(September 18, 2019; \u00a0Pine Ridge, SD) Two Lakota sisters, Carmel and Serena Two Elk,\u00a0caught my attention today, during a morning alive with memories from 1968 and 1969 when I spent two summers living on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. \u00a0This past March weekend, awash as it has been with frightening and shocking news of the Corona Virus ramping up here and across the world, six readers of the Work Day, Hard Time Poetry list have sent me Rev. Lynn Ungar\u2019s new poem, \u201cPandemic.\u201d \u00a0Her words have touched the nerves, apparently, of people whose attention to Corona Virus is forming a community with a broad global scope. \u00a0Rev. Ungar invites her readers to imagine technologies of containment and cautionary testing as Sabbath, \u00a0\u201cthe most sacred of times.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keeping up with news about the pandemic brought me back to two Lakota sisters, soul friends since the late 1960s. \u00a0The past September they both told me their childhood memories of a prairie hill top on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation where I lived what turned into a compelling Sabbath summer. \u00a0 Here are my notes from last summer when they surprised me with their memories of that long-ago time.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarmel and Serena Two Elk, two sisters now in their sixties \u2013 \u2013 reminded me of when they were children during my second summer living in the Tios\u2019paye of Luke and Rose Weasel Bear deep in The Rez. Everyone there knew that some hard inner attention was eating at my spirit all that summer. It showed every night after it got too dark for our kerosene lamps to provide light to read by. \u00a0Each night I walked c. a quarter mile away from our camp and up a hill that framed our horizon. I stood on top of the hill looking into the sky, for perhaps an hour each night. I remember those darkening night skies as a time when I began to heal, very gradually, from a deep, year-long depression that would end some weeks later and seven miles down the road when Caroline Tobacco told me the story of the tragic death of her husband Steve Tobacco and welcomed me more deeply into her and her family\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
This morning when Carmel and Serena told me their memories of those long nights on the hill in the dark, I took this picture. \u00a0 It happened that a soft rain storm came to rest on the hill top where I used to stand.<\/p>\n
These long memories remind me that \u2018sabbatical\u2019 comes from \u2018Sabbath\u2019 which for several thousand years has meant a time when stillness reveals a sacred moment of human presence in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.<\/p>\n
Have a blessed mid-week,<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s post: \u00a0\u201cPandemic\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Lynn Ungar<\/strong><\/p>\n What if you thought of it https:\/\/www.uua.org\/offices\/people\/lynn-ungar<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 16 – Night skies a long ago healing time \u00a0– Rev. Lynn Ungar, \u00a0March 11, 2020 Sabbath and memory (September 18, 2019; \u00a0Pine Ridge, SD) Two Lakota sisters, Carmel and Serena Two Elk,\u00a0caught my attention today, during a morning … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2019\/09\/Sacred-Hill-\u2013-Oglala-South-Dakota.png\")
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\nSacred Hill \u2013 Oglala, South Dakota \u2013 September 17, 2019<\/p>\n
\nas the Jews consider the Sabbath\u2014
\nthe most sacred of times?
\nCease from travel.
\nCease from buying and selling.
\nGive up, just for now,
\non trying to make the world
\ndifferent than it is.
\nSing. Pray. Touch only those
\nto whom you commit your life.
\nCenter down.
\nAnd when your body has become still,
\nreach out with your heart.
\nKnow that we are connected
\nin ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
\n(You could hardly deny it now.)
\nKnow that our lives
\nare in one another\u2019s hands.
\n(Surely, that has come clear.)
\nDo not reach out your hands.
\nReach out your heart.
\nReach out your words.
\nReach out all the tendrils
\nof compassion that move, invisibly,
\nwhere we cannot touch.
\nPromise this world your love\u2013
\nfor better or for worse,
\nin sickness and in health,
\nso long as we all shall live.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n