Summer Catechism, an early religious experience

Marti Matthews on April 26, 2016


     Perhaps I was eight years old, perhaps it was June.  Not too hot yet, but summer vacation.  Our small town Catholic church, St. Bartholomew’s, had the honor of nuns coming out from the city to teach us catechism for a week.  We brought our breakfasts – this is what I remember with joy!  There was a grove of trees with picnic tables throughout, sun shining through.  The grass was still a bit dewy.  My mother sent my younger sister and I with little boxes of cereal and milk.  The boxes, rice krispies or cornflakes, would open along dotted lines forming a bowl with waxed paper lining; we’d open the milk cartons, pour the milk in, and have our breakfast.  All the tables were filled with children together eating this special outdoor breakfast.  Everything seemed shiny and lovely.
     After breakfast we went to class outdoors, which also seemed special.  We sat on folding chairs on the grass in the open sunshine.  I’d barely ever seen a nun before.  They seemed alright, not mean or scary, but not as personal as our classroom teachers at school.  They were intent on teaching us ideas they felt were very important, and those as much and clearly as possible in this short time.  We memorized the catechism and were given holy cards with pictures of saints as rewards. The catechism explained all about life and how we should live.  They told us how Jesus had suffered because Adam and Eve had eaten an apple when they were told not to and so we were all born in sin and couldn’t go to heaven when we die.  Jesus had made things OK for us with God again by his terrible death.
     After class we went into the church to do the Stations of the Cross alone and go to confession.  Doing the Stations was very painful for me physically.  I didn’t know if it was the same for everyone else.  I did it because I was told to.  I’d go to the first picture on the wall:  “Jesus is tried by Pilate”, and read the story, then kneel down as the book said to and read the prayer of love for Jesus. I’d stand up and move to the next picture, “Jesus is whipped”, look at the picture, read the story, kneel down and say the prayer of thanks to Jesus.  There were fourteen pictures, each more gory and sad than the one before. 
     After doing this spiritual exercise I’d try to go to Confession.  I was raised to be a “good girl” so I didn’t do much of anything others’ thought wrong, so going to Confession was hard.  I usually had to repeat the same sins over each time:  “I forgot to say my night prayers.  I was mad at my sister.”  Maybe I’d add a general “I disobeyed my parents”  but actually I never did this.  Confession was also lots of kneeling and physically hard for me, but I never told anyone about how my body hurt. I supposed everyone experienced their bodies the way I did.  Besides, I’d learned that it pleases God for us to suffer silently.  The example of Jesus’ suffering and dying to please God made this clear.
Many years later when I was sixteen it was finally discovered that I have a severe curvature in my lower back; my spine was almost falling off my pelvis!  Many, many times I had to do things that felt too much and were painful and exhausting, but I had meditated many times on the story of Jesus’ sufferings so I never complained about my own suffering.
     At summer catechism, after confessing our sins we were done for the morning and my mom would pick us up for lunch.  I did like learning about life and religion and the promise that God loves and cares for us.  It was fascinating to be close to these unusual women all covered in black with only their faces showing.  I dreaded doing the Stations of the Cross though the story touched me deeply. Confession made me feel guilty because I mostly had to lie to do it, not seeing anything clearly sinful in the way I lived.  Eating breakfast outdoors in the sunshine and dewy grass with other children still brings me joy to remember.
    All of these experiences were the ground upon which much thinking happened as the years went forward.  I endured suffering I should not have.  Finally it became too much and I spoke my true experience of my body and was able to get relief through surgery.  It took much more suffering yet to learn that The Source of my Life really is trying to lead me towards happiness and out of lifestyles and beliefs that value suffering for its own sake.  It would take much, much more experience and reflection to figure this out….

The Day I Fell Off My Bike

Marti Matthews on April 22, 2016

Walking was difficult now
so how could I enjoy the spring?
Was I forever banished from strolling through the woods?
From greeting the buttercups, the trilliums,
Spring Beauties, the May Apples?
“No way, Jose!”
For $30
I bought a bike from the sixth grade boy
next door.  His dad
adjusted the seat on this
old no-gear stop-with-your-pedal bike.
Not able to get my leg up and over I
sat it on the ground, stepped over and
pulled the bike up between my legs
undaunted.
And then:
Get those pedals right,
here at the top of the slanted drive,
hop up on that seat and I’m off!
Sailing down the drive into
the quiet street, no cars,
I’m pedaling happily and free!
I’m 71 and I can still ride a bike!
Around the corner onto the next quiet street,
wind and sun on my skin, in my hair, on my face,
I wave at the neighbors and they
Smile back and wave me on.
But down the way
I’m surprised to see where this
street is going – into
A car-busy street, I
see it coming up – Must either
stop or make a U.
A wide driveway offers
space for a turn and
I go for it,
for the U turn,
but  don’t   quite   make it.
Whoops,  Whoops I’m on the pavement
 really  hard.  My arms reach out to
   protect, to stop, bike on top of me, pain in shin,  blood?
      can’t tell, try to gather
         nerves and muscles back together quickly,
car coming down the way, pain actually
  pretty bad.  “Are you Okay, Ma’m,”  the young man asks
  passing very slowly in his car?
“I’m fine; thanks.” I lie and smile, and he
moves on and so do I,
walking my bike till
I’m stable enough to get on again.
I get on again,
Pedal with effort towards home,
afraid to look at my throbbing shin
but once again on wheels
and I’m still 71 and still
riding a bike!

Spring Poems

Marti Matthews on April 21, 2016


Imagine a magical universe in which we never die!  We live forever and whenever we want, we take different forms of our own choosing, in order to learn and grow in whatever ways we want to. 
In such a magical Universe,
Oh, I want to be a buttercup! A buttercup!  A buttercup!
O warm richness!
O passionate color!
O enthusiasm for Life!
I’ll plant myself by a watery place
  and laugh for joy.
I’ll glory in the singing birds,
the humming bees,
  the busy pesky flies,
   the tickling breeze.
And the sun’s salvation,
“Relish in the warmth of sun!”
my shining saffron face will sing.
“And don’t forget enthusiasm, passion.
Dance, swim, listen, sing, love,
    feel and sense.
      Celebrate like me,”  I’ll laugh,
I, the cheerful buttercup!
                               ***
 I’d be honored to be a jack-in-the-pulpit.
Oracle of the woods.
With my tri-leaf behind,
erect, serene,
I’ll receive searching visitors.
From my rich roots
through my straight stem
into my waiting cup
will flow wisdom from our Mother Earth.
Whoever has the patience to sit before me
and ask a question
listening
to them I’ll speak the truth.
Truth is solid ground,
 fecund.
Standing straight and quiet I’ll speak.
Who sits straight and quiet and opens their own cup
will receive my thoughts.
We’ll nod to each other respectfully,
they’ll pass on,
and I will wait
to be again an oracle for Wisdom.
     ***
Spring Beauty,
most delicate of all spring flowers,
early to appear,
how lovely to be her!
Small and sweet and dear,
my white five-petalled face with pink mint stripes
  will smile up like a shy girl-child
     at the awesome world around.
Simple, friendly,
I will open to the sun.
My thin stem will dance with the smallest breeze.
Never alone, I’ll live in a world of gentle friends
   like me,
all of us playing
in the sweet spring sun and wind and rain.
O beauty protected,
O tenderness extreme,
I will speak to all the world
of the great sensitivity
of The Source of All Life. 
                                ***
I would love to be a white Anemone,
Daughter of the Wind.
Thin and graceful, dancing open,
    never shy.
Taller than my little sisters,
leaves much greener, fuller,
    bigger face,
my sunny yellow center begging to be pollinated:
“I am ready,
I am beautiful!
O come to me now, Life,”
I’ll say with guileless joy.
Free maiden of the forest,
I want to be seen,
not hidden.
I know my beauty,
O tell me how beautiful I am!
Notice me,
   my white loveliness up from the rich green floor.
Notice my readiness,
   my aliveness.
 Love me now in the springtime of my life.
                                           ***

Dancing in the ruins of an ancient Hawaiian temple

Marti Matthews on January 27, 2016


   Because I have so many dead people in my life story, and have explored how to hold onto those relationships, people often ask me if I’ve ever experienced a “spirit.”  This morning I’m remembering one very clear experience.
    I was in Hawaii.  This was my second trip, this one alone, after I had won a trip to HI a year or so earlier. (Also a delightful story) I’ve dearly loved Hawaii, felt at home as if I’ve lived here before.  I was on the island of Kauai, the farthest out of the main islands and one less populated (so far) by Westerners.  I’d read that the ruins of an ancient temple were on a cliff somewhere near this beach.  I walked the long length of the beach to the end and found myself at the foot of a high wooded hill; a small path up began nearby.  I started the steep climb and eventually found myself at an open place, clearly the old temple ruins.  Three tiers of earth/sand each marked into a rectangle by stones, and all looking out over the shining blue ocean, with trees on either side giving privacy to the view.  Where I stood at the end of the path, a circle of stones was full of small tokens people had left.
   I walked quietly and slowly out into the sandy area of the former temple.  Then I felt a happy urge to dance here.  I’d been taking lessons in Hawaiian dancing; I wasn’t particularly good at it but I did love it and had kind of mastered one dance.  So I began to do it there, facing out towards the ocean, feeling the wind and sun on my body as I flowed in this hula story.
  At one point I faltered a little:  I always messed up in that place in the dance.  I went on and finished.  When I was done, I felt a presence.  It felt masculine, somewhat large and old, and it said to me, “DO IT AGAIN.”  So I did it once more, feeling now that I was being watched.  I faltered again at the same place.  When I finished, I felt the presence loving me somewhat as a child is loved, like ‘Okay, you tried,’  but the voice told me that “One should not make mistakes; one should dance perfectly in the temple.”
    I promised I would practice the dance and come back and do it perfectly. 
   As of today, I have not done this.  I’m not sure I could remember the dance now and even less sure I could walk the length of the beach and climb the hill!  Goddess willing, perhaps I could remember the dance and do it at home here.
   Yes, I have experienced a spirit.  And –  discovered that I was being watched by one!  I felt that he lived there still, as if time stood still for him, and that anyone who entered this historical area should honor and be aware of him. Dancing in a temple is a prayer and a communal experience; one should do it with proper reverence and – perfection!
   I’ll add another small Kauai experience.  As I flew off on a small plane back to the island of  Oahu, I held in my hand a short smooth stick I’d picked up to carry home as a souvenir.  As my plane rose and I looked out the window, I felt the anger of the island coming at me strongly for taking the stick!  So now not only do I owe a perfect dance to a Hawaiian ancient one but I have a small stick I must somehow keep separate from all my other earthy collections and return one day to its land.

Everything is Mulch

Marti Matthews on December 29, 2015


(Dec. 19, 2015)     Last night I went to a large, joyful Winter Solstice Celebration. 260 people sitting circular in the dark, with a shimmering winter centerpiece of lights in the middle. Tiny white Christmas lights inside fluff of gauze and silk made the illusion of light sparkling on snow. A large wooden wreathe surrounded this, holding candles to the four directions. Much pine around it all, of course.  Small plastic candles under many of our chairs were the only lights for most of the evening. We experienced meditative sharings with simple chants we could easily join in on, contemplating themes brought up by this darkest night of the year:  the turning of all things in circular movements (seasons, life), the value of darkness bringing us quietly inward, the fears we have about darkness, darkness as a time for sending our roots down deeper to where we’re all united together, on and on, lovely quiet reflections with some simple beautiful singing accompanied by cello and/or drum.
    The last third of the evening we began to call for the light to come back.  We celebrated light in many ways, got very enthused singing This Little Light of Mine, I’m gonna let it shine” over and over; we lit our little candles one by one and the room became light and happy. 
   Across the room I saw a tall young man standing against the wall, singing boisterously with us all:  he looked like my dear dead son.  About six feet tall, shaggy hair behind his ears, dressed in jeans and jacket, I could imagine Tom’s beautiful bass voice singing out enthusiastically with this joyful celebration.  I couldn’t take my eyes off him.  He had just that look both gentle and masculine, open heart, idealistic, ready to step forward in leadership if needed but glad to just participate.  My heart beat harder and harder as I stared at him.   I hoped he wasn’t sensing me watching him from far away.  Fortunately the gathering was winding down and then came to an end.  I hurried out of the building, not wanting to talk with anyone or stop to eat of the shared meal.  I hurried to my car, clambered in, shut the door and in the dark I fell apart and bawled.  I felt my heart broken all over again.  Tom returned to spirit six years ago and now I feel somewhat back to functioning without thinking of him.  But here the wound was opened again: I remembered my beautiful son and how much I miss him in my life.   Crying all the way home, I was aware that I needed to pay attention to my driving.
   As soon as I walked in my house, I looked for the book I’d seen recently lying around, Rudolf Steiner on How To Know Higher Worlds.  I couldn’t remember how this book had come to me but I’d read a book by Steiner a year before on some similar topic so I began franticly searching for the one I’d already read, something about how to have contact with the dead.
   Rudolf Steiner lived 1861-1925; he was a Theosophist for ten years when Madame Blavatsky was just beginning that spiritual movement, itself influenced by Spiritualism important at that time. Then Steiner began to develop his own slightly different philosophy of life with ideas reaching far across many aspects of human living, including children’s education (Waldorf schools), agriculture, community, the arts, medicine, philosophy, and psychology.  He was gifted in contacting the dead and insists that we don’t need mediums to do this; anyone can stay in touch with their departed loved ones but there is skill required that we must develop. He also adds that we usually have too much emotion clouding our efforts to hear objectively what someone in spirit is trying to share.  I certainly know this is true and so understand why mediums are needed.
    But now, full of desperate energy, I reorganized many of my books, searching until I found what I was ardently looking for:  Steiner’s book called Staying Connected, How to Continue Your Relationship with Those Who Have Died.  I skimmed through the Table of Contents and my own highlights and saw that these two books are not the same.  So I sat down, got myself comfortable, and began to review the important book I’d already read, full of underlines, earmarked pages, starred passages, question marks. 
    I easily came to the summary:  there are two basic qualities we must foster in ourselves in order to hear communications from those in spirit:  Gratitude and Community With All Things.  These sound simple but, of course, if these were easy many people would automatically be doing this. 
    Steiner’s explanation of Gratitude I grasped, but I wasn’t sure what he meant by “Community with all things.”  He assures us he’s not meaning some warm fuzzy general feeling; he says this is a very specific state and experience.  I reread this section line by line, trying to grasp it. One could not miss a line and hurry on because, yes, this was something unique.
    There is some way in which we must experience consciously what happens automatically in every moment – everything in our world that touches us in any way leaves a mark in us and likewise, every single thing we touch remembers the mark we’ve left upon it.  (I know, one can’t help thinking of dogs running around…)
   I guess this is similar to what is called “mindfulness” in meditation, paying complete attention to what we’re experiencing in the present moment, but combined with Gratitude. 
   Steiner disagrees with all schools of psychology about the function of the subconscious.  Generally it’s thought that the subconscious part of our minds takes in all that we can’t process, especially negative experiences, and brings them up to consciousness now and then,  trying to make sense of them.  Steiner sees the subconscious in this way:  it’s the place of memory where everything that’s touched us, “good” or “bad”, gets remembered, held on to, like a treasury.  Ourconscious mind definitely likes and doesn’t like this and that; we make judgements, we reject some things as bad and welcome other things as good.  The subconscious mind, says Steiner, takes in all experience as good!  All experience ultimately enriches us! 
  
     I pause. This is the trick; this is where gratitude is different for Steiner and Community with All Things is not easy but rather some skill to be worked at.
      But this is not the first time I’ve encountered this strange idea – that all experiences are ultimately enrichning, not good or bad.  I remember in Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist, the idea is presented that The Soul of the World is indifferent to suffering, is enriched by everything, is fed by all experience.  I remember feeling how unsatisfactory this feels:  that I/we want to think that Ultimate Powers care about our suffering and are trying to right the grievous wrongs done in this world.
   I sit with this strange and different point of view.  I think about events in my own life that still haunt me as painful, hurtful to me, memories I’ve never been able to let go of, and including sufferings of my departed son in his childhood and adulthood that I so wish I could have taken out of his life.  “You mean, when X happened to me, it doesn’t really matter, it was just an experience?”  I think.  “It has no more importance than that?!” 
    Suddenly Experience X seemed so small!  I couldn’t believe how the power had been taken out of X! 
   I went a step further, as required by Steiner, and tried to feel “enriched” by X.   Hmmm. HMMM.  It could be possible.  If one just walked on, didn’t dwell on it as in “what a victim I was” or blame all the consequences I’ve thought came to me because of X.  It could be possible to just think of it as “an experience.”  It doesn’t need to have meaning, nor to have power. Now my body was reacting positively to this view!   
   I did this exercise on another regretful life experience and felt the same amazing lifting of energy, that everything was circulating in my body more freely. 
   Then I tried thinking of a suffering I knew my son had experienced as a child – to think of this as “just an experience”, even though it took him on a path.  Suddenly I felt him with me in spirit – I felt my son saying an enthusiastic “YES!”  This is how he’s experiencing that NOW.  Back in this world, it hurt and stayed with him into his future; perhaps as an adult it gave him sensitivity towards others but it continued to cause him pain.  But now in spirit, it matters not at all to him except as a memory of experience, of a whole life rich in learnings.  I knew I was connecting with him!  I was hearing him because my emotions were calm and not in the way.
    Steiner’s view is supported by what I’ve heard from people who’ve had Near Death Experiences – been proclaimed dead by doctors after an accident or failed surgery, then after a bit they had to return to their bodies.  They all speak, among other things, of having a “life review” though it doesn’t feel to them like judgement – they see consequences and  ”how things went,” but they don’t feel they or anyone has been bad. If they caused suffering, when they (reluctantly) return to their bodies they decide not to do these kinds of things anymore. 
   I continued going quickly through memories I’ve classified as “painful” and feeling them downgraded to the same size as all memories, lacking any hurt or power today.  My body was feeling suddenly lightened.  Then I saw myself sitting back at the Winter Solstice exactly where I’d been sitting earlier; a powerful wind was blowing through me, as if a turbine was sending wind right through my body from back to front.  The windows seemed open and all kinds of things were leaving me.
     Steiner’s idea about Community with All Life seems to me to require that emotion be allowed to flow out from “bad” experiences (crying is GREAT) until we can just be with the experience, OK in some way with it even if our conscious minds can’t agree.  We must welcome life in whatever costume it appears to us and be present in each moment with awareness that all is gift, all is enrichning us somehow.
     Buddhists say desire is the root of all suffering, wanting things to be different than they are.  I myself feel that the conscious mind is right in making its judgements because this is how we create our world here – by rejecting some things, deciding we want more of others.  Desire is creative.  But in the world beyond this, where we return when we leave our bodies, there is rest and this view of enrichment.  Perhaps “evaluation” is the only stance of the dead when looking at details of experience.  It would be hard to hear the dead if this is their view, unless we could first bring ourselves also to this position.  Thus this kind of Gratitude and Community with All Life are bridges for communication with our loved ones now in spirit.

Tom at Disney

Marti Matthews on September 17, 2015


[A travel journal entry from the college years of my son, Tom Dix, who returned to spirit 6 years ago today.  Today = Sept 17, 2015.  For those who knew him:  doesn’t this just sound like Tom?  Can’t you see him out there tromping in the rain, smiling and having fun? ]
Tom wrote:
   We went to DisneyWorld, and it was all very nice – fun, amusing, entertaining.  But the highlight for me was not Mickey Mouse or the Haunted House, it was when it suddenly began to pour and everyone in the park ran for cover.  I chose to get wet, and as a result had free run of the whole park!  I was soaked, but it was so great to choose to enjoy it, and I felt a little bad for all the people standing beneath the shelters, missing out on what was for me a greater thrill than Space Mountain or anything else.
     Also, however, I had a wish within that rain that I did not pursue – to find another enjoying it as much as I.  I encountered a few people out in the rain, and only spoke to one – she was the attendant at Dumbo.  I had a great time, but I wished for a partner.  I didn’t find anyone to ask to be my partner. An untaken risk I’ll never get to try again.  A definite regret.  But still, the highlight of all the vacationing here this week. 
(The underlines are Tom’s)
Here’s one more similar short entry:  10/8   Now I’m blazing a trail back campus and finding that the very thought of being here where few others come is comforting – it’s a feeling of nighttime peace during daylight hours.