

"Because he listened and obliged the garden gate of his heart to remain open, Metropolitan Anthony had a wider view of suicide than many who jumped to moral closure. Not in every instance, but in different ways what he would say amounted to this: God understands where the person who is tempted by suicide is. God understands that for some, their situation has become so desperate that there are few other options remaining. Their inner torment is so great that suicide seems to them the only door out of the horror chamber their life has become. It is the last open door in a room full of inner torture, of madness. This is not a declaration of opposition to the classic position of Christians on the sacredness of human life. . . .Despair of losing a friend through suicide can break a person completely. They need to know that their friend was not alone. Indeed! While the 34th psalm says, "…taste and see that the Lord is good…", the 22nd psalm quoted by Christ on the cross identified himself with our separation from God, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"When Christ voluntarily cried out with a loud voice and "breathed his last", it was a voluntary death. The involuntary death of many who commit suicide, may be treated as a murder, but Metropolitan Anthony believed that more light was shed on that predicament by associating the suffering that brings people to such an extremity with the compassion with which Jesus approached the human condition on Golgotha."

From a a lecture by Fr Stephen Headley, delivered at a conference in Moscow on Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh. For more about Fr Anthony, go to this link: http://incommunion.org/forest-flier/jimsessays/metropolitan-anthony/

Mothersong

2009-04-17T12:52:00.001-05:00

By Renée Zitzloff
(For Joshua and every child)
Your birth touched me in a way I had not imagined possible. Small and frightened you entered the world. I was overcome by your vulnerability; and relieved that the ordeal that had brought you to my arms was over. Since that day, I have reviewed those scenes over and over in my mind, as though returning again and again to a favorite film. For I have found that with all the diversity that life has to offer; all the pain, all the joy, I cannot match those first moments with you. I cannot duplicate the tenderness, the awe, the fragileness of the moment that you lay on my tummy, and the cord that joined us together was severed. You looked at me, so utterly helpless and unknowing of what was coming to pass. You didn't cry, though you whimpered slightly, and I asked what was wrong; why didn't you cry? I thought you had to cry to be alive. They said you had to catch your breath. And so did I; at the beauty, the sheer beauty of your existence. Now, many months after your birth, you have changed our lives remarkably. Every day I watch and marvel at your innocent simplicity. You march around the house so intent on small tasks that mean nothing to the world, but are so important to you; and so important to me as I watch you grow. You are delighted with the "insignificant" things in life, and wrap your arms so easily around anyone who smiles at you. We spend hours upon hours together; playing silly games like "whoopty-do" and "fall boom boom." We tickle each other and giggle. We take long walks around the neighborhood with you in your stroller leading the way. Sometimes we discover a pretty rock or a flower, and it always ends up in your mouth. When you wake up from your nap, I slip in and watch you playing with your toes for awhile. After a moment you feel my presence, and look up with that joyful smile that says, "I knew you would be here." Quickly you roll over and pull yourself up, reach out your arms, and wordlessly ask me to pick you up. I do, and you rest your head on my shoulder, just for a moment. The world will never again be the same.
+++

“You are never too old to kiss your mom.” Joshua age 12