Categories
Inspiration

The Lightning Tree

silhouette of tree near body of water during golden hour
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So I love making new discoveries. When they involve good food, interesting stories or unforgettable encounters of meeting others, newly discovered secrets can be life changing. Being of Irish descent, (among a few other colorful ethnicities,) I really appreciate when all of the aforementioned ingredients merge to produce a highly charged, transforming and entertaining life story bordering on legend. Of such things is the story stuff I am about to share.

One of my husband’s and my new favorite places is McColley’s Irish Pub in Spencerport, NY. It was recommended to us a few years back by some friends who knew we’d love the ambience of the Irish atmosphere, including thatched roof ceilings, authentic music and a menu that would do The Aran Islands proud.

Every time I step through McColley’s welcoming doors, my senses celebrate as I take in the charming fireplaces and saunter through the wooden dining room on the way to the “back room.”

My first encounter with the “Root Cellar” produced a wonderment at viewing a very tall tree hanging roots-end-up, suspended from the ceiling. The bark was stripped off, leaving the impression that this tree carried an unspoken but unique story. Curiously, it was a very comforting space. I stood there gazing at it, half-expecting some type of explanation or revelation. If that tree could speak, I wonder what it would say to me. I paused, listening for a few moments. But then dinner was waiting.

A few months go, seemingly out of the blue, my wondering met with an answer. During a “random” conversation with a resident of Spencerport, I unexpectedly learned the true story of the tree’s plight. It felt to me like this individual was speaking on behalf of the tree as she recounted the curious happening.

It seems that a young Spencerport man was in a season of questioning his true purpose in life. Standing alone near the local canal, he was desperate for answers and wondered if anyone really heard him when he cried out into the cosmos for validation and value. Ripe for a real reckoning, he even approached the God question. He had not been convinced that The Almighty ever existed but decided to put it all on the line when he heard himself call out, “God, if you’re really there, show me yourself and strike that tree over there with lightning right now!”

Immediately the tree was struck by lightning and came down. It seemed he was being spoken to in a language he could understand. At once, the barriers in the man’s heart and the lies he had believed about God were also uprooted and came down. The powerful love and kind reality of the real God came crashing into his life. This was the beginning of a life that has never been the same.

So, seeing that this man happened to be the owner of McColley’s Irish Pub, he transported the tree to the pub’s location and had it permanently afixed into the back room, roots-end-up, suspended from the ceiling. His own life had been transformed from upside down to right side up. This tree is displayed for all to see honored the supernatural encounter that permanently changed his life. It continues to spark wonderment to this day.

I have yet to meet this man and look forward to that happening one day. Somehow though, I feel I have already encountered part of his soul in the hearing of this truly electric life-changing encounter which is the stuff of which local Irish legends are made.

So now whenever we visit McColley’s, I visit and honor this tree that gave it’s life for a man’s divine encounter, curiously like another tree from long ago. Combine that with wonderful food, authentic music and lovely personal interactions, and you have a uniquely comforting, encouraging and inspiring place.

Who would have known that a tree could and still does speak a living, moving, active word? Who would believe it? I know of one man who does. What do you think?

I know I will never be the same since hearing the tale. Somehow … and rightly so, my life has been forever affected for the better because I have met “The Lightning Tree.”

Thanks for listening.

Categories
Inspiration

Equinox Song

Something about the approach of Spring stirs the poetic spirit to life. The wild geese who were told long ago it was time to leave have now been told it is time to return. The sound of their cry in the distance breaks through the winter solitude and uplifts the human soul. Such was my experience upon encountering the “Equinox Song.”

A bright welcoming sound in sky’s distance I hear

the approach of the harbinger’s announcement here.

They bear in their bodies a message so true

departing in fall, now returning anew

to announce to my heart Spring is near, hope is real.

The brightness of light celebrates what I feel.

So my spirit leaps, sings, twirls. My soul joins in too,

as we dance and we dream in what Spring now makes new.

A calling V-presence above me I see

sentinels of the equinox bid me join them,

…flying free.

Categories
Poetry

Music of Aran

Music of Aran

A few years back, my husband and I traversed into the dream journey of a lifetime when we flew over The Atlantic and landed in Dublin, Ireland. For over a week we drove on the winding, storytelling roads, became charmingly lost off the beaten path, explored castles of old, discovered new family…and ourselves. Throughout that time, whether it was discerning the sound of an unseen violin on the grounds of Blarney Castle, moving to the energy of traditional folk ballads with newly-made friends in a Killarney pub, or encountering the magic of a local fiddler on the cobblestone streets of Galway, it was that ever-flowing life force of music that found its way into the cracks and crevices of my soul. I will always carry the wonder of Ireland inside me because of the everlasting music of Aran.

The music of Aran is sure always there

‘Amidst mountain and bay and the pub everywhere.

She carries her cadence on the wind, in the street.

Her exuberant dance comes to romance my feet.

And my life has been altered by her rhythm and song

As it ever inspires me all my life long.

So I thank her, dear Eire, for gifts given to me

In her tunes and her verse

That have set my soul free.

Categories
Inspiration

Journeying to the “Thin Place” Between Life, Death and Life

brown wooden dock
Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

“Thin place: A place where the veil between Heaven and earth, this world and the eternal world is thin. It is where one can walk in two worlds–the worlds are fused together loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one.” (thinplacestour.com)

“Selah: biblical term in psalms meaning to pause, think and consider.”

Last weekend at this time I was in a place somewhere between everyday living and a step beyond into the eternal hidden spirit realm. On a Saturday, the membrane separating those of us in the here and now from the supernatural radiance of eternal life was especially thin.

I found myself in a room with friends and acquaintances from the past, present and future. We were all there to honor the life of a dear one gone before us. For my husband and me, it was a close friend of nearly 50 years, for whom we gathered to give thanks.

His wife, my best friend, had called me in the wee morning hours of that previous Monday to share that her beloved was gone, flown away to Heaven while he slept. He had been sick for a long time but this event still seemed disjunctive in the scheme of things.

My heart immediately broke for her, even though I had long ago entered into anticipatory grief with her. I wept strong tears into my husband’s chest and was surprised by their intensity. Nausea was an unexpected visitor and I gave into vomiting and wretching. As a nurse, I knew that response can sometimes be a body-soul synchrony to release that loved one’s life.

Everything about my life seemed to go into slow motion as I journeyed to be by my friend’s side. We held each other and took turns crying. I felt my soul linking to hers. It was an honor.

That day I took her to the funeral home to make arrangements and received quite an education myself. We both asked questions. Details and options were spelled out. It was a lot. It was an honor.

All of that brought us to this day of remembrance, loving, military honors, remembering and loving still more. Grandchildren were given the precious gift of learning how to grieve in a healthy way with family. We all were gifted by being together and seeing the faithfulness of a Good and Kind God. The legacy of kindness was real and palpable through this man’s life. He had been one through whom Heaven had reached to touch, inspire and encourage others. He had practiced making a difference in other people’s lives. He had been an example for me of living close to the “Thin Place.”

The following day we remembered, loved and honored once more this dearly departed one, his bride and precious family. My husband and I were privileged to speak and sing at the memorial service. The membrane of the thin place was more transparent than ever as we reached into eternity, touching and being held by the kindness, goodness and very palpable presence of our God.

This reality consumed our “every day-ness” with such renewed perspective and inspiration. I found myself taking an inventory of my life and wanting to run well the remainder of it, fulfilling the dream in God’s heart for me. To love well and to help others be released into their life destinies became the most real thing to me in those moments.

Since that time, I feel like I am living right on the doorstep of the “Thin Place” every day. The compassion of Heaven is swelling up inside me. The desire to cultivate a space for others to encounter the reality of God’s kindness is overpowering in me. It is almost as if my very life itself is becoming a thin place for others to connect with the eternal.

I lean back in the moment and look at this reality, seeing it, letting it sink in. Perhaps this has always been part of the plan, a plan that is uncovered, revealed and celebrated, as its secrets are discovered on the journey of living and stepping through death’s doorway…to life, forever. Selah.

Categories
Inspiration

The Light in the Night

Several years ago my husband received a gift from his mother after she died. It was an amount of money for him to use as he chose. At the rear of our property the special gift materialized as he began to build a structure he had seen only in his mind. It grew into a place of wonder for children and adults alike. The “Margaret Cottage” took on a life of its own.

The wooden skeleton started simply and grew a little bit every summer day to the sound of hammer, saw and roofing stapler. The plan was to make a simple storage shed. It grew from the images in my husband’s imagination.

Humble wooden wall studs went up with the apparition of a soon-to-be small building. Soon he was standing on its roof as I held my breath and roof shingles took their place shaping the sturdy out structure. The skeleton was now sheathed with green-painted plank board walls with white trim. Flower boxes beneath the two windows adorned both sides of the entryway. Shutters hugged the space around the windows and a little porch was fitted there to stand on or to rest in a chair on. The lovely white door opened and closed so gracefully. The shed had become a wee cottage before our eyes. It added charm and a bit of mystery to the far region of our back yard. Dick’s mother would have been pleased. She had loved flowers, gardening and backyard loveliness in her time. Truly this was a tribute to her and brought a wonderful presence into the outdoors.

Seasons changed and with them the life of the “Margaret Cottage” enlarged with our growing family. My grandson Jake came running excitedly across the full length of our back yard when he spied two pumpkins out on the porch of the cottage. At age three this was an amazing new October discovery. “The pumpkins!” He held them. He ran his little fingers over their smooth, cool skin. He hugged them as if they held all the world’s riches. For many months afterward he fully expected to always see the pumpkins there. That was, after all, where they were first discovered and where he thought they would always be waiting for him no matter when he came.

Both he and his sister Penny, a few years older than he, wondered who was in the cottage. We would open the door and show them the inside which smelled magically of wood and had Grandpa’s tools on the handsomely crafted shelves. Still they were convinced that someone probably rather small lived inside there, coming and going when no one was looking.

Wee white candles were placed in the windows. They came on at dusk each evening with the suggestion that truly someone may be peacefully living inside. I looked forward to seeing them light each night. Often, the moon rose above the green cottage completing the picturesque scene.

Birthdays came and went with photos being taken of loved ones standing on the cottage’s porch. Parties were held in the yard with chairs all around, including on the cottage’s porch. Sometimes I would go there and just sit.

My husband installed a spotlight on the ground in front of the wee building. Every evening at dusk the light would turn on, illuminating the charming face of the seemingly enchanted cottage. Our next-door neighbor remarked how lovely it was for him to look out and see it in the night.

Our cat, Jack, enjoyed walking across the elevated porch. When he did, the spotlight enlarged his shadow making its way across so that the image was much more foreboding.

A new grandson soon appeared in our friendly backyard. When he could walk, the first thing he would do was to run with his little legs full speed all the way back to the Margaret Cottage and lean against the welcoming white door. It was as if he had arrived home.

One Father’s Day I presented my husband with a special sign to hang over the white doorway. It said “The Margaret Cottage” and completed the wee building’s dressing.

You could tell what season or holiday was current by looking at what was hanging on that white door. Be it a Spring flower sachet, a large Irish shamrock, an Autumnal wreathe in all its glory, or a colorful Christmas wreathe to spread backyard joy. Always, our grandchildren wondered who put those wreathes up. It must have been the little people who lived inside.

For the past several years there has been a new addition to the cottage’s Winter Christmas decor. Two large plastic “Noel” candles were placed just beneath the flower boxes. They stood like sentinels at attention, faithfully guarding either side of the Christmas door. Their illumination would turn on at dusk each evening and remain on until dawn. All was right with the world when they came on. The cottage was dressed in wonder and surely Grandma Margaret was smiling down.

One night shortly before Christmas I noticed that the large Noel candle light on the left was out. I walked back to it with a replacement bulb but never needed to use it. When I touched the candle the light went back on all on its own. It burned brightly all throughout the season and we decided the candles would stay up until Spring.

Then two nights ago we noticed the large Noel candle light on the right was dark. There was deep snow and great cold. Neither my husband or I desired to make our way out there. It was as if the cottage was missing an eye. Only one large candle lit up the darkness. There was a kind of missing symmetry and very real loneliness palpably felt now in the back yard.

On the third night I noticed something new! The right candle light was back on and the two “Noel” sentinels stood together once again in their posts of celebrating the little green cottage. I assumed my husband had made his way out there to fix the light. He told me no he had not. He thought I had been the one. We stood together looking out our kitchen window into the night now illuminated around the cottage doorway. There were no footprints of any kind visible in the snow. The “Margaret Cottage” sign hung happily above the doorway and all was right in this little world.

A chill went through me and then a warmth as I pondered how this light may have been turned back on in the middle of winter with no one around. Was it a pleased Grandma Margaret smiling down? Was it a wind gust coming by in meticulous perfect fashion? Or… maybe, just maybe the little folk living inside turned it back on for us when no one was looking.

Perhaps… I wonder.

Categories
Musing About Life

My New Favorite Time of the Day

Throughout my life, there have been different “favorite times” of the day that I can remember. Today as I arrive home from a day of caring for others, the gracious solitude of my home has become one of those “favorite times.”

My car knew where it was going and how to turn onto my long, dead-end residential street where our little house was waiting down at the end, on the verge of the cul-de-sac. The new snow glistened beneath the mid-afternoon sun as I just enjoyed the ride amidst sparkling light. A gentle wind welcomed me as I pulled into the driveway, alone and sitting for a few moments.

Solitude. The sound of the word used to seem lonely to me. Then a few years ago, a friend taught me what it means to be an introvert. “How do you re-charge when you are emptied out?” she asked. I answered that I like a quiet walk in the woods or just puttering around on a project by myself or sitting in my living room with the house quiet and afternoon sun streaming in through the front picture window. Add a cup of tea and that is perfection for me. “So you re-charge in solitude, then,” she observed. I realized and answered “yes” to which she responded, “then you are an introvert.”

So that makes sense on a day like today. In post-retirement, I am an RN in a lovely, private Family Medicine practice a few days a week. We have an old-fashioned way of giving our patents focussed attention and it is an honor to care for them with a team that is so authentic and kind. Sometimes on a Friday afternoon I get out a little early and meander home while there is still some afternoon remaining. Like today.

I feel like I have loved my patients and co-workers well. I feel fulfilled. I know I made a difference in some lives today. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity. Work is good. I take my stethoscope off and put it away until next week. I do the same with my name tag.

So now my home has received me in gracious solitude and I sit musing in the quiet afternoon. The sun is streaming through the living room picture window. I sip my tea and just be.

I look back on these last eight hours with peace. There is no music, no talking, no problem solving, just the chance to write…by myself and think that this… may just be my new favorite time of the day. Just maybe.

Thanks for listening.

Categories
Poetry

Cascade Snow

snow covered forest field
Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

This piece was written after discovering snowshoeing in the Adirondacks at a place called “Cascade Cross Country Skiing” near Cascade Mountain and Lake. With years gone by, I am just a beginner at experiencing this quiet, glorious phenomenon but share it here to celebrate the beauty of winter on this snowy day. Perhaps you too will able to hear and feel the quiet.

Snow country to awaken my soul…

I walk, carried by my trusty snowshoes

Upon my high places where I have never dared to boldly go.

Through uneven terrain amidst Northwood forests I traverse,

Breathing mountain air that wakes up my lungs

And reminds me that I am very much alive

And still have a vigorous life path to walk.

I learn a lesson of flexibility and power

From my trusty snowshoes and poles

While I simply…trek on.

Christine O’Riley 2/21/2020

Categories
Update

My Life is a Story with a New Chapter or “Please read me the shoe again”

So, many people have been asking me “How is your book doing?” I am not always sure how to answer them and am realizing that is okay. My book, like my life, is an ongoing story, ever growing and developing with landmarks and growth spurts along the way .

So after a two year gestation, my first published work The Wondrous Story of the Little Shoe is now two months old. It is selling online internationally in hard cover, soft cover and e-book via Amazon and online bookstores everywhere. I was very excited to learn it is selling in the UK!

There are nineteen wonderful five-star reviews of it on its Amazon book page. I welcome many more and look forward to the day when it finds a home on the top 100 list. I am naive enough to believe it can become a best seller.

I am also selling it directly from my publishing company Celtic Cottage Press here in Rochester.

I am hearing ongoing reports of how children and adults alike are loving it as a bedtime story with little ones requesting “Please read me the shoe again.” I tell people it is a children’s story, but is it?

I am learning the art of marketing it, which I am told takes a good five years and never ends. I have it currently placed in three public libraries in the Rochester NY area (including a recording of me reading it for their story times) and am working toward seeing it on the shelves of brick and mortar bookstores and gift shops locally. I am looking for people to help me by calling local bookstores and requesting it, so there will be buzz already created when I approach those bookstores to present it. (By the way, anyone who wants to help me here, please just comment on this piece. I would be most grateful.)

I sent a much-worked-on press release to the local Democrat and Chronicle newspaper but learned that they no longer do press releases on new local books. And so I am pursuing other creative alternatives and welcome suggestions.

My husband wonders if it would do well published in a Spanish language format. Something to consider?

And so the story of the story continues as it and my life of learning to market it writes yet another chapter.

Don’t ever stop asking me how “The Shoe Book” (as little people call it) is doing. For now YOU are part of this precious, powerful and ever-growing story that has taken on a life of its own. In today’s world, that is good news!

silhouette of people jumping
Photo by vjapratama on Pexels.com
Categories
Musing About Life

Thoughts on a Deathbed or Dying a Good Death

Wow. Such a title is not neccesarily morbid as our culture may think. At a recent “Pencraft” meeting, this was a topic I randomly chose to write about as we picked writing prompts to stretch us into unfamiliar creative territory. Plumbing the depths of our hearts can aid us in setting life goals about the lasting things that really matter. I have sat with, cared for, sung over loved ones, friends and patients as they have transitioned into life’s final journey. It has always been an honor to stand on that holy ground. Considering such a trek for myself and spontaneously writing about it was an adventure of the most unique and precious kind. As I finish this piece I am informed that someone I love is no longer living on the earth. I dedicate this to my dear friend Ruth, who completed her Heavenly journey in the approach of today’s wee hours. Love you forever, Ruth.

This is not how I thought it would be. But then again, I don’t know what I thought.

It was always the unknown, the un-know-able, the someday late in my future. But here we are, in the everlasting now.

What used to be so important in dailiness now seems so far away on the outside of this inner secret place I am in. It reminds me of the labor process I entered into so long ago to birth my children. Intuitively intimate and on the verge…

I am grateful to have kept short accounts, to have lived with issues resolved, relationships clear, as much as it has depended on me.

This is much simpler than I had imagined. Now, nothing else matters, except to have loved.

The parade of memories is passing before me, just like I have heard about. In it, I see my husband, my children, my friends, my parents gone before me, my seasons of life and yes… my Papa’s Fingerprints. Broken times with evidences of Your Presence, like lingering essence of supernatural highlighter on life’s trail.

I bid farewell to my body friend, thanking her for her service to me. “You have carried me around for so many years. You have been faithful and have done your best. Thank-you. I honor you. I bless you.”

And now the room is getting darker, yet…so much brighter. How can that be? A luminescence of otherness is turning up, like on a supernatural dimmer switch. my thoughts are of my children, my grandchildren. my heart calls out to them, “Walk with your God. Never give up. Here, take the baton from me.” Am I saying those words or just thinking them? The voice coming through me sounds so far away.

My hands feel cold. I watch one reach to my husband, the love of my life. The other reaches to my Abba, The Lover of my soul,…my essence.

Who will you be for me now, Abba? I can smell your scent coming closer. It moves toward me and is so familiar. I have known it in those secret places of life and loss and grief and surrender and love with you. And now I am surrounded by You and held by a Love more real than anything I have ever known.

You. Love, is all there is. I cannot help but reach toward You. I hear myself saying with assurance, “So this…is what it is like to die well. Papa…” and my outstretched arms fall.

    Categories
    Inspiration

    Praise for the Wonder

    Recently I had the honor of delivering a hard cover copy of “The Wondrous Story of the Little Shoe” to a local young mother of twins. Since it was a contactless delivery, I missed the initial encounter of this mom with the book. The precious note I later received that day is a message I shall forever treasure:

    “Dear Chris,

    The kids are napping, but I couldn’t wait to read it. I’m crying. What a beautiful story and captured in such an adorable way. I especially love the picture of you praising Papa God. Your illustrator did a fantastic job capturing you!!!! Wow. “

    From real image to illustration …the joy.