Sacred Six

I want to post daily in my blogs.  I rarely do.  In fact, this is the first time in months that I have sat down to write.  For the last several weeks, I have stared at my list of weekly topics for this blog, hoping for motivation and inspiration, but it hasn't come until now.  My last little "if not now, when" kick-in-the-pants came from this blog post by Annie Seaton, a fabulous writer who posted her link on SheWrites.

While I was thinking about the definition of "sacred" and wondering what other people considered sacred, a memory came to me of an experience I had as a child.  I hadn't thought about this particular incident in years.  I was walking home from a friend's house one year in mid-December.  The streets were snow-packed and light flurries were falling.  The beauty of one a neighbor's pine trees, decorated with the old-style large outdoor colored bulbs and dusted with snow struck me.  I stopped, sang "O Tannenbaum" ("Oh Christmas Tree"), smiled and went home.  Sacred can be simple.

Another sacred moment in my life came when a nurse pushed my oldest child's bassinet into my hospital room and closed the door so we could have some bonding time.  He had needed a little oxygen and I was not allowed out of bed for the first 24 hours, so this was the first time I had really "seen" him.  I peered over the edge of the bassinet and wondered, "OK, NOW WHAT?"

My second child brought into my world with him a double sacred moment.  My father had passed away in 1979, almost 20 years before I started having children and I had thought how sad it was that he never got to see his grandchildren.  In the delivery room, though, I got the strongest feeling that he knew them and that he and his father (my "Pappap") were there.  Secondly, after the baby had been cleaned and swaddled, a nurse put him ... in ... my ... arms.  Big deal, you might thing.  Well, to me it was; he was the only one of my three children I got to hold immediately after they were born.

Frankly, four years later, we thought we were done with kids.  But apparently kids were not done with us, as a little girl soon came a-callin'.  The ob/gyn said she was coming early, they just didn't know how early.  At 31 weeks, I was given two shots of steroids, to help the baby's lungs develop.  This was a good thing, because at 32 weeks, DD (dear daughter) made her debut, weighing 3 lbs .4 oz and measuring 13.5" long.  I asked 2 gentlemen from my church to give her a blessing, which they did.  The doctors had told us to expect her to be in the NICU until her original due date.  After the blessing, she was able to go home at 22 days of age.  Although she did not yet weigh 4 lbs, the doctors said that she was "just too healthy, and they needed the space".

While the mountains are my home, I always get a feeling of beginning to grasp the eternal or the infinite when I am at the ocean.  Eyes scan the horizon and see the first (or last) few rays of light, ears hear the crash of the waves and calls of birds, the salty tang of sea air affect both smell and taste and breezes and water caress our extremeties.  For a few seconds we are taken out of the everyday and connect with the great unknown.

For my last sacred moment today, I have to give a shout out to the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the Patriot Guard Riders (PGR).  Members of both these fine organization recently stood/rode in honor of my husband's late great-uncle at his funeral service and burial.  My husband went to the services (I was unable to attend) and showed me a video he took of the arrival at the cemetery.  I saw the riders of the PGR first...and there were quite a number of them, and until the sound of motorcycles drowned out the bagpiper, "Amazing Grace" could be heard.  This confluence of factors brought tears to my eyes as I watched the video.  Members of more than one generation, some in dress uniforms, some in biker leathers, paid tribute to a brother who had passed away.  Many came from miles away and did not necessarily know the man personally.  Some bonds are sacred; neither time, nor distance, nor even death can sever them.

I challenge you to seek and find the sacred in your own life.  If you would care to leave a comment (with or without the story of such an experience), I would be honored.  And if you blog, please leave me a link so I can come visit you too!