Contentment Lives!

Not only do I share my place of living with three young boys and their father, I also have one black lab puppy, two cats, and two fish to boot.  Thankfully no birds!!! Those who know me well, know that due to some unfortunate family pet allergies and weird, creepy animals taking the place of the more typical fanfare, I have come to view most animals as unpredictable creatures.  I appreciate their place in our world—from a distance.  I don’t normally sit down too often during my days or my nights, trying to keep busy, but when I do, guaranteed the cats will find me for a full body rub down.  Sheba even goes as far as to move her head wherever you hand travels and literally head butts you into petting her.  H.G. curls up in your lap and stays for a marathon cuddle.

One night, Kreton laid all curled up with H.G. and both of them were purring with contentment.  If my personality could be encapsulated in an animal, it would have to be these cats, for contentment describes my general being of life at the moment.  Not to mention, I don’t turn down a cuddle very readily either!

Each day provides me with more reason to be thankful.  I truly feel like part of the Mulcahy family.  This weekend I stayed in Blacktown instead of venturing into the City but I was still in and out of the house.  As I flew out the door on Saturday afternoon, both Matt and Andy followed me to the door.  I looked at them quizzically.  They came in for a hug and a kiss goodbye.  It’s not all love though.  I often have to play the hard disciplinarian.  Sometimes, I chuckle to myself because I find some of my upbringing peeking through.  For instance, I insist on the boys having a healthy fruit snack before they can have a more unhealthy muesli bar or tiny teddies.  Mom should be proud!

I’m entirely thankful to the reappearance of dear friends in my life.  Most recently, Frances the Seventh from Austria and the fabulous Lisa of Germany have shared in the Aussie sunshine after all of us spending months apart.  Part of my need to come back to Australia was to once again be a part of an international community.  Sharing in cultures and perspectives widens the mind and narrows the world.  Being foreign implants tastes bittersweet, though, as each of us move in our own direction forward.  Dear Frances left for Thailand a few days ago before he finally lands back in his home country.  This might just cause for a trip to Austria!  Any excuse to travel (and that is a mighty good one)!

There is one near travesty in my suburban way of life.  The nearest Starbucks is a twenty to thirty minute drive!  Yet, Bucks still has its trashy coffee alluring power over us to make the trip.  An impromptu visit last night, spearheaded by my boyfriend and I, brought together a group of people that I’m honored to claim as friends. We drank frou frou beverages listening to Sam’s warp speed stories and chuckling at Andy’s interpretive dance moves.  Kreton tried to pass the imaginary “talking stick” because our conversations crissed cross about the circle.  I even let out the involuntary snort in reaction to the jolliness of our chatter.  Contentment. 

Don’t you’s (Aussie lingo) worry now.  I’m still seizing the day, even as I revel in current happiness.  Carpe Diem, in a way, is exactly how contentment lives.

My ending this time will be a paste from an old blog I wrote at the almost end of my last trip (September 2009).  It seems fitting to revisit it now:

“…Nothing turned out to be as expected, a mantra of our trip. It's almost humorous that just as I was gearing up to leave, visit New Zealand, and come home to figure out my next adventure abroad, I find something new. It is unexplainable and completely unexpected. It is beautiful how the actions of others perfectly combined to bring on a chance encounter, a new risk to be taken up. It would happen this way. The mantra still holds true, even in our last days. My life has been building toward a moment like this. I've been refined. It's kindred. It's instant. It's raw. It's grace. It's sacred. It gives hope. In the end it is about seizing the day, dancing joyfully in the moment, and perhaps taking the risk to not let go...”

I am so happy. 

I miss you all.  Thank you for keeping me a part of your lives even as I soak up my contentment here, dancing joyfully in the moment.

xoxo Joy!

Goodnight Mummy

Perhaps some of you haven't thought about it, but the night sky in Australia, the Southern Hemisphere, looks different than the one back home.  Instead of looking for the big and small dipper automatically, people here look for the Southern Cross. Many of you have joined me in one of my favorite pastimes, staring up at the nighttime expanse and talking about all sorts of important and unimportant life contemplations (especially if blankets and a slight chill are involved...less bugs!).

The night sky has taken on a whole new meaning of late.  For the little boys, Matt, Andy, and Hamish, the stars represent their mum shining down on them.  Before she took up permanent residence in Heaven, she told her little ones that she was always with them, a star in the night sky, that they could talk to her and look upon her.  The night of the funeral, I was putting them to bed, and they were missing their mummy.  Matt said he needed to say goodnight to her, so he climbed out of bed, went to the window, found the one star that the city lights didn't blink out, and in his little boy voice of incalculable loss said, "Goodnight, mummy.  I love you."  Little Andy followed his big brother's example.  I chimed in too.  This, my dear ones, is the world I live in right now.  All things considered, everyone is being pretty resilient with Judy's passing.  But it catches you at the most unexpected moments.  Like when little Andy snuggled up to me in my bed after his nap, and solemnly stared with his big blue eyes straight into mine.  I asked him, "What's going on in here?" while patting his head.  He said in his sincere, sweet, and very serious voice, "I want to touch Mummy."  I'm tearing up a bit just writing about it.  I tell them its ok to miss her and be sad.  I tell them to talk to her because she is with them.  I tell them she loves them and I do too.

Judy's funeral was tragically beautiful.  The room overflowed with mourners.  Even the standing room filled up.  She planned most of the funeral herself, including letters read to her husband, boys, family, and friends.  Admittedly, I sobbed through most of it.  Her sister in law read the family's eulogy and Jason read his own.  There was not a dry eye to be seen and seeing Jason's tears fall on the pages he was reading from was one of the most poignant moments of her life's celebration.  Judy was sent off with great honor and unspeakable love.

I've been touched by the care of Judy's family and friends.  I'm exhausted from the constant visitors but relieved by their presence at the same time.  We all take care of each other because we are all in this together.

I do escape into my other "world" too.  Tara has been a true rock to me this last week.  She calls to check up on me and chat.  She broke her plans on the day Judy passed to share a pint with me, to share life with me.  On Saturday, I visited her in the City and we found a small cafe in the historical downtown of Sydney, called the Rocks.  We sat in its shaded courtyard for a few hours, drinking coffee and hot chocolate, listening to music, and making lists.  Our lists spur on the sharing of our deepest current life reflections.  I believe there is always good purposes to be found if we are willing to search for them.  Tara's move to Sydney is a most wonderful and purposeful good.  There have been the messages of prayer and encouragement from all my dear ones back in the States and France and all over Australia.  Samantha met me for Max Brenner's chocolate Belgium waffles.  Riaaz calls and texts me everyday words of encouragement.  Kreton makes me laugh and visits parks with me.  Andrew is always ready to be a listening ear.  The list goes on and on.  Jessi. Abby. Amy. Leah. Jessie. Matt. Wade. Vinci. Lisa. Juli. Mom. Dad. Aunt Caroline. Jessica....  I feel quite unworthy, as I am not the one who has lost as the people around me have lost, but I welcome the Sacredness of others breathing life into me.  It gives me strength.  It gives me rest. It gives me love to pass forward.

I look forward to the City again with Tara tonight.  We have some plans to explore Surrey Hills, her new home, and do some shopping!!!! Also, St. Patty's day is around the corner.  I fully intend to play up my Irish side!  Tara, Riaaz, and I, and whoever else ends up coming, are planning a Blue Mountains trip on an upcoming weekend.  I can't wait to breathe in the mountain air and go for gorgeous hikes with some of my dearest friends.  My hope is there is a campfire at some point.  And maybe S'mores! (Aussies don't know what S'mores are so I have to right this injustice).

May you be blessed this day. I miss you all.  xoxoxo

P.S. To my own mummy.  Goodnight.

Twilight Eclipsed

"...And the mother gave, in tears and pain, 

The flowers she most did love; 

She knew she should find them all again 

In the fields of light above..."

~Longfellow

Judy's Twilight has eclipsed.  Her body lost the battle to The Beast, as she always called it, at 1 a.m. on Thursday, March 4.  Her funeral will be held this coming Tuesday at high noon.  The family, and even I in a different way, live on in a thin place.  We're surrounded by family and friends. The beauty in the ashes are the moments such as Thursday morning when I awoke to the laughter of her loved ones soldiering on in their grief.  Thank you all for your strength, deep sympathies, and encouraging words.  It fuels me and allows me to laugh with little boys.

Thin Places

When Rome was building its massive empire, its army would conquer new lands and people groups.  After its machine and routine destroying, Rome would offer its protection and cultivate the conquered in the ways of the greatest Latin culture.  For years, the Roman lands experienced Pax Romana.  The peace of Rome.  People lived with Roman soldiers, administrators, and government officials dictating their lives and taking a percentage of their livelihoods.  It was calm.  But it was uncomfortable and not always easy.

            Jessi, the other half of me, perhaps the better half of me, passionately lives in a place that is often conquered by evil outside forces.  Poverty.  Violence.  Drugs.  Desolation.  She loves people.  She loves her work.  Yet, she has followed the voice to a new place, where she will continue to love and work and beat back at the poverty and desolation.  She’s going to our home, the roots of our childhood, just as I have left the roots for the branches of adventure (again).  Our catching up is over the Internet these days and as we chatted on Skype, we discussed how peace is not beauty queen cuddly, but incredibly uncomfortable and heavy hearted.  She loves the people of Detroit with her whole being, yet has decided to leave.  Jessi exists in the peace of knowing her decision to step away into a new challenge infuses her with joy.  But how do you say goodbye to the little ones you’ve seen grow, learn, and laugh?  Or leave the rich, life sustaining relationships of her “family” there?  The heart cannot separate itself into here or there.  Peace remains as the wooly blanket.  It’s warmth protects and reassures.  It just feels a bit prickly on the bare skin.  Jess’s own Pax Romana.

            The Romans brought their forcible peace and they brought their culture.  They also brought their roads.  This great empire shaped our future and its sticky note reminder can be found in its infrastructure.  Besides Italy, I’ve visited Roman ruins in the U.K. and France.  The ruins monument the power of the Pax Romana.  People build roads to follow peace.  I have found my Pax Romana led me to a family in the throes of a great crisis.  It is a thin place, as my father’s quoted Celtic theology would say.  It is the moments when two places of different natures blend.  Thin places transform.  Thin places transition.  Judy lies at this moment loosely tethered to earth while at the same time breathing in the place of Beyond, the Sacred.  She is gathering her ties in a bouquet and slowly pressing the flowers into the hands of those who carry her with them always.  The Celts thought twilight a sacred thin time, where the earthly and heavenly realms held hands and danced briefly.  Miracles happen when hands are held.  I live with three small boys and their father at Judy’s twilight.   Whenever I can now, I hold the hand of a little boy and squeeze it three times.  It’s our secret language as the shadows rise.  For each squeeze there is a word. I. Love. You.

            Our bodies as temples used to be a worn out cliché to me.  Thin places have refreshed me.  The ancient Jews had many layers to their Temple.  Each courtyard brought a person closer to the most Sacred center.  Fewer and fewer people could go into each courtyard and rituals of cleansing had to be undergone at each place in order to enter it.  Only the high priest once a year ever entered the Holy of Holies, where God dwelled among the people.  A thin place.  We hold our own temples within.  There are layers to us all.  The outer courtyards hold the most people, they are the everyday citizens of our lives.  Some have the honor of moving to the next courtyard and fewer still to the next.  These people cleanse themselves with the sharing of trust and knowledge and love.  Very few enter our Holy of Holies.  This thinnest of places, the dwelling of our truest selves.  The thin places between Sacreds flame miracles; Heaven and Earth squeeze hands.  The little boys have little ritual or requirement for their thin places, for they need many to enter to know which roads bring peace.  There are bricks for the walls waiting.  But for now, I snuggle with them at twilight, amongst their little boy miracles.  I cover us with a wooly Pax blanket.