Thanksgiving Monday morning this year was gray and overcast with a light rain falling as I headed out on a morning run. Running along with the steady rhythm, the pace becomes a beat to an inner music. This space of time brings a solitude that creates a place of meditation and reflection. There were many memories that rolled across the screen within my mind and vision this particular day. They became a collage of memories that brought a deep thanksgiving and gratefulness for those poignant moments that have danced into my heart, that have walked through my consciousness and left their prints and created spaces for seeds of life to be planted and grow within my soul. I read somewhere that gratitude and thanksgiving opens us open to the good memories we hold in us.
Thanksgiving has brought back one strong memory - that of a young woman dancing barefoot through the aisles of a church in Bulgaria. The floor was cold hard cement, the pews were benches with no back, high windows were broken and it could have used some paint on the walls. Yet the beauty of this place was in those who had gathered to worship, to come away from their harsh life in a nation that was awakening from an anesthetized soul under a regime of control. Watching our friend, this beautiful dancer, move through the room, very tenderly touching the faces of many women who lived a difficult life in this place of a struggling, newly emerging society, gave a very visual reality to how tenderly and gently the Spirit moves with us, between us and around us. This holy moment of beauty opened the space for tears of pain, tears from hearts that had been held tightly closed for so long. Tears flowed, were given permission to flow, from the barren places of the soul that had been denied their existence because simply to survive in the harshness of a difficult life feelings were repressed and tuck away. As she danced the words of an ancient, yet very present blessing flowed around us all.
May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make His face to shine upon you
And be gracious to you.
The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.
How is it that deep beauty and tears are such tender companions that we so often wish to keep apart? Tears are the salt that heals us as we let them flow and they are the prism through which our eyes and heart will see new dimensions to beauty and to sorrow. They are the very human way in which our joy, our pain, our brokenness, and our healing mingle tangibly, ever so gently, and persistently, inviting our emotions to rise to the surface and be set free.
F. Alexander Magoun writes: “Tears have a wisdom all their own. They come when a person has relaxed enough to let go and to work through his sorrow. They are the natural bleeding of an emotional wound, carrying the poison out of the system. Here lies the road to recovery.”
Thanksgiving this year was more profound for me because sorrow and gratefulness have never been entwined so tangibly. I think their dance together, this movement of beauty and grief, and the tears that flow for both, have brought a new aspect to ‘Thanksgiving’. My morning running has been a space where I have held both the deep gratitude for all the gifts I have, including all the nieces and nephews that I have had the honour of loving and spent time with and a new granddaughter I will be spending time with. The morning rain has mingled with my tears as I hold the deep sorrow of loosing a precious niece this summer. I hold the sorrow that her parents and brothers feel - a sorrow I cannot begin to imagine. Yet I also hold the deep gratitude that she was loved, and gave love in return, for all she gave to her friends and family and for the times I spent with her when she was little. How do we continue this dance of life, the dance of a deep inner life, when pain is so deep and tears are abundant? Perhaps the daily motion through that day, this day, is where movement becomes a very slow dance, where the soul moves the heart even when it cannot consciously find the energy to do so. This feels, for me, like the wind of Sophia, the wind of the Spirit, that moves me when I have no strength to hold on and I must lean into what I cannot see and trust the embrace. When I am urged to let go and lean into the place of not seeing and not knowing the road but continuing to believe that the road is still there and I am not alone, we are never alone.
As we gathered together after the funeral of this beloved young woman, a precious member of our family, we came together for a meal my Mother had organized. Another aspect of our life dance is the table where we gather to be nourished, to share and to sit close together creating a circle of love. Grief and celebration both call us to the table. Even as we are nourished by this necessary ritual of eating, we open space for conversation, honesty and yes, for tears to season and nourish the soul. Mom had prepared an old family favourite, a chicken with rice dish. It was real comfort food when we were children, and it is still a kind of comfort food now in adulthood.
How can I continue to dance if I do not hear the deep mournful tones of the requiems along with the comforting tones of the cello that the musician holds in a deep embrace, or that quickening liveliness of classical guitar melodies that sing so clearly of exuberant life? How can I keeping push through the struggle of those hills that slow down my run, if I do not exalt in the lightness that comes when the stretch before me is straight and easy? How will I hear the music life offers and its invitation to dance if I deny the tears that wash across my heart, bathing the path with salt that seasons and heals my soul? How will I sing in the morning if I do not also honour the time to wait and rest that the night offers? How will I hear the harmony of community if I keep myself from sitting down to dinner with others?
Thanksgiving Day, the holiday is past and we enjoyed a wonderful meal with friends. Thanksgiving as a way of living is growing. Within me is expanding a wider way to hold gratitude together with grief, loss, love and hope.
Aproz Con Pollo - Chicken with Rice
Serves 12 - freezes well.
3 broiler chickens cut up or enough chicken pieces for 12 people
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
5 cups of chicken broth (use 2 McCormick chicken stock or veggie stock cubes)
¼ teaspoon of saffron
1 cup chopped onion
2 bay leaves,
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 cups uncooked rice
1 small package of frozen peas
8 oz of chopped green olives
Heat oven to 350F
- place the chicken pieces, skin side up, in a large pan or 2-9x13 pans
- brush the chicken with the olive oil and season with salt, pepper and paprika
- bake the chicken for 30 minutes
- bring the chicken broth to a boil and then add the chopped onions and the 2 tsp of salt..
- remove the chicken from the pan and drain off the oil
-add the rice evenly to the 2 pans or 1 very large pan. Put bay leaves in each pan.
- add the chicken broth and seasonings
- cover and bake the chicken and rice for 30 minutes or until the broth is absorbed and the rice is tender.
- cook the peas.
- remove the chicken from the pan, add the peas and stir into the mixture.
- remove the bay leaves from the rice
- add the chopped olives and stir into the rice and pea mixture.
- place the chicken on top of the rice mixture
- garnish with the parsley and serve
