Making Peace with the Sea Oats

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Making Peace with the Sea Oats

by Paula Veloso Babadi

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”—John 14:27

Letting go isn’t always easy. I know because I’ve been holding on to a dilapidated container housing sea oats that are at least sixty years removed from the Pensacola dunes where our family picked them. Every time I look at them, I am reminded of a happy childhood, where every Sunday after Mass, my parents, sisters, and I would trek to paradise in our yellow station wagon, packed with a picnic, beach gear, and lots of laughter and singing.

Two years ago, I wrote a poem about those sea oats after realizing that every time I passed by them in my office/library a few more oats would fall to the ground. I questioned why I couldn’t just throw them out. They weren’t just sea oats to me—they were the sun and smile of my parents, the kindness of my sisters who spent their allowances to buy the wicker urn. They were the warmth of our home, the memory of gatherings in the family room (where they sat for years), a lovely complement to the wavy blue colors of the carpet. I knew they were a daily reminder of my wonderful parents and sisters, and I wasn’t ready to let go.

When I complained about the mess the sea oats were making, my sister, Virginia, recommended a couple of years ago that I should take a picture and then dispose of them in a dignified manner. I never did. But after talking with Virginia today, I told her I was ready to let them go and would bury them in my garden in a nice spot where they will enrich the earth. I’ll hold on to my memories, and I am at peace with that gift.

 

Sea Oats

by Paula Veloso Babadi

 

More than half a century ago,

they stood tall in a white wicker urn,

salty grain dipping towards the ocean

of my parents’ multi-blue Sears and Roebuck carpet.

 

Before storms Camille, Opal, and Ivan,

before the erosion of sugar-fine dunes,

before laws forbidding their plucking,

we watched our treasures sway in the air-conditioned breeze

and smiled with memories of their harvest,

on lazy Gulf days by surf, sun, and sea life.

 

Today, my parents are gone.

The sea oats are withered and sparse

drooping over now-grayed wicker walls,

resting against my crisp white library shelves.

Any breeze might rob them of the last browned seeds,

But parting is not yet an option.

 

Copyright 2025 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Photo Credit Pexels

Broken Shells

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Broken Shells

by Paula Veloso Babadi

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”—Psalm 34:18

I recently spent a day with some family on the beach at Daytona. Although it’s the “dog days” of summer, we were blessed with a light breeze, refreshing salty air, and cold waves. We enjoyed a terrific time together.  

I believe sand and sea are God’s healing gifts, and I am reminded of a December day over 30 years ago.  My husband and two young sons enjoyed lunch with a family friend at his home on the shores of Ponte Vedra Beach. As my sons ran off looking for sharks’ teeth and my husband chatted with his friend, I ventured beyond the graceful French doors that opened onto the ocean. Amid inhaling the crisp salt air and reveling in the cool breeze, I felt a twinge of sadness as I eyed the broad expanse of broken shells before me. How much we humans are like these shells—huddled together, separate, yet one on the canvas of creation.

Today, along miles of shoreline, there still are jewels, brushed and polished by the repeated breaking of waves and warmed to a glow by sunshine on clear (and even cloudy) days. Even though life is good, that day, I felt broken inside, just like the shells. But as the sun warmed my arms, I knelt to take a closer look. Our wise Creator gifted me with the hope of repurpose and repair, and the vision of being whole in Him. Whether crushed or damaged, we are part of His perfect painting: His polished masterpiece.  That vision gave me hope, then and now, and inspired the poem I wrote below.

 

Broken Shells

by Paula Veloso Babadi

 

Broken shells upon the shore

washed in by gentle waves once more,

paint the sand with shattered dreams—

their beauty lost in fragments.

 

One masterpiece in the array,

amidst the broken pieces lay

too well concealed for me to see

its beauty on the canvas.

 

Though I am broken-pieced this day,

God’s healing sun and ocean spray

brush me into a form anew

whole again amidst the broken shells.

 

Copyright Paula Veloso Babadi 2025

Edited by Gabriella Batel

“Mary, Mother of Poets”

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Mary, Mother of Poets

 

The poet is a cultural crime fighter,

A merchant of the timeless,

A calligrapher of gravestone inscriptions.

 

The poet wanders wasted lands, and

Ponders books of ancient lore.

 

The poet tosses runes skyward, and

Traces the descent of inscrutable phrases.

 

The poet leans into the cave of echoes,

Listening for words spoken before speech began.

 

Ancient poets are being found in melting glaciers,

Their names, long etched in ice,

Now melt into a crevasse of collective forgetfulness.

 

Yet, lo, the boldest poet is a banal figure, deaf and dumb,

Next to the singular lady who conversed with glorious Gabriel.

The chosen woman who bears

The body of God,

The scar of the sword,

And the mission of forgiving the crowd calling for the death of her son.

 

Her ever-silent, inwardly-listening husband heard

The dream-speech of divine messengers,

And used the sign language of lowered eyes, bent knees, and folded hands

To tell what he’d heard.

 

Happy the mother who magnifies the Lord,

Who rejoices in God the savior.

 

Happy are we to have a mother who hears the whispered dying wishes

Of the lowest and the highest.

 

Happy to have a blessed mother who shares

Her gravitational hearing,

Her galactic awareness,

Her celestial serenity and

The super nova intensity of her love.

 

Queen mother of Being,

Holy fountain of mercy.

Listening silently to each soul.

Every person’s prayer pondered in her eternal perspective.

 

© copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

Antwerp – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a copy after Peter Paul Rubens (1613) in Lady Chapel in st. Charles Borromeo church on September 5, 2013 in Antwerp, Belgium

“Woman at the Well”

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Woman at the Well

All that I thirst for,
Being known and not condemned.
Eternal relief.

I came to see you.
I have never not loved you.
Do you see me now?

You came first to me?
You wanted water from me?
They all left me dry.

 

copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

Two Poems: “Sewing Light” and “A Habit of Prayer”

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Sewing Light

Evening gasps,

Grasping closer his dusky cloak

Till he’s a shadow in the corner.

Loitering longer near this luminous lady sewing in light.

 

Time glides beside Evening,

Stilled to see His winged spirit is her guest.

 

Your presence, Lord, is felt

By the powers of nature.

Your silence speaks to the cycles of movement,

To our longings for the everness of you.

 

Abide always, meekest one.

Fill my breath with the motions

Of your arriving and going,

She prays.

© Copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

 

“St. Elizabeth of Hungary Working for the Poor” by Marianne Stokes (public domain)

 

A Habit of Prayer

A wedding dress, made for me.

For we, I wield the thread.

 

A habit of prayer I sew.

I sow the seeds of silence.

 

Along the aisle of silence, on the Father’s arm,

The Father escorts me, the alpine path to the altar.

 

Thou takes me to holy wed.

Monastic cell, the marriage bed.

© Copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

The Shepherd’s Pie: Poetry and the Stages of Grief

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The Shepherd’s Pie: Poetry and the Stages of Grief

 

“A slice of hope to raise faithful kids.”

This uplifting, ecumenical show uses engaging conversations and fun entertainment reviews to offer positive insights and media resources for families and youth leaders. We discuss current issues that impact young people at home, in school, and in the world today.

In this episode of The Shepherd’s Pie, Antony Barone Kolenc speaks with Dan Mahoney about how he was able to use poetry to help him cope with the death of his father as he worked through the five stages of grief, and we discuss his poetry book, “A Dear Friend.”

 

 

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Check out other episodes of The Shepherd’s Pie.

Copyright 2025 Antony Barone Kolenc

My Proposal

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My Proposal

 

Always one with the Divine dispatch
Never a thought for himself

Always a swift and selfless messenger
Never a pause to ponder his view

Now God asking to become a person
Never had this happened before

Great Gabriel approaching
This person
This question
This transition

God asking if this Mary might become His mother

Always he’d flown on the wings of the Lord
Never had he felt like a human, hesitant to be seen

Do not be afraid, Gabriel, for you have been chosen for this role

This is my proposal to her

Announce what I say to you

Gabriel turned and looked longer at Mary
He saw all that was pending
All heaven held its breath

I love God who wisely arranges all things
I love this Mary, so different from all other persons
I love Him who wants to be her son

Gabriel brightly and silently came before Mary.

 

copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

Balancing in Thin Air

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Balancing in Thin Air

If you’ve never experienced vertigo, be thankful. It is unpleasant to say the least. Over the last few years, I’ve been grappling with recurring bouts of vestibular neuritis, a fancy word for damage to the inner ear system, causing severe spinning, dizziness, nausea, motion sensitivity, and loss of balance. New life phase, new challenge.

Before vertigo, I floundered to manage work and family responsibilities; before that, it was life as a newlywed, life in college, and high school days. Well, you get the picture. When my resources were spread thin and it seemed there was no air to breathe, finding spiritual equilibrium became even more critical than regaining physical balance.

Two lessons from my father gave me a better perspective during times of imbalance.

One prayer I learned from him—Lord, let me never stray far from You, but if I start to wander, pull me back—helped me visualize a lifesaving rope tied around my waist. I felt safe knowing that as long as I didn’t cut the rope, God was at the other end and would not let go of me. I didn’t need to walk a tightrope alone. Secondly, one of Daddy’s favorite scriptures helped me imagine that I was one of the birds Matthew spoke of and that God would always take care of me:

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”—Matthew 6:26

I’ve shared this verse many times and eventually wrote the poem below as I considered what it means to be the bird.

Life will always present situations that upset my current balance and sometimes whoosh the air from my lungs. When I remember these simple lessons from my father, attend Mass, and receive the sacraments, I find that I’m not suffocating anymore. I stand steady and straight. I can breathe again.

 

Become the Bird

by Paula Veloso Babadi

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. . . ”—Matthew 6:26

 

When air is thin

breathe out

breathe in.

 

Breathe in

beauty

and truth.

Breathe out

despair

and fear.

 

Into thin air

disperse

your sighs,

and

out of thin air

become the bird.

 

Copyright 2025 Paula Veloso Babadi

Edited by Gabriella Batel

Some Contemplative Poets

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Some Contemplative Poets:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, St. John of the Cross, Thomas Merton, and Emily Dickinson

Contemplative poetry: is it something to define, or something to enter?
Is it something one knows when one feels it, or when one is told about it?
Is a contemplative poet known by reputation, or discovered by surprise?

The contemplative poet might be the one knocked silly by the discovery of having written such a surprising poem.

The soul is called into a contemplative quiet. The inward aching yearns for words to convey what cannot be said. Only prayer would do, no other art, apart from poetry.

Perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins steps from a grove of birch trees to dazzle your soul with poetic rapture. Maybe Emily Dickinson will pat the place beside her on the wooden bench in the garden and recite poems while staring into your eyes. Thomas Merton would surely grin and wink and say nothing, while St. John might move his lips softly and tap his foot.

 

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal, chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pierced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change;

Praise him.

 

Dark Night of the Soul (excerpt):
by St. John of the Cross

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
– ah, the sheer grace! –
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything
with no other light or guide
than the One that burned in my heart.

 

The Song of the Traveler (excerpt)
by Thomas Merton

How light the heavy world becomes, when with transparent waters
All the shy elms and wakeful apple trees are dressed!
How the sun shouts, and spins his wheel of flame
And shoots the whole land full of diamonds
Enriching every Flower’s watery vesture with his praise,
O green spring mornings when we hear creation singing!

I think that some poems of Emily Dickenson belong with this esteemed company. She wrote poems of exemplary contemplative power and illumination. Yet those poems, like Emily herself, may have been overlooked or misunderstood by some.

564
by Emily Dickenson

My period had come for Prayer –
No other Art – would do –
My Tactics missed a rudiment –
Creator – Was it you?
God grows above – so those who pray
Horizons – must ascend –
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend –
His House was not – no sign had He –
By Chimney – nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence –
Vast Prairies of Air
Unbroken by a settler –
Were all that I could see –
Infinitude – Had’st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?
The Silence condescended –
Creation stopped – for Me –
But awed beyond my errand –
I worshipped – did not “pray”-

674
by Emily Dickenson

The Soul that hath a Guest
Doth seldom go abroad –
Diviner Crowd at Home –
Obliterate the need –
And Courtesy forbid

A Host’s departure when
Upon Himself be visiting
The Emperor of Men –

1495
by Emily Dickenson

The Thrill came slowly like a Boon
for Centuries delayed
Its fitness growing like the Flood
In sumptuous solitude-
The desolation only missed
While Rapture changed its Dress
And stood amazed before the Change
In ravished Holiness —

I think the spirituality of Emily Dickenson is often misinterpreted, particularly the roots of her poems in contemplative silence. Some consider her reserved lifestyle as an emotional or social deficit, rather than a monastic style choice, like those of St. John or Thomas Merton. A personal indwelling must precede the composition of a poem that shimmers with the presence of Another. In poetry, as in prayer, we seek to savor the illuminating presence of that Vital Word who is our friend.

1039
by Emily Dickenson

I heard, as if I had no Ear
Until a Vital Word
Came all the way from Life to me
And then I knew I heard.
I saw, as if my Eye were on
Another, till a Thing

And now I know ‘twas Light. Because
It fitted them, and came in.
I dwelt, as if Myself were out,
My Body but within
Until a Might detected me
And set my kernel in.
And Spirit turned unto the Dust
“Old Friend, thou knowest me,”
And Time went out to tell the News
And met Eternity.

820
by Emily Dickenson

All Circumstances are the frame
In which His face is set –
All Latitudes exist for His
Sufficient Continent –
The Light His action, and the Dark
The Leisure of His Will –
In Him Existence serve or set
A Force illegible.

And how about you? How does the indwelling spirit of God inspire contemplation and the emergence of prayerful writing in your life?

copyright 2025 Tom Medlar

Roses and Ashes

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Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

 Robert Herrick, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” 1648

In a rare, but not unprecedented, synchronicity this month, St. Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday will fall on the same day. These two dates last came together in 2018, and they will do it again in 2029. According to the Fayetteville Observer, this convergence seems to happen approximately three times in every one-hundred-years. The Twentieth Century also recorded three occurrences, in 1923, 1934, and 1945. (1)

The origins of our contemporary St. Valentine’s Day celebration are hidden in history. Even Roman Catholic sources record an astounding variety, of what can perhaps best be regarded as legends. He may have been a priest, a bishop, and/or a physician. It’s unclear whether the stories that have been combined under this saint’s name include the life one man, or the lives of two.

There is some evidence that, on an actual occasion, a prisoner named Valentine left a letter for his jailer’s daughter signed, “from your Valentine.” He’s said to have healed the child of her blindness; we all prefer to believe he did. He may well have converted her to Christianity. He might have converted her father, too. Plausible evidence does exist that a man named Valentine was imprisoned and martyred for his Christian faith. Other tales suggest that the little girl, and possibly her father, died with him. (2)

One fact is clear, that the official liturgical calendar of the United States makes no reference to a saint’s feast on February 14. On the USCCB website, it’s marked only with a purple dot indicating a day of Lent. There is no alternate reading for a saint’s feast day. (3)

Another mystery is how a saint, whom most legends report died as a martyr for his Faith, came to be a symbol of chocolate, flowers, and every other sort of indulgent romantic concupiscence.

Ash Wednesday, on the other hand, is a reminder of the death we all will experience. The Latin counsel memento mori, “remember you will die,” dates back to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, from sometime before his death in 399 B.C. (4).

The use of ashes as a symbol of penance and anointing for death by the Hebrews is documented in the Old Testament books of Esther 4:1, 484-465 B.C.; Job 42:6, 700-500 B.C.; Daniel 9:3, circa 550 B.C.; and Jonah 3:5-6, circa 500 B.C. (5)

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, Illustration from The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads, Circa 1920; Public
domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A solemn recognition of Ash Wednesday has been practiced since the earliest days of Christianity. The words, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” from Genesis 3:19 (6), have been spoken through millennia in both the Eastern and Roman Catholic churches. They are still used for Ash Wednesday services in many Protestant churches today, as well. 

But the question remains. What meaning can we discern from this mysterious union of love with death, that seems to appear as a trinity in multiple centuries?

For one answer, we might turn again to scripture, and discover that Song of Songs is the only one of three writings classified by biblical scholars as ‘Wisdom books’ that appears in Protestant bibles. Our Catholic Bibles contain all three, with the Book of Wisdom and the Book of Sirach included (7). Here is another trinity.

The Song, also called Canticle of Canticles, is a romantic poem that evokes all the sensual joys of earthly lovers, as metaphors that describe God’s desirous love for us. In Christian churches it is read as allegory (8). The determination of the bride to reach her lover, and the strength of their bond, represent the Sacrament of Matrimony on earth and Christ’s love for His Bride, the Church, in eternity.

When the cross of ashes, death, and dust is marked on our foreheads again this year — and the day wavers from joy, to penance, and grief — may we remember the powerful lover who awaits us, and continue to sing the Canticle:

“… Set me as a seal upon your heart,

as a seal upon your arm;

For Love is strong as Death …

Deep waters cannot quench love,

nor rivers sweep it away …

 … You who dwell in the gardens,

my companions are listening for your voice–

let me hear it!

Swiftly, my lover,

be like a gazelle or a young stag

upon the mountain of spices.”

Song (Cant.) 8:6-7, 13-14 (9)

John William Waterhouse, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May; 1909, Public domain, via Wikimedia
Commons.

© Copyright 2024 by Margaret King Zacharias

Featured Photo: John William Waterhouse, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May,1908, Public domain, via
Wikimedia Commons.
Footnotes for Roses and Ashes and Sources for Further Reading
  1. https://www.fayobserver.com/story/news/live-wire/2018/02/06/live-wire-when-was-last-time-ash-wednesday-and-valentines-day-were-same-date/15307391007/#
  1. For a few different perspectives, see:
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/will-the-real-st-valentine-please-stand-up
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Valentine
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/history-of-st-valentine.html
  1. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021424.cfm
  2. https://dailystoic.com/what-is-memento-mori/#:~:text=Memento%20Mori%20—%20(Latin%3A%20remember,but%20dying%20and%20being%20dead.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Socrates
  1. https://catholicstraightanswers.com/what-are-the-origins-of-ash-wednesday-and-the-use-of-ashes/
  1. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/3
  1. https://www.artesianministries.org/bible-study/why-are-catholic-and-protestant-bibles-different/
  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Songs
9. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/songofsongs/8