Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

20 December

Flower Art: The Day Of The Red Rose, Love And Loss Linked Together

by Jon Katz

I’m ready for the weekend and feeling good about Christmas. Maria and I will be off to our favorite Vermont Inn the Day after the holiday, where we had our honeymoon. We’ll be gone for two days, and our quite excellent farm sitter takes care of the dogs, donkeys, sheep, house, and farm. She has her room, as usual. The dogs love her; I’m not sure they even notice we are gone.

She and Zip made friends in seconds. We’ll hang around this weekend, reading, talking, thinking, and resting. I’ll take my part-day Sabbath tomorrow, just a post or two and maybe a photo. Resting on Saturday has proven beautiful for me, and I’m plowing through my books like mad.

You will hear from me in the morning; not sure what happens the rest of the day. Have a sweet, peaceful, and meaningful weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 December

Merry Christmas, Sarah Harrington And The Volunteers At The Cambridge Food Pantry. It Is A Gift To Work With All Of You And See The Good You Do. Happy Holidays

by Jon Katz

I brought these flowers (beautifully assembled by my friend Sue Lamberti, co-owner of the new and booming Cambridge Flower Shop, this afternoon. Sarah and the volunteers are planning a neat Christmas party with gifts for the customers and their families; I thought it might be nice to have a beautiful bouquet when the pantry opens for business at 11 a.m.

The bouquet was so large  Maria had to help me carry it in. I asked Sue if she had lost money on it. She shook her head no, but her eyes said yes. Thanks, Sue. You went out for a friend and a good community cause.

Sarah was shocked and spoke for a minute or two. I know she will love having this bouquet by the entry. Everyone who comes in need of food will see it.  I’ll stop by before the customers arrive; the pantry has a Santa, an elf, and a Misses Claus waiting for them. I won’t take any photos; their privacy is essential, and I will never take pictures of those who come for food.

Working for Sarah is both a pleasure and a joy. She and I work beautifully together; I doubt she knows how much it means to me. Merry Christmas, Sarah; you do the actual work of Christmas and the real work of Jesus Christ. I’m not sure how Jon Katz fit into it, but I have never felt more comfortable or belonged at any place where I’ve worked as much as I feel comfortable working for Sarah.

She has what one woman I know calls a “Jesus Heart.” She lives the duty Christ called for on the Mount.

For me, God lives in the food pantry. I wish them all – you too – a wonderful Christmas.

20 December

Christmas Dinner At Ian Maclean’s Apartment. It Was Great

by Jon Katz

When I met Ian five years ago, he mostly slept in a car while driving around, hearing sheep. He was enthusiastically grubby and secretly wanted to write poetry, which he didn’t care to do. It’s a different world. Ian lives in a neat, roomy, spotless apartment 30 miles north of us and just a few miles West of his beloved  Vermont, where he grew up and his family lives.

We were the first people in Ian’s life to be invited to a cooked dinner that wasn’t pizza. The stew he was preparing didn’t work out, so we heated a pizza he had to rush out and buy. We had a great time at Ian’s. He read us one of his new poems. He is in two poetry groups, looks excellent, and still works at a Slate operation nearby.

We had the usual two hours of conversation, as we always do. What a gift to know him.

He did a great job fixing up his apartment. He even has a study upstairs next to the bedroom, where he peacefully writes poetry. He’s also taken up the guitar and plays it in various places and bars.

On top of everything else, Ian is my chess pal and now a good friend. He was on fire at the many dinners he had at the farm, and we are even now. I’m attending his poetry class in two weeks to hear his latest poem. Seeing this extraordinary, bright, and talented young person grow up and live his life is a pure joy. Besides, his poetry is excellent.

Merry Christmas, Ian; what a pleasure to call you a friend. Maria says the same thing.

20 December

Two Images: Solstice Coming Tomorrow, Shaving In Winter. Sunday, The Days Get Longer. Thinking Of Spring

by Jon Katz

Tomorrow night, the winter solstice is cold and clear, as always. We will be out in the pasture with our annual barnfire; Zinnia is invited to attend. I can last about two hours and then get inside in front of the fire. Maria goes on much longer. It’s terrific; Zinnia and Maria are mesmerized. On such nights, as cold as I get, I love where I live.

 

It was cold in the bathroom this morning when I shaved. I guess you’d call it a still life.

20 December

At My Age, A Major Task In Life. New Beginnings, Gain As Well As Loss. I Am Finally Free To Be Me.

by Jon Katz

It started slowly – listening to other people’s medical reports and comparing them to mine, wondering just how old friends were when they died, counting the years I might have left. Other people’s bodies, complaints, and illnesses began to measure my vitality and longevity. What did she die from? How old was he? Can I drive at night? What does it mean that I can’t remember names? The questioning went on and on. How do I feel each morning? What is aching today?

It took me a few years to realize that underneath, the questions weren’t about my body at all. The questions were about my wobbly emotional infrastructure. They were about my emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual questions, not how my body was doing. I was asking the wrong questions.

Aging has a will of its own; it proceeds at its own pace and doesn’t need my help. It’s not something I can ultimately do anything about. Aging was different. I could do a lot about that, I imagined. That turned out to be true.

Instead, I began thinking of the fundamental and real issues: What did I think the rest of my life was all about? Was it all about loss, or was it also about gain? Was it the end of something, or could it be the beginning of something? Did attitude matter? All that old talk, the sorrowful looks friends gave me on the streets as if I were minutes from passing away, had begun to dispirit me? Did I need to share my intimate health care with people who barely knew me? Did I need to think about it a dozen times a day?

And most important to me: “What can I do now to become what I was meant to be finally? Did my faith and spiritual clarity give me strength, health, and purpose? Or were all those questions beating me down??

Where I landed was this: I came to see that the primary task of life in this period, the final period, most likely might be very simple.

Don’t fear the fear.

Every single sign of change in me—the stiffness, the loss of energy and memory, the health issues that popped up repeatedly—was something I began to see differently. My fear of aging and the things I feared to lose—the long walks I loved, the peaceful sleep, the doctor’s visits, the pills, and the medicines—also called for new beginnings, gain and loss, and new ways of thinking.

The glass may be half full sometimes, but that is a lot of water.

The exciting ideas came one after another. Could you take good photos of birds and flowers? I am finding new and challenging good works to do: helping refugee children, finding news to use my minor celebrity and blog meaningfully, like teaching meditation to older people, and using the range and weight of my blog to support a food pantry.

In a way, I was suddenly free to be who I wanted and live as I wanted—to be me.

As the theologian Joan Chittister wrote, “The task of every separate stage of life is to confront its fear so that it can become more than it was.”

The tenor of my life changed. My life is not about diminishment; I realized that aging was something to accept, respect, and not just complain about. I could use it as an opportunity, not a decline. I could use what I had learned for good and give it richness and meaning. It wasn’t the end of my development as a human; it was about accepting and exploring a new kind of development. I learned that was much more than my body; my decline did not define my life but my growth.

I might be invisible to people of different ages, but I was suddenly becoming clear about myself. Nobody was going to define me but me.

My danger was giving in to the fear of invisibility, uselessness, and losing our sense of self and human obligation. Fear, wrote Chitisster, tempts us to believe that life is over rather than simply changing.

My obligation was not just to exercise and take a lot of pills but to stay as well as I could, to remain intellectually and socially active, to support my wife in any way I could, work on my blog with even more complexly and more creatively than before, take pictures of flowers and landscapes and farm life that were better than before, and could help others to do the same things I was doing that worked.

I embraced a new moral obligation: to work to be a better human while it still mattered, to respect my life, and to enrich the love of those around me. My life is not over. It is, in so many different ways, just beginning.

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