Love Notes to Yahweh

When Simple Things Speak

2012-01-09T08:16:00.003-05:00

It has always been this way for me. The simplest things speak. Last night, tidying up the living room, I saw this Off button my littlest daughter made, for one of her animation projects.

Standing by the coffee table, I stopped moving and stared. Struck, yes, that's how I felt. You'd think I had been visited by an angel.

But I was not afraid.

Just very still.

And the simple red Off button has been speaking to me ever since.

Knitting Yourself (or Someone Else) into Silent Peace

2011-12-05T09:00:00.009-05:00

"Oh, that's girl stuff—you guys wouldn't be interested. But I do find it contemplative," she said to her husband and their friend Brother Anthony.

Thus opened the moment when Peggy Rosenthal discovered that the Desert Fathers wove baskets while they were at prayer. And, said Brother Anthony, since it was the *process* of weaving the basket that mattered, the Fathers sometimes burned their baskets afterwards.

Peggy finds the process of knitting (a kind of weaving) calming. And, like another woman she heard about, it sometimes helps her "knit herself into the silent peace at the heart of the Divine Presence."

But Peggy doesn't burn the work of her hands. Work has its place too—no less the kind that builds something along the way. This building, it can be touchingly beautiful, as when, she recounts, one Prayer Shawl Ministry group knitted a shawl for a friend facing divorce. The shawl—was it not moments of touch, knitting the hurting woman to other hearts, even as the woman was losing a heart she'd come unraveled from?

I sit here this morning and think that peace is a process. A slow knitting, sometimes of what has come unraveled, sometimes of new yarn, new moments yet to be placed clearly in space and time.

And I think my fingers are their own kind of knitters. Picking up letters and passing them through loops, making shawls for those in need of shelter and warmth.

Knit One, Purl a Prayer

2011-11-17T09:10:00.005-05:00

I "met" Peggy Rosenthal when she did a lovely review of Maureen Doallas's Neruda's Memoirs.

Now, reading the preface to Rosenthal's new book, Knit One, Purl a Prayer, I realize that when I first "met" her I had noticed the Jewish name but not *really* noticed. Peggy reminds me in her Preface: Judaism was the faith of her cradle days, though it was practiced mostly on High Holy Days.

As she lays out an invitation to join her on a knitting journey, albeit not asking us to come with yarn in hand, I am struck that she has found a way to be both Christian and Jewish. By this I mean that though she is now Catholic, she embraces the physical as a way to the transcendent. And that reminds me of the jubilance of Jewish festivals, filled with things to touch and taste, as reminders of the spirit in the surface of things. Of course, that is quite Catholic too, and so it seems fitting that this is where she found her place upon conversion.

I am not a knitter, anymore. Though my grandmother once taught me, and if I close my eyes I can remember the click of the needles, the feel of the yarn passing through my fingers. So the memories draw me, and I think... Maybe I will journey a little with Peggy. Listen in as she puts needle to needle, knits physical to spirit...

The Age-Old Struggle

2011-10-26T09:59:00.005-04:00

As far back as Babylonian literature (which we have some record of), we humans have storied the struggle of life—a struggle variously cast as chaos versus order, good versus evil, freedom versus oppression.

Our most popular films and books today still probe this dynamic. The good guys and the bad guys are the stuff of action, conflict, and triumph.

Some people believe this has arisen mostly from humanity's struggle with forces of nature. And, needing a way to articulate this struggle and feel some sense of meaning within it, we have turned to myths and spiritual stories.

There is some truth to that.

But there is another truth put forward by the bible: the physical is an extension of the spiritual. The "battles" we experience within the world and ourselves are rooted in another dimension.

This is the subject of chapter 8 of Sanctuary of the Soul.

The other day my daughter and I watched a TED talk about the universe. Even the physicist who presented it admitted he could not completely wrap his mind around what I would call the eternal nature of matter and dark matter. Even the universe presents us a mystery and a drama and a wondering: will there be a happily ever after? who controls this, if anyone?

Watching the talk, I suddenly felt how small I am and how large is the mind of God. If Satan is simply an angel, he too is small in comparison. Perhaps this is all we need remember. This, and the practice of seeking the Mind that rules not just this world but all that is beyond it and beyond and within time.

As Foster notes, we might be tempted to consult lesser things, and these might bind us: witchcraft, astrology, tarot, palmistry, spirit guides, Ouija boards. They might give us the illusion that we control our share of the world and the universe.

Why live in that place? When we can live in the Eternal, through the connection of Christ and his Spirit?

Yellow Flames Flutter

2011-10-22T13:14:00.005-04:00

The other night I pulled out my house copy of InsideOut. Not sure why. Maybe because it had somehow turned up at my bedside. And the solitude it had poured from seemed to be calling.

I realize that many of the poems are just glimpses, like this one...

Kale is purpling,
bluing and
purpling.

Or this one...

Little lemon tongues,
wagged off at last.

And this one...

Lightning flashes
and I write
of yellow leaves.

There are longer poems in the book too, but these are the kinds that solitude evoked—a simple focusing on one vision. An awe, if you will, and a willingness to capture that awe in very few words.

So you will not be surprised when I was pleased by Chapter 7 of Sanctuary of the Soul, which suggested poetry (reading or writing it), as a way to embrace silence and release ourselves from distraction.

Foster shares this poem from Robert Siegel...

Yellow flames flutter
about the feeder:
A Pentecost of finches.

Where does Siegel (or anyone?) come up with something like that? First the heart must see... and flutter. Near the feeder, in the yard, perhaps beside a lake or the sea.

The Voice of God

2011-10-19T22:21:00.003-04:00

I know people who claim to hear the voice of God. Sometimes I think they are simply hearing their own wishes.

The human brain has an amazing ability to see patterns, to find or create meaning. We are seekers of symmetry. For this reason, sometimes I have been a person who thought she heard the voice of God, when perhaps I was simply making meaning I wanted to make, when I was collecting pieces for some desired symmetry.

At times I have, therefore, felt very down about the whole voice-of-God issue.

I don't think we will ever get it totally right. Sometimes we are just going to be making stuff up and attributing it to God. Still, if we could even get it right about half of the time, that might move our lives forward in a good way. I would accept those odds, all things considered.

In Chapter 6 of Sanctuary of the Soul, Foster suggests three attributes of the voice of God...

- quality: "a steady, calm force"
- spirit: "peaceful, joyful"
- content: "consistent with [biblical] truths about God's nature and kingdom"

I like these indicators. Maybe it could help me move to the 75% range, if I paid attention.

But even if I never know for sure, I can measure my actions against scripture and church tradition—the voice of God as experienced by a cumulative community over time. It is not all up to me. I can hear through the ears of others who have blessed the world.

Swallow What You Have Tasted

2011-10-11T16:22:00.005-04:00

Gazing on God. If it sounds abstract, then perhaps we need a concrete way to come to it.

In Chapter 5 of Sanctuary of the Soul, Foster suggests three ways...

• behold in Creation
• listen to worship music
• sit in silence

If I were to put deeper words to this, I would take us to the biblical festivals that eventually informed the Church Calendar. I would take us especially to Sukkot.

During Sukkot, the people of Israel built huts outdoors. The huts were mostly open to the sky. And here they spent time eating and sleeping, the very air and its currents reminding them of Spirit breath. Tasty fruits, vegetables, song, silent nights under the stars: it was all there.

My church tradition has very little connection to such ancient festivals or even a modern Church Calendar. And many a day I think this is why we can't, as Foster quotes it, "swallow what [we] have tasted." Or maybe we can't even taste to begin with.

I've done little things with my own family, to try to recapture such concrete experiences of God. But I do wish for a wider community that could teach and support and extend such ways... to help me taste, and see, and swallow the glory of God.

Collecting Ourselves and Something Else

2011-10-08T10:13:00.007-04:00

The poet William Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

I love that word "recollected." Something about the sound of it.

And it is that word, hyphenated by Foster into its two parts re-collected, that stood out to me in Chapter 4 of Sanctuary of the Soul.

While Foster spoke of psychological relaxing and surrendering, through sitting still and maybe going over a Scripture in one's mind, I was somehow thinking of daffodils, and how Wordsworth once wrote of them...

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Thinking of the daffodils, I remembered how psychologically relaxing it had been to spend time outdoors every day for a year. So relaxing, in fact, that my body began to develop a new 4-o'clock sense of longing for solitude and fresh air and my cup of tea. A "pattern of life" (as Foster puts it) had developed, and from it came deep times of collection— collection of images, truths, inner spaciousness. I wrote more poetry during that time than I ever have or have done since. I re-collected the past and somehow came out with a larger sense of love.

I don't sit outside daily anymore. It had its time and place. The other day, in Wordsworth style, I allowed myself to simply lie on the couch. The afternoon sun was warm on my arm and I fell asleep. I woke up filled with so many little epiphanies it was almost overwhelming.

Is it important how we go about collecting and re-collecting ourselves? I'm not so sure it is. Sitting still in a chair, going outside with a cup of tea, lying down on the couch in the afternoon, with a sense of wanting to know anew: each can be a basket into which we gather refreshment, vision, and love.

Steve Jobs, Time, and the Meadow

2011-10-06T14:00:00.006-04:00

"He was an amazing man," I said to my Littlest. She looked into my eyes, knew that I was about to cry, and a sweet "I'm so sorry" flowed through her gaze. I read the obituary aloud. We talked of Apple technologies we love, and she was fascinated to learn about the man who brought them to her life.

Through the rest of the evening I kept considering how time was not Steve Jobs' friend. I thought about others like him, who have been as a "candle in the wind." I thought of one of my favorite story tellers, Flannery O'connor. All those who, so brilliant, have died young, leaving the world wondering what it missed because of their early leaving.

Today I noticed this phrase in Chapter 4 of Sanctuary of the Soul: "time was our friend."

Foster was speaking of an experience at a place called Quaker Meadow—a place where, for a day, time seemed to stand still.

Sometimes I think such moments are a hint of eternity. Time is not really our friend; life can never be long enough. But in our Quaker-Meadow moments we taste a hope that we will live on in the mind and heart of God. And we will not go missing from the world.

Windows to Heaven

2011-10-04T18:01:00.003-04:00

Just when I settled on my way, I found that Foster's text turned; it would be a stretch to try to find a breath prayer in Chapter 3 of Sanctuary of the Soul.

That is fine. In fact, it seems often to go this way in spiritual life. We settle on a process, a path, and something shifts.

The shift in this case was from the cerebral to the creative, from words to visions and connections. Foster discussed three “windows to heaven”: the imagination, lectio divina, and the community of the saints.

Most interesting was the brief discussion of imagination and how, in its way, it also infuses lectio and our understanding of community past and present. This is prayer turned painting (especially through the use of icons), prayer absorbed in pictures and a washing-over, prayer as a heritage we share with generations before us.

My favorite quote was, “allow the Lord to give you many delightful images and pictures of God’s desires for humanity.”

I am reminded of the work of scientist John Medina, who discusses how the lion’s share of our brains is given over to the visual. I’m not sure how this works for someone who can’t see, though I imagine that, in vision’s stead, touch can give shape to some kind of “visual” construction. In this case, it would be one of hopeful connections, grace-full constructions.

So I come to this today: God who sees, let me see. A breath prayer, after all.

Turning Words into Prayer

2011-09-29T08:02:00.004-04:00

I have decided that what I am reading is a devotional. I have to decide this, to frame my experience with it and be sure to take something away. Perhaps this way you'll not tire of me, and I'll not tire of finishing Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer.

As such, I will find a few words from each chapter and make them my morning's breath prayer.

Today, in the silence of this room, sipping my Green Tea Echinacea, I breathe in...

God of beautiful vision

I breathe out...

transform my heart

Transformation of the heart is the concept I pulled from Chapter 2 of the book. Oh, that it would be so simple as to pull heart-transformation from words. And wouldn't it be marvelous if I didn't experience fear in the very praying of such uncomplicated words. Maybe this is part of the power of a breath prayer. With each repetition, we can unwittingly delve into layers of fear, hopes, argument and embrace.

Another sip of tea now, and this...

God of beautiful vision, transform my heart.

Wishing for the Sanctuary

2011-09-27T07:15:00.009-04:00

The last book in my little project pile is Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer.

I opened the book a bit hopefully. Such a beautiful cover, and I love the title. But I find myself feeling the opposite of when I started Ravished by Beauty.

After reading just the prologue of Ravished by Beauty I held my breath, hoping the book would continue in the promise it began: to be fresh, informative, lyrical, provoking. (It kept its promise.)

But on this quiet, foggy, silent morning—reading the introduction and the first chapter of Sanctuary—I am somehow feeling like I've gone to hear a church sermon, one that is tired and strung together by bible stories that should be powerful but somehow don't feel powerful at all.

Of course I am partial to Foster's observation that biblical meditation often included "silent reflection upon God's works in nature." And my favorite part of the chapter was a snippet that explains two Hebrew words: haga and stach. Our bibles, he notes, often translate these words as "meditate," but they are more nuanced than that, suggesting...

to mutter, to moan, to whisper, to reflect, to rehearse, to muse and even to coo like a dove. (Is. 59:11)

If the book delves more deeply into nuances like these as it goes along, I will perhaps, after all, find sanctuary in its words.

A Gathering Art

2011-09-26T11:25:00.007-04:00

When was the last time you were "summoned to amazement" by Creation? Do you have natural "remembered places" that astonish you? Are you engaged in the practice of a "gathering art" as you sit outside on a simple day, or hike a mountain, or walk in the woods? Does any of this move you to love and action?

These are the underlying questions of the final chapter of Ravished by Beauty.

Pulling together ideas about "Calvin's God of beauty, mirrored in creation, and Edwards's communicative God, eagerly seeking ways of multiplying relationships [and glory]," Belden C. Lane makes his crowning pitch to those who profess a deep yearning for God: if we are moved by this yearning it will go beyond words. We will develop, as Edwards noted, "a capacity to delight."

Bringing it home with a concrete example of East St. Louis (across the river from his own residence), where Dead Creek teems with chemicals and ugliness, Lane asks us to test the measure of our delight in Creation (and ultimately in God).

Are we willing to let such places remain stripped of their "natural ability to reflect God's glory"? Are we willing to let the Dead Creeks of our world be silenced in their praise? Likewise, if it is true, as Sandra Steingraber argues in Living Downstream, that "90 percent of all forms of cancer may be attributable to specific environmental factors," can we sit by in silence as praiseless places lead to the eclipse of human voices of praise?

Lane's conclusion is sober, "Failing to exercise the consciousness I possess, I too fail to give praise."

Let us, then, he urges, join our words and actions. Let "the desire of human beings...join in God's own deep longing for beauty."

Maybe it can begin with a simple gathering art. Go outside every day. And, there, listen for the heart of God.

And Edwards in the Woods

2011-09-24T11:07:00.004-04:00

First I found Calvin in the yard. Then I found Edwards in the woods.

If you're like me, your most prominent memory of Jonathan Edwards is his hell-fire sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

But Chapter 5 of Ravished by Beauty suggests we might better conceive of Edwards overarching viewpoint as "sinners in the hands of a beautiful God."

As a child, Edwards was known to build prayer huts in the woods. As an adult, says Lane, "he wrote of songbirds, flowing water, and the intricate movement of the stars. He spoke of seeing these things...as the voice of God, glimpsing what is held out to us by the divine hand."

If God can be seen in the beautiful world, as Edwards believed He could, then we humans have a clear role to play. We are what Edwards called "the consciousness of the creation." Lane further explains this, saying, ours is the "responsibility of discerning and articulating the aesthetic/moral character of the cosmos as a mirror of God's glory."

I was most fascinated by Edwards belief that this beauty went down to, as it were, the very bones of the universe. Lane notes that some of Edwards ideas were before their time and we are only just beginning to see scientifically how right he was.

I suspect Edwards would have loved String Theory; he spoke of the world as a "vast orchestra tuning up." I imagine he would have also loved our discoveries about the prevalence of fractals. Even our own brains exhibit this elegant design. Edwards would have called it an image of the glory of God.

It Ain't Easy Being Puritan & Narcissistic

2011-09-22T15:57:00.006-04:00

Did you know we are selling our cities? I heard about that on the news the other day. Cities that can't keep themselves in financial order have been selling themselves to foreign (and domestic) investors.

I am thinking of various kingdoms throughout the ages that overspent on their desires, only to resort to selling parts of their economies and important land (say like that which had oil reserves) to foreign investors. The end result? These countries went down or lost control of their ability to make their own decisions about resource-use.

I do not know a lot about the selling of our cities; I won't be able to engage in any high-level conversation on the topic. I am not bringing it up to be political. It just seems to be a very practical and pressing example of what happens when our desires exceed our mechanisms for dealing with desires.

The Puritans were fairly clear on this point: they stirred up desire (mightily!), but they balanced it with a cautiousness found in the book of Proverbs. It's a hard balance to strike.

Indulge desire too much and we can become narcissistic. And, oddly enough, deprive and constrain too much and we can also become narcissistic.

Chapter 4 of Ravished by Beauty explores how the Puritans tried to keep a balance. It wasn't easy then, and it isn't easy now.

This brings me back to the practical. I am thinking of a friend who cannot control her own spending. She finally told her husband, "Take the credit card. Give me a cash allowance. I thought I could make this work, but I can't. I don't want to sink this family."

My friend impresses me. She balanced her desires with a constraint that she needed. She chose the Puritan way instead of the narcissistic way. And it was a beautiful thing.

The Surprising Puritanism of Ann Voskamp

2011-09-21T08:41:00.009-04:00

I remember well the day a displeased blogger made the indictment: Ann Voskamp had trespassed Christian boundaries by writing of her love for God in sensual terms.

There was a lot of back-and-forth, some declarations of "disgusting!", gasps of shock and groans of embarrassment. Some of those responses can still be seen over in the Amazon reviews of Ann's book.

No question, Ann had been... rather forthright. She spoke of consummation. Spirit skin on spirit skin. No self-respecting Puritan could accept such language. This must be the language of secular Enlightenment, or something like that, yes?

Let Chapter 3 of Ravished by Beauty set the record straight. Enlightenment thinkers were embarrassed by the Puritans. The Puritans, surprisingly (perhaps) spoke unabashedly of their relationship to God in sensual language.

While Puritans like Richard Sibbes looked "to consummated union as the ultimate goal of conversion," pastors like Thomas Shepard spoke in words that might have been stolen from Ann, "he makes love to thee... 'Tis fervent, vehement, earnest love...The Lord longs for this...pleads for this...Take thy soul to the Bride-chamber, there to be with him forever and ever..."

John Cotton said it this way, "It will inflame our hearts to kisse him again, if the kisse be from God." And Francis Rous, in a sermon on Isaiah 54:4-5, encouraged his listeners to "fasten on him, not thine eye only, but thy mightiest love, and hottest affection...that thou maist lust after him..."

[blush]

Ann Voskamp seems almost tame in comparison.

Praise Creates the World

2011-09-20T10:27:00.005-04:00

I hear it this morning: the praise of rain. If you are a Texas friend of mine, you hear it this morning: the lament of moisture-empty air. I myself put down a book to reach for my daughter when she came in the room a few moments ago, so I could show her my delight... that she is here, a gift to me and to the world.

We are made for praise. And it springs from our response to God's creations.

Chapter 2 of Ravished by Beauty explores the intertwined role of humankind, earth, and its creatures in responding to God—either in praise of his providence through Nature, or in lament of the brokenness of Creation.

It was fascinating to read of Calvin's ideas about the world as God's theater, where we are treated to visions of God's beauty and power and tender love. A theater, however, is not complete without an audience. We are that audience. But not we alone. The trees clap their hands, the deer pants for water... desiring God's power in providing it.

We can ignore God's gifts, God's own delight in Creation and our part in preserving it. To do so, Calvin says, is "to burn the book [of nature] which our Lord has shown us, wittingly undermining the order he has established in nature by playing the butcher in killing the defenseless bird with our own hands..."

One of the more interesting ideas Belden Lane proposed as an outflow of these concepts was not just that we stop hurting the earth and its creatures (for it and they are our cohorts in praise), but that we also seek ways to incorporate them into our liturgies. He asks...

"What have we to learn from wilderness retreats and gardens of prayer, outdoor labyrinths...and fruits and vegetables...brought to the communion table on Sundays and shared with the poor?"

I was also reminded of something I discovered when researching for God in the Yard: some church communities of long ago used to release birds during their services, as a symbol of Divine presence and Spirit. Short of doing this, I suppose we could simply hold services sometimes out-of-doors (and not just at sunrise on Easter Sunday).

In all, the point is praise. For One who sustains the world by his own delight, and, according to Calvin, relies on our delight as an echo, in a partnership of continued creation.

Calvin in the Yard?

2011-09-19T10:52:00.007-04:00

Over at Amazon today, I noticed one of the reviews of God in the Yard. It's subject line:

A New Kind of Spiritual Discipline.

I guess it can feel that way. Sitting out in the yard, taking in the gifts of nature (even the mosquitoes, yes :). It can feel like a new thing, to the modern Christian accustomed to a pietistic approach.

It even felt new to me—when I sat under stars in snow or rain—since I come from a church that emphasizes intellectual devotion and abstraction over Creation, the senses, and experience.

You can imagine how fascinated I was this morning, then, to read of the dual-thinking of Calvin and the Puritans, on matters of nature, desire, and even ecology. I hadn't known much about Calvin except the doctrine of predestination. This, I discovered, is owed to some of the theologians who came after him, as they emphasized one side of his ideas over the other.

The best way to share with you my fascination about the lesser-known side of Calvin is to share some of the quotes from Calvin and the Puritans, that were included in Chapter 1 of Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality.

William Lawson, on gardening as an aid to spiritual reflection:

"pause with your selfe, and view the end of all your labours in an Orchard: unspeakable pleasure, and infinite commodity"

Nathaniel Ward, Puritan pastor, in a code of laws for the Massachusetts colony:

"No man shall exercise any Tiranny or Crueltie towards any bruite Creature which are usuallie kept for man's use"

John Calvin

"What a pleasure it is to dive into the secrets of nature.... What a deal of the majesty of the great Creator doth shine in the face of this fabric of the world!"

"If I now seek to despoil the land of what God has given it to sustain human beings, then I am seeking as much as I can to do away with God's goodness."

These are not isolated quotes, but just a few of many that Belden C. Lane shares. His discussion is a beautiful balance of thought that might fascinate you too—whether you're sitting at the desk or in the yard.

Into the Rockies and the Wyoming Desert

2011-09-16T10:54:00.007-04:00

Glancing at my little pile, I thought it best to take what looked like the hardest title next. Hardest, because it seemed more focused on religious thought-traditions than I might enjoy and, also, it's the thickest book in the stack.

So this morning I pulled out Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality. I planned to breeze through the Prologue and Chapter 1.

Let's just say I was pressed into a motionless place, my back up against the Rockies and my soul stretched thin across the high desert country of Western Wyoming.

As you might guess, I didn't make it past the prologue.

This is a beautiful book. Woven with sights of Glacier Trails and mountain bluebells, slowed with surprising statements about Calvinism and Puritanism, it will not yield to a quick reading. Of that I am sure.

Of all the quotes next to which I put my little "I love this" dots in the margin, this one seems to capture the main theme, as I understand it so far...

"Calvinism was, in part, the product of a landscape of desire—hardened by affliction, toughened by geography, yet driven by the earth's wild beauty to a God of matchless splendor."

I find myself now piqued with a desire of my own: that this book will continue in the fashion it began. That it will keep its promises and remain as beautiful and thoughtful as the Prologue that opened the conversation about the twin experiences of desire and the "weaning of desire."

On Whether it Works

2011-09-15T09:44:00.007-04:00

The final chapter in A Sunlit Absence is an amalgam of thoughts on whether or not contemplative prayer works: as the best choice for prayer, as something suitable for a variety of personalities and lifestyles, as an aid to forgiveness, etc.

I admit I was disappointed by this chapter; it seemed as if it would have been best folded into the rest of the book, piece by piece. And it ended abruptly with one of the potpourri of thoughts, disconnected from any general drawing back to the whole of the book.

There is a part of me that wants to do something other than end like this—with what feels like a review instead of an entering-in. And I am reminded of how important it is for writers to keep their promises to readers all the way through an endeavor, whether that endeavor is an article, a poem, or a whole book.

It is okay, of course, when we writers forget to keep our promises. But our readers may be prone to remember.

____

On a different note, I wonder if any of you have tried contemplative prayer or plan to try it? The rosary, by the way, can be considered a form of contemplative prayer due to its repetitive nature. So far, my girls and I have made rosaries, but I have yet to teach them how to pray with one. (Of course this will mean I'll need to learn it myself first! :)

What Voices Are We Hearing?

2011-09-14T08:24:00.008-04:00

Now this is one of the trickiest chapters of all.

Chapter 7 of A Sunlit Absence, discusses "sharp trials of the intellect," wherein the person comes to see his faults more deeply—especially faults like vainglory, pride, envy, and judgment.

Why is this tricky?

Because just when we think we are discovering our faults and beginning to "break to pieces" under the weight of them (surely a sign of growth for the Contemplative), we may be doing something altogether different—and that is a kind of codependent acceptance that we are a terrible person, unworthy of people's affections, certainly unworthy of God's.

Is our discovery true?

Christian life carries this risk: we may think we are hearing the Voice of Truth declaring us selfish, unfriendly, arrogant (and as humans, we certainly can be!), when what we really may be hearing are the voices of loss, parental or cultural judgment, or our own self-deprecating fears.

I can think of no good way around this except the Song of Songs and its progression from love, to doubt-and-violence, to deeper love.

In the beginning, the Beloved and her Lover are almost high with love. It is Ideal, each viewing the other as perfect. In the center of the book, there is doubt and violence, as the Beloved has a terrible dream in which she's violated by both her Lover and the world outside their intimate love. In the final scenes, the Beloved comes up from the desert leaning on the arm of her Lover. The language of the Ideal is stripped away, but so is the language of doubt and violence. The Beloved appears tired or weak (as we all are, in the sense that we are "sinners"), yet she is accepted, bonded to her Lover as she leans into him.

What allows this bond? She and her Lover are no longer Perfect, but they do not live in a place of doubt-and-violence either.

Tricky again, here, because our Lover is God, always perfect. But can we see how important it is that we not live in a place of self-deprecation? For in that place, we simply cry in our chambers or wander the night and live assaulted by its terrors.

Becoming the Beloved, truly, is no simple journey. Maybe that is why the last scene in Song of Songs depicts the Beloved and her Lover coming up from the desert. And so the path is one we recognize: vineyard, to desert, to vineyard. A long and winding road.

Going on a Bear Hunt

2011-09-13T09:24:00.011-04:00

One of my favorite children's books, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, has this refrain...

We can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh no! We've got to go through it.

And then, depending on what the characters are going through—grass or mud or water—a delightful followup sound is inserted, like swishy swashy, swishy swashy, swishy swashy or stumble trip, stumble trip, stumble trip.

Chapter 6 of A Sunlit Absence is what I am going to fondly call the Swishy Swashy chapter. Or, if you prefer a little adventure, the going-on-a-bear-hunt chapter.

At one point Laird notes, about a particular woman he uses as an example, "She could not see why this battle with depression and panic should be happening to her. But the pathless path of prayer knows only how to move through struggle; and the only way through is through—not around, over, under, or alongside, but through."

Like many of the stages in this book, I recognized myself in this got-to-go-through-it one: creative disintegration...manifested in depression, panic, and awareness. I speak of these tender times in God in the Yard, and looking back this morning, remembering the pain, I wonder if anyone would actually choose this for themselves. Would I have chosen it if I had known?

Sometimes our soul chooses for us. Perhaps because, as Anais Nin has said, "There [comes] a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud [is] more painful than the risk it [takes] to blossom."

Almost laughably, Laird speaks of his example-woman being "pinched" by two events. Laughable, not because it's funny, but because I think of how I opened God in the Yard saying, "But it's no fun to live with the pain of pinching. That is why I first returned to the woods."

Reading Laird this morning, I also recognized where the path through leads us. Quoting a Carmelite author, he comes to this: "Let yourself be loved."

Maybe our depression, our anxiety, our panic is ultimately one of fear that we aren't loved. We didn't recognize this fear when we were busy loudly swishy swashy-ing through the woods. When we sat still, it suddenly overwhelmed and threatened to swallow us.

For me, the beginning of feeling loved came, oddly, through a Whitman poem. It did not take the sadness away, but it was the initiation of a hope that indeed there was a "through," and that on the other side lay Love. This is the poem, excerpted in God in the Yard... and further excerpted here...

...now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

...

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumbered upon yourself all your life;
Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time...

The mockeries are not you;
Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd routine, if these
conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me...

The hopples fall from your ankles...

And when the hopples fall from our ankles, perhaps that is when we've made it through, to Love.

And What of Boredom?

2011-09-12T08:54:00.007-04:00

Is there something of the human spirit that follows a certain path of the soul, even without direction from Tradition?

I am thinking there must be.

Or, if one prefers, it might be said that the Spirit of God, either overtly or through the "way things are" works to carry us along a certain spiritual and creative way.

Chapter 5 of A Sunlit Absence speaks of the necessity of boredom, noting that it can produce "a posture of release and receptivity" and an ultimate deepening through "creative disintegration."

It goes on to say that the person may experience prayer and solitude as "futile, a great waste of time, that we are going nowhere." This is an important step to deeper prayer, where we "grow accustomed to...boredom and not rely so exclusively on our feelings."

I am all but silenced reading these words. Are they not the same kind of things that took me into a year's journey? One which started with me saying, "I wanted to go to exotic places to jumpstart my creativity. I needed an Annie-Dillard-style trip to the Galapagos. But, quite simply, I was going nowhere." (chapter 1, God in the Yard)

Does not Tradition explain, now after-the-fact, why I also wrote this...

There were days when I would come to the woods and think, what's the point...I'm wasting my time...nothing is happening here...I'm not doing anything.... Who did I think I was sitting out here doing nothing? (Chapter 10, God in the Yard)

Perhaps whether we are talking about prayer and life with God or creativity and a life with others, we are really looking at the same dynamic. We move forward only by going through times of release. We do something by accepting times of nothing.

If we feel bored today, or drawn to do nothing for a while, maybe we are on the right track.

Accidental Contemplation

2011-09-11T08:21:00.012-04:00

An odd fascination.

That's what I felt, reading Chapter 4 of A Sunlit Absence.

And, at first, a sort of dance of both recognition and defense—as I began to see similarities between my year outdoors and Laird's description of how Contemplation progresses.

Then I smiled. A smile of release.

After all, in my year of outdoor solitude, I had not promised to stick to any practice except going outside with my cup of tea and (sometimes) a little book of Psalms. I had not promised to focus on a particular prayer, or to "scrutinize [my] thoughts" or stay in a state of "attention." And I certainly had not promised to avoid a nap, should it be so gracious as to show up after I finished my last sip of tea.

So, between Laird's lovely descriptions of "light meeting Light" and "spaciousness" and "inner awareness" that seemed a little abstract, I suddenly began to remember something that felt real and touchable.

I remembered that, simply by showing up outside every day for a whole year, to a relatively quiet place where no one required anything of me, I had begun to want to know the names of things. Of plants and creatures and the people who served me in stores or at ticket counters. I remembered how I had begun to open doors for people, to listen to the sound of their voices (and be more willing to be quiet in order to gain the privilege). And, yes, I remembered how I had "dozed" (an apparent aberration to be avoided in the Contemplative stance). Oh, I had dozed! And it had been a wonder. Because if I stayed outside and let the restful time pass, I always moved back into a state of unforced attention again; the nap had been needful.

Laird says that one of the steps in Contemplation is to come to a place where you feel you can "just be." Maybe one of the most difficult places to do this is in regards to spiritual practice itself, accepting that it's okay if we have chosen the nap and the tea and the little book of Psalms. It is not a contest after all.

Silence is Within

2011-09-10T07:54:00.011-04:00

You have felt it perhaps. The silence after love, as you trace your Beloved. Or the silence of holding your child at some moment of discovery. You have felt the silence of a river and its silvery fish. Or maybe you have closed your eyes while on a subway and let the squeal of the turns and the clattering rocking become part of a silent symphony inside you.

Sometimes, in the face of irritating sounds, I play this game with my children: what is its beat, its quality, and can we meet it with a movement or song of our own that synchronizes, incorporates, joins?

Reading about Silence in chapter 3 of A Sunlit Absence, I did not understand (such mysterious language at times, such reasoning that assumes you are already in the circle of understanding).

Yet, by the end of the chapter, I felt I understood this: "Silence resounds in all sound." I don't know that I understood it in the way the author meant it, but it occurred to me that he was speaking of Silence as if it were a Presence itself.

And if Silence is a presence, it is something to be met and either shunned or welcomed. It is the moment after love, it is the holding, it is the river winding, it is the squeal and the clattering of metal-on-metal we can fold into a song. It is a quality we ourselves bring to our encounters, or it is the recognition of the Divine in everything—and here I am thinking of a verse the author quoted in a previous chapter, "In Him we live and move and have our being" or I am thinking of David's words, "like a weaned child is my soul within me."

_____

The author also seems to be saying that outer Silence can cultivate inner silence. In this chapter, he mentions the value of Retreat. That is why I love this place. Especially the silent nights under a sky full of more stars than you've probably seen in all your life.

Is Silence the Answer?

2011-09-09T10:05:00.006-04:00

You've played them, perhaps: The inner videos spoken of in Chapter 2 of A Sunlit Absence.

These looping thoughts "stirred up by a thought or image, can actually make us sick. Not just spiritually, but mentally and physically as well."

How to counter this? Says Laird, "The life of stillness gradually heals...and leads us into the wide open fields where buried treasure lies."

The center of this stillness can be found in a kind of breath prayer.

I say can be found, because though it can work as part of gaining freedom, I don't think it is necessarily a solution by itself. Especially for the person who suffers from ADHD. Especially for the person who is using the inner videos as a way to avoid tapping into deep creative places.

This is complicated, to say the least. Obviously, stillness and rewiring our thoughts can be needful. But sometimes the rewiring happens through movement and action as much as stillness.

I am reminded that there is no *one way* to do spiritual practice, no perfect answer to the question of our freedom in God and in life. I'm not talking about Jesus here, about whether He is the answer. I'm not talking theology, I'm talking practice. It concerns me that we get on spiritual practice bandwagons that may or may not be helpful for us and others, and we can end up with shame and a sense of spiritual failure that saps us instead of turning us towards the world.

Is silence the answer? Perhaps. If what we mean is a silencing of the inner chatter and dread, through means that may or may not look like silence.

___

(for more on this issue, consult the chapter Poetry: Silence, in God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us.)

What's Your Chair?

2011-09-08T11:23:00.004-04:00

For a special project, I'm reading a book called A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation.

Hmmm.

I love the picture on the front. A gentle woman leaning in the shadows, arm on a book, quiet. I love the idea of silence and solitude (you know I do).

The book encourages us to choose a prayer chair on which to practice our silent moments ("quite googleable and not especially inexpensive"). I am wondering: couldn't a red sled do?

It also occurs to me that all of the examples so far, of successful contemplatives, were monks and nuns (and of course Jesus in the Wilderness). I wonder if these people were naturally introverted and drawn to the idea of silence. I have little doubt that they were childless.

I'm not judging the book yet (by its cover or anything else :), but I simply want to say that I truly wonder where the extrovert fits in a life of faith, where the woman with a few children hanging on her arms can find silence and solitude. I found some outdoors for a year, but it wasn't quite what the book I'm reading seems to have in mind.

In Hymns

2011-08-29T12:12:00.007-04:00

A long time ago, the girls and I would sit on the couch together and learn hymns. Somewhere along the line we stopped. Not sure why.

Recently, Sara told me she misses those times.

So this Sunday, I began a revival of the practice.

It fits very nicely with my focus for this year: music. And we are going to learn about the background of the hymns too.

We began yesterday with Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Sonia, my Littlest, sweetly researched the writer's life. We learned that Robert Robinson began as a barber; became a minister in Cambridge, England; wrote this hymn to go along with a sermon; and later fell into spiritual struggle and sorrow.

One day, many years after composing the hymn, Robinson met a woman in a carriage, who was humming his song. She asked how he liked the hymn. He began weeping and said, "I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."

Sonia also introduced us to John Wyeth (born in Cambridge, Mass), who added Robinson's hymn to a collection called the Repository of Sacred Music (which sold about 150,00 copies!). I couldn't help thinking how Robinson's words and music still made (and continue to make) an impact despite his difficulties. Maybe we are all like that, in our way.

The girls and I also looked up fountain in the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. We read all the scriptures referenced and marveled about how Jesus is a "fount" because he is Wisdom itself (also called a "fountain" in Proverbs).

Our time together was so rich. Sonia even looked up the etymology of the word "fount," and it made me smile to know that it comes from the French verb "fondre," which means "to melt."

After all, I did my own share of melting as we sat together, learning, reading, and singing.

In the Beginning, Music

2011-08-01T10:32:00.003-04:00

I thought perhaps the world had started in silence.

Then I remembered Genesis. Hadn't there been a wind?

There are different ways to translate this stream of air that played across formless void and darkness. "A wind from God swept over the face of the waters." Or, "In the beginning God created mighty wind."

Wind, by itself, doesn't make a lot of sound. It needs something to push against, to lift and turn, to ruffle and rustle. So I'm not sure what the first sounds might have been like. If it was a mighty wind, perhaps there may have been a rushing, a roaring, as it swept across the waters or pushed liquid into certain boundaries.

When did the world come to understand such sounds in a way that felt more "musical"? Who first hummed along, added a drum to the rushing of wind? Perceived the tapping of rain as a rhythm?

I don't know.

But this morning I am thankful to God for the gift of sound, and a voice to echo what He began.

Bread (and Taxes?) and a Little Bach

2011-07-30T18:04:00.004-04:00

You know I've been thinking about where to journey next.

Ever since I spent a year outdoors each day, I've embraced the idea of focusing on something for 12 months. Not in a rigid way. But in a manner that promises growth and surprises.

After the year outdoors, I embarked on an Art Pilgrimage. Along the way, I decided I might spend four whole years with the arts: Visual, Dance, Music, Theater.

When July came around this year, though, I wondered if I might skip Music. I don't know why. I just did.

Until today.

Listening to cultural icon Lady Gaga, I was struck by the complexity of her music. She seems like fluff, and her lyrics are over-the-top and sometimes naughty, but she is linked to the past through sound. I wanted to be able to tell my daughter what these links to the past were. I could sense them, but I couldn't place them— everything from Rock, to spirituals, to classical, to 80's pop seemed woven in and around Gaga's sounds.

That's when I made my decision. I will go with Music this year. As always, I don't know where this will take me. But I can hear, almost like a song, the possibilities.

Beyond sound, there'll be bread, for the girls and I. Last year we focused on Tea and learned so much about it, including how it influenced international economic policy in Britain. We all agreed that bread would be equally enchanting and historical, even biblical.

So the year is before us: Bread (and taxes?), a little Bach and the roots of music like Gaga's. I'm already tapping my feet (and the edge of my plate :).

A Rosary Gift

2011-07-20T08:18:00.006-04:00

The classic rosary style is a circle. We go round and round the beads. Our fingers walk a path that others have walked before us, and others will walk after us.

How sweet, then, that photographer Gail Nadeau joined my girls and I in this spiritual garden walk. Today I found this little gift in my in-box. A circle of roses for us. And now for you.

It strikes me that Gail has done what Luci Shaw speaks of, and what my girls were doing the other day in their own way...

"There is another calling for the artist, and that is one of linking earth to heaven, pointing the human to the divine, finding the connections." Part of the pointing is no pointing at all, but simply bringing one's own beauty and walking along.

Rosarie, by Gail Nadeau. Used with permission.

Crossing Tea and Beads

2011-07-17T22:40:00.009-04:00

Sunday mornings I have been wanting to stay home. I cannot explain this, except to say that it feels somehow illuminated by these words from Luci Shaw...

"If our lives are centered in God's reality, we can risk working out from that center in new directions."

The direction I've specifically felt is this sense of wanting deeper communion with my children, around our faith, in ways that feel artful and concrete. Church, for whatever reason, seems to take us away from each other rather than join us in memorable ways.

So yesterday we stayed home. We sat on the side porch and drank red tea from roses china cups. In a book called Tea: The Drink that Changed the World, we read about how Japanese monks developed tea rituals in the 1400's and how these rituals are still practiced "with grace."

Then Sara and I took turns reading from a tiny book called The Rosary: A Journey to the Beloved. We learned that "rosary" comes from "rosarium," which means "rose garden." We learned that the rosary was made popular in the 1400's.

As soon as I closed the book, Sonia declared, "I want to make a rosary!" Sara agreed, and so the beads were brought out.

Over the next hour, beads were joined to beads. Little hands worked to string together the "decades" of the life of Christ— the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious, and the luminous. Sonia, who often speaks as she works, suddenly said, "Connecting the cross."

I had just picked up Breath for the Bones and encountered this sentence: "There is another calling for the artist, and that is one of linking earth to heaven, pointing the human to the divine, finding the connections."

And I wondered if that is what I've been longing for in my experience of church: the earth side of spiritual life, whether tea rituals practiced with grace or beads that tell the Grace story— and me and my girls actively connecting the cross... from earth to heaven, and back again.

Red, Gold & Garnet Rosary by Sonia. Anchor and LIfesaver Rosary by Sara.

____

Over at The High Calling, we're "connecting the cross," discussing Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination and Spirit: A Reflection on Creativity and Faith. Want to join us?

The Balance Between Discipline and Freedom

2011-07-14T06:59:00.010-04:00

Last year around this time, I made two decisions—one to continue with my art pilgrimage and focus on dance, the other to begin a tea pilgrimage with my girls.

As the year comes to a close, I know that I lost a little heart for dance once I had to stop taking ballet. I've done some reading, of course, including paging through Dance Magazine. I bought a book on visualizing, which was very helpful. It asked me to pretend I was a fountain or a light or a volcano or whatever, while I tried to live into a certain dance sequence.

This morning, doing some stretching, I remembered another bit of advice from that book: to imagine the direction and angle one is going in, at least a split second before making the move. It provides a surprising ease for the body, as it prepares the body for the actual moment. The opposite I'm sure you have felt. Maybe you go to reach for something on your bedside table, just as a reflection bounces off the mirror on the other side of the room. Your attention moves to the mirror, while your body reaches to the table. Ouch, now your neck has a sudden feeling of minor implosion. You need a little massage.

So it is good to stick with your direction, at least for a while.

The question is, do you want your whole life to be about reaching towards the bedside table? Maybe that is what you need for a while. A small movement in a small space, towards a familiar circle of scented lotions and hair bands, the picture of your daughter (or son), the lamp with the dangly pink crystals.

But maybe it is not.

Maybe you need your cotton pillow and the way it gives to the weight of your head and neck. Maybe you need the soft threads of your ivory sheets, and the shadows they make when you pull them over your shoulders and up over your hair. Or maybe you need something altogether different. The yard is calling from outside the door and down the red oak stairs.

It is good to stick with your direction, at least for a while. It provides an ease of emotional movement and makes you more effective in whatever you're reaching towards. Still, all it takes is a new moment of deciding... this, this is where I'm going now. Song instead of silence, the rosary instead of breath prayer, a journey into art instead of sitting with chickadees.

I am not sure where I will reach now that our tea pilgrimage and my year of dance is coming to a close. Maybe I will just pull my sheet up for a little while and dream before I move.

Tuesday Prayer

2011-06-21T09:49:00.006-04:00

I've been struggling with the sonnet form. You might guess that when you read this sonnet. It seemed right, however, to express today's prayer in a form that doesn't come easy for me.

Tuesday Prayer

for K.L.S.

The unfolding of a silver-tipped wing,
the visitation of dew to the garden,
while off in the distance a catbird sings,
this is the morning now broken again.

Begonias are leaning pink to the sun,
lavender pansies hide petals with mint,
you look and the day feels already done,
hold on, my girl, the sky is a hint

that even on mornings broken and still
the world is imbued with a wild resilience
falling from hands that will hold you until
silver-tipped wings stir hope and resistance.

Hold on, my girl, love whispers beside you,
the Butterfly Bush is op'ning its purple-bud hue.

Cataloging Life: June Garden Journal

2011-06-08T08:30:00.007-04:00

Sitting outside with my rose petal tea this morning, I didn't feel like writing.

A garden journal, I thought. Ah, yes, that seemed just the thing. So I took my camera into the sunrise and captured a little glory that is special to June...

Clover alone amidst field grass.

Buttercup bright with hope.

Feverfew hiding behind the garden.

Pansies wet with dew.

Blueberries on their way to blue.

On Easter, Martha Answered Mary

2011-04-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

Martha Answered Mary

Then I would rise up
early in the morning.
I would leave
my broom, my broth,
my unmade bed,
go
and scatter
secret birdseed
beneath the olive tree
where I always dreamed
of being kissed. And I
would wait.

The Day Before

2011-04-23T11:16:00.002-04:00

Mary Asked Martha

What if,
after the egg
rolled off the table,
we could come back
tomorrow
and find
a white feather,
the stir
of first flight.

RELATED:
Asking Joseph of Arimathea

A Monday Morning Psalm

2011-04-04T08:11:00.003-04:00

Today the rain
and early rising
to a quiet house

and You,

today a cup of tea
in roses china
with purple flowers scattered

and You,

today the memory
of yesterday's songs
and dark-haired girls at the table

and You,

the rain, the tea,
the memory
sings of dark-haired girls

and You.

The Leaving

2011-03-21T16:04:00.008-04:00

Wherever we go, we find ourselves, and God. I believe that.

One Amazon reviewer said she felt let down that Ann found herself, and God, away from home. There's that, yes— an odd surprise in a book that dares us to live fully right where we are.

But I take it differently. Right where you are isn't always the place you've called home. It's, well... right where you are.

I think this can be a little shocking; after all, we make our identity in the things we call home, think that's all there is... think that's all we are, all God is.

Then we leave.

In going away, we discover what we could have known all along... about ourselves, about God. It was there to see, wasn't it?

Ann recalls a letter from her father-in-law, asking who is ready. Ready for what? Maybe to live fully beyond the place we've called home? Beyond the person we thought we were? Beyond the God we had so nicely boxed up and put in a special room at home?

When we leave, we find we are not ready. Never will be. Home is too strong. Who we've been is too strong. The God in the pretty little box is too small. Yet, when we leave, we have the chance to discover—like Ann did— that we are ready. And ever will be.

---
This is a response to the final chapter of Ann's book, One Thousand Gifts. For a thoughtful review of the whole book, join us today at TheHighCalling.

Which Comes First: Gratitude or Gift?

2011-03-16T10:35:00.007-04:00

In chapter 5 of God in the Yard, I admit that lists didn't change me. I feel alone in saying this, seeing the popularity of the gratitude list. But I'm being honest. And of course it doesn't mean someone else couldn't find change this way.

Today I'm particularly struck by the Lewis Hyde quotes in this chapter:

...with gifts that are agents of change, it is only when the gift has worked in us, only when we have come up to its level, as it were, that we can give it away again...

and

Between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude.

So gratitude seems to be almost an ache, one that moves us to give what we've been given, after the gift has wrought some kind of work in us.

I do not think the receiving or the giving is simple. So much depends on our openness. Our openness depends on healing, or maybe courage. The giving and receiving seem not to be one-time experiences either. For instance, it occurs to me that the subject of beauty has been recurring in my life over time.

A few years ago I discovered someone whose life work with the poor is based on theories of beauty— manifested in pottery, jazz, and growing orchids. How unusual. It gained my attention. About a year later I was asked to speak on beauty at Jubilee Professional. This request perplexed me. What did I know of beauty, to be pinpointed as someone who had anything to say about it?

Since that time, the subject has been coming 'round again. When did it become a gift? Have I come up to its level? Is the process of receiving even near over? Yet I've begun to feel the intense need to consciously give beauty away.

Which is to say that gratitude seems to me to be a complex experience rooted in gifts. And gifts are not something we can necessarily engineer in our favor. They are given through time, in pieces, and in unexpected places.

---

Andrea has blogged on Chapter 2.

Talking Back: Celebration

2011-03-09T20:49:00.007-05:00

Lent begins today.

I wasn't going to do anything about that.

Then I read Andrea's first post on God in the Yard. I love that she has resolved to play, even as part of the religious world descends into a form of mourning and purposeful deprivation.

I also read the next chapter I was supposed to read along this journey... chapter 4, Weep: Celebration.

And suddenly I knew I would create my own Lenten celebration. It would be a form of play, though it would also recognize a sense of sorrow. It would include collecting Nelson's elements of celebration recounted in God in the Yard: sound, gestures, natural elements, handmade items, and food.

I am not sure how I will gather my elements over 40 days, what I will make of them. Maybe nothing. Today I took this little stone, so opaque, so dead in its way, and put it in a crystal bowl. Like the "bottle" in which the Psalmist says God collects our tears, the bowl is cupping the stone.

For some, Lent is a giving up. For me, it is going to be a giving over... of sorrows, confusions, doubts, disappointments. To the degree that I can, I will put them in the crystal bowl. A kind of Lenten prayer.

The Fitting Dance

2011-02-24T11:17:00.009-05:00

I've been reading The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. And it is opening something in me. Last night I read about a drummer who was thought to be non-musical by his teachers. A mathematician who was deemed unpromising in math. And others who couldn't quite find their niche through the framework and direction of guides. I haven't read about any dancers who were thought to be non-dancing material.

But I think that person might be me.

The author was talking about how dancers use "muscle memory," and I thought about how I cannot copy someone else's choreography, nor even remember my own. It's like my brain is absolutely stumped. If stupid has a feeling, I've experienced it deeply when it comes to trying to memorize moves and reproduce them in some kind of predetermined sequence. My muscles, if they have memory, can't seem to remember in a conventional way.

Yet I have feelings deep inside that respond instinctively to music, that understand how to give shape to sound.

This morning I was going to exercise, and instead got caught up listening to some newly discovered music by Vassilis Tsabropoulos. Before I knew it, I'd closed the shades and begun dancing in front of the mirror. My hands became birds, then a kind of tailor pulling thread from wrists, knees, and my open mouth. It made me feel like both laughing and crying at once. I felt I could do this forever.

But I would never remember how to do it again. Not just this way. It would always be new.

Is there such a thing as an improv dancer? If so, maybe I am one. I don't know how I would grow in this. Perhaps just by shutting the door and the shades, and letting my spirit dance free.

The Almost-Prayer of a Name

2011-02-22T10:49:00.009-05:00

There is a certain way a child can carry on that simply *sends* a person. At least me.

This morning I feel tense from my toes on up. My Littlest has been doing *that* kind of carrying on. I am having minor fantasies of a spa with Japanese music and tropical drinks. Sighs :). Instead, I walk past Ann's book, and the calm fragility of the nest, the blue eggs, the hands extended, call to me.

I open pages to October rains, clothespins dripping grace, and I feel more like a wet puppy scratching at the back door, than a woman who is all eyes for the beautiful.

These words sit quiet on the page...

I am blessed.
I can bless.
So this is happiness.

Ann connects this almost-prayer to her name, which means "full of grace." And I stop. What is the meaning of my own name?

Barkat means blessing.

It is easier to bless in the *big* moments— money to missions, the cup of cold water to a man in Grand Central Station. Where I find it harder is right here, where the life-nest feels fragile and a voice has been grating. And a little child is —like me— growing her way towards this almost-prayer...

I am blessed.
I can bless.
So this is happiness.

___

Quote from Chapter 10 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Speaking of Love Notes

2011-02-14T15:20:00.005-05:00

It is windy outside today. The warm air has collided with the cold and they are in a furious dance.

I went and stood in the back yard for a while. The snow, soft beneath my feet. The sun so warm. I thought about my girls, and how they smile, and how well they give of themselves to me.

Eyes closed, like I was standing on the edge of time itself, I accepted the day as a love note from God.

Valentines by Sara and Sonia.

Two (Dance) Steps Back

2011-02-10T20:33:00.010-05:00

It must happen on all pilgrimages. People start walking, then something stands in their way.

Last June, as part of my ongoing art pilgrimage, I began taking ballet. I wasn't great at it, but I was making progress. I was strong and flexible and having fun. It even amused me to think about someone at my age aspiring to tutu-hood. :)

Then in the Fall I became very ill and was completely immobile for three weeks, then barely mobile for another three. I figured that when it was over, I'd go back to business as usual. So I returned to the ballet barre sometime in the late Fall.

By Christmas, I began to get discouraged. I hadn't realized what a setback I'd suffered from immobility, and had tried to keep on as if nothing had happened.

It had.

I was no longer strong and flexible, and I started to injure myself. I couldn't even sit cross legged on the floor anymore. Well, I may not be a spring chicken as they say, but I've always been able to sit any which way I like. When you can't sit according to your whims anymore, something's got to give.

So I've stopped dancing.

Well, at least I've stopped ballet.

There is some sadness in this, and I'm not sure I'll go back. I've also realized just what a non-dancer brain I possess. It's not about grace in movement, it's about the way I can't seem to speak back with my body when I see the teacher speak with hers. I think it might be a proximity/visual thing, because I sure enjoy mirror-dancing with my Littlest (boy do we have fun).

Anyway, right now I'm contenting myself with reading books about ballet. Yesterday I read one about Martha Graham's Appalachian Spring. Somewhere in it, they noted that Graham said the body always tells the truth, and that's what she was aiming for in her dances. I'm aiming for that too. And I don't want my truth to be injury.

We'll see where this new road goes. If nothing else, I have an after-dinner dance date with my Littlest a few nights a week. That girl can twirl. And I'm happy to lend her a steadying hand.

Photos of the book In the Wings: Behind the Scenes at the New York City Ballet.

Go Lower

2011-02-09T16:33:00.004-05:00

I feel like I can't go much lower; my Littlest has been weeping because she misses her father, who travels a lot. And there is no consoling my little girl, and I have nothing left to give. And I open Ann's book and the title of the chapter is Go Lower.

And I can't wait to see what this means.

It's about a red ball, and laughter, and a note from a far-flung hotel. And I thought I couldn't go lower, but the mention of the hotel makes me cry. Did I say I couldn't go lower?

You can always go lower.

At the library, I told my friend how my Littlest shook last night in her bed, cried and claimed "despair" and "treachery" (and I might have laughed in delight at the big words if she hadn't been so serious in the telling).

You can remind her that God is her Father, my friend said.

I could.

I make my way through the rest of Ann's chapter, and it's more about joy, the red ball, children's arguments, broken glass, and going lower in an altogether different way before the Father.

I humbly open my hand, says Ann.

Maybe I will make this my phrase, since I'm tired of holding things together anyhow. And the truth is that you can always go lower, and sometimes it helps to remember that, doesn't it?

I turn the phrase over in my mind...

I humbly open my hand. I humbly open my hand.

___

Quote from Chapter 9 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

The One Cry

2011-02-04T12:18:00.003-05:00

This is the chapter that made me cry. Not for what she found, but for what she lost...

Sister to truck, self to night fears, mother to asylum, daughter to time.

The words stay with me...

How long until we are gone?
If I don't close eyes, I won't die.
Why can't I hold on to now forever?

And in the center of it all, as a young woman, she courted death with shards of glass, bled onto the floor. It is that bleeding I want to stay with. That cry of "I don't want to die," even as it looks like death-invitation.

This is the cry of humanity, is it not? This is why we bleed each other, is it not? (Why can't I hold on to now forever?)

Jesus never gloried in death. He raised the dead, wept over them, asked to be exempt from his own. He made space for lament, became lament itself. He gave life-blood.

If I close my eyes, I can see Him holding Ann to his heart. "I'm sorry," he is whispering in her ear. "I am so, so sorry."

___

Quotes from Chapter 8 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Sermon Notes Poetry: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

2011-02-03T08:00:00.003-05:00

From my sleepy poet's mind, more Sermon Notes poetry. I admit, I look forward to this quiet activity while the speaker... speaks. :)

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Something is wrong,
the SUV's
crazy-loving
money while kids
roam streets—
easy to forget about
me in video games,
one world
with or without
me.

*

He's gonna do it
anyway; go home
and read it yourself...
Cyrus-old-foolishness
coming again.

*

If our
know-it-all
goldfish
argued with us
about methods
of tooth brushing,
we might give him a bit
of our wisdom teeth.

*

Zebras with
sunburns
riddle us
with cross
mystery,
scandalous
fresh.

*

Something twisted,
sister, this servant
is no handsome prince
who'll rule
everything.

*

Tender shoot,
root
transplant
to dry ground—
precarious
start.

*

Look over
at the overlooked
face-hide-man
picked on, last
picked for kick
ball,
passed over,
sorrow familiar
wrong track
troubles
savior-man.

*

The heart of the
poem, the hinge
on which it
all turns—
surely
losing by
taking ours,
ours— does
it surprise
you, my
captive?

*

Dorothy Sayers
wants palaces
without circle of
fire, jungle water hole
leopard lion
fear armies
blood-roll garments
and a God acquainted
with all our
babed grief.

*

Rivers of
shalom-rounded
society,
secure through
one small
iniquity
sheep.

*

Alone by the
bed,
wondering-sin-
son-punish-
love-son
approved
lamb-slaughter.

*

Take an
elevator to the top
saving floor, push
a button past the Cyrus
floor, the bad-me,
crazy-me floor,
hitch a ride
on the back of a Herculean
God who draws the whole world
by a love-cable cord.

*

She'll sing a
stick-for-you
song— tell someone,
would you?

Bringing Beauty In

2011-02-02T09:53:00.005-05:00

A boy pounds a plate with clenched fist. The other blithely butters toast. How do I fix this?

Ann has just gathered sunflowers and declared, "I bring beauty in." But now this. Brother against brother. Mother wondering, how do I fix?

I know this hard song, this strife, though in my house it is sister against sister. The tussle of... what? Growing, reaching, wanting, not yet knowing how to navigate life. Girls discovering they are capable of scratching, hair pulling, even kicking, when Mommy isn't there to see.

How much to take upon myself?

When they were little I took it all. Sent girls to separate corners. Ordered sorry's. Wondered where I'd gone wrong.

Sometimes, for the sake of peace, I still take their struggle upon myself. But more often these days I let them have it out. It is hard to hear them discovering what they are capable of. I stand in the kitchen, hear doors slam, hear hard words. And I don't intervene. This is their journey, this discovery of the human heart and how much we want to and can hurt each other.

In the end, Ann tells her son a story of Jacob and Esau. I tell stories too. I tell stories of me and my own sister, how we loved each other one moment and the next moment pushed each other off the edge (sometimes quite literally). I ask questions, "Do you really hate her? Her? Or just hate what is happening?" I ask too,"What IS happening?" I wait until they have chosen their own separate corners, and I hold them against the darkness, remind them wordlessly what love feels like and stir, once again, a longing for sister-communion. When I remember, I pray.

Then I wait for them to fumble towards forgiveness, bring their own beauty in.

Quote from Chapter 7 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Why Consider the Real Mary?

2011-02-01T10:29:00.006-05:00

It is only February (and that, barely), and I have run into questions because of my rosary journey.

Not like I didn't expect this. As a child I was taught The Hail Mary, and as an adult I recall that the rosary somehow required the saying of it.

My own rosary will not require it. My own is a promise I have not yet begun to understand. (See? Just the other day I took it out in the snow. It is a non-conformist rosary which will not always bend to traditional use— of course it would be like this, considering who gave it to me).

Still. The very sight of the rosary brings with it questions of Mary.

And what are questions for, except to prod us to thinking?

So I bought another copy of a book I once gave away. It is Scot McKnight's and I love the opening...

"Why are you— a Protestant— writing a book about Mary?" I've been asked this question many times. In fact, one person asked me the following question: "Wasn't Mary a Roman Catholic? (No kidding.)

Why write a book for Protestants about Mary? Here's why:

Because the story about the real Mary has never been told...

This seems like a place to start, in answering the questions my rosary raises. The story of Mary. I love a good story, and I suspect my rosary might too.

---
Quote from Chapter 1 of Scot McKnight's book The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus

The Seeing Prayer

2011-01-28T10:42:00.006-05:00

I open Ann's book.

"You will want to see this."

I had just closed Juliet Benner's book Contemplative Vision, where I'd marked, "From its beginnings Christianity has been a religion of seeing."

Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD
Behold the beauty of the LORD
O taste and see

Ann's husband is the seeing-guide, pulling her away from dishes, carrot peels, prayers weary.

"He leads me the impossible distance of a whole two steps to the windowsill. I'm transfixed."

And within moments he releases Ann to the night, to the fields, to the moon. I think on this. To be the one who releases others into seeing. Is this not a holy thing? I think on this. Who in my life opens me to sight? I think on this. Do I believe that prayer is sometimes as simple as the lived-prayer of go-see and come-see and I-see?

As a child of El Roi (God-who-sees), I think on this.

Quotes from Chapter 6 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. Scriptures in order of appearance: Exodus 14:13, Psalm 27:4, Psalm 34:8.

Of Lost Boys and Suffering

2011-01-26T13:23:00.007-05:00

"The family accepts. God meant it this way."

The words of a family who lost a boy. The words of a family who will sit with his empty chair for the rest of their lives. Who will mourn the lost voice, the laughter, the future they thought was theirs.

I keep arguing with myself, keep going 'round on this. But now I finally want to write it down. Even if the family accepts it, I do not believe God meant it that way.

I have wanted to glide past this part of Chapter 5. For days now, I have wanted to glide past it. This dialog raised by eight little words: the question of suffering and evil in the world. Why the little boy lost? Why Haiti? Why the girl in the brothel? And the mother lost to suicide? Why?

I do not believe God means it this way. This "creation groaning,"* this fallenness, this "human beings sold as slaves."**

I do believe God works to transfigure, as Ann says. And that we are transformed when we can give thanks "at all times because He is all good."

But who am I, in this great dialog that has been going on throughout the ages? Just one little voice.

There are bigger voices who can continue this dialog better than I, and I hope to read them in the days to come. One is After Shock: Searching for Honest Faith When Your World Is Shaken, by Kent Annan. The other is The Innocence of God, by Udo Middelmann.

And I am curious to hear what they have to say.

*Romans 8:22
**Revelation 18:13

Quotes from Chapter 5 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Sermon Notes Poetry: Isaiah 49:1-7

2011-01-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Snowy here. Cold. My mind feels winter-sleepy. Writing poems is hard now. So when I can steal someone else's words and just keep setting them down, I appreciate that.

These poems were woven from Dave Stradler's words at my church this past Sunday...

Isaiah 49:1-7

My 20's and 30's
planting shadows,
arrows,
I quiver
splendor.

*

Forging fire,
battle ready
visions of roads,
time,
cars that
lose me,
you, the whole
galaxy.

*

Three, four people
on board,
on the edge falling
off until
it's me, just me
on the boat.

*

God's heart
is in my apartment
captured in bars
on White Plains
coffee shops,
lifting love.

*

How do we
be a light
with backbone
loving community
no sign on the door
saying, "You don't belong."

*

They want real
God-lives, out
meet, we'll come
to you
God-servant
holy martinis.

*

The whole bible
mission-being
in just seven verses.
Pop it open,
step questions
over the short night.

*

Christ-cost
mornings' heart
servants
to tribes beyond
Israel,
beyond walls.

Sharing with One Shot Wednesday today.

Talking Back: Marking Out Temples

2011-01-24T08:00:00.005-05:00

Contemplation means to 'mark out a temple.' Chapter 3 in God in the Yard is an invitation to begin that marking. The word also means 'putting together.'

What shall I mark out? What shall I put together?

There are times in life when I really don't know the next thing. I don't know what pencil to pick up, where to start drawing the hopeful lines that will hem me in to a place where I will find my 'putting together' moments.

I wish it was as simple as relying on the old standbys. Read the bible. Go to church. It is not that simple. Sometimes we are more like the Israelites following wordless cloud and fire to where we're supposed to pitch our tent, where we're to pull out gold rings and acacia poles... and hang the thick, sweet walls of the tabernacle. Sometimes we are Elijah just standing in the sheer silence, waiting.

As nerve-wracking as this is, there is some comfort in it. After all, these days I don't want to think and plan and try to make things perfect. I just want to BE. I just want to wake up and make tea, look out the window at the next new snow, and BE.

Is it okay to mark out a place of just-BEing? I would like that. I would.

Can I just-BE a little I am, in the heart of the Great I AM? I would like to simply rest there. I would.

"But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother..." (Ps.131:2)

Fire and Cloud pastel, by L.L. Barkat.

The Final Dare

2011-01-22T22:09:00.006-05:00

I am so, so taken by the dare of writing 1,000 gifts.

I am sorely tempted.

It is Chapter 5 that does it to me tonight. Ann is somewhere in the 900's, and I want it. I want the life that can write...

Brown eggs fresh from the henhouse
Pinky skin of newborn pigs
Opening jars of preserves
Earthy aroma of woods

I want to be the woman who looks out over her farm and finds the moments that...

drink the sweet right out of now.

You have no idea how much I want it.

I want it so much that I would pretend I could find it by tracing the same lines through the same dots.

But I already know it is not me. Me, who lives urban, shovels snow off concrete, looks for beauty somewhere in the cracks of the sidewalks and the streetlights iced. Me who traces for eternity in pastels and the dance. I know it is not me. And I can hardly say it, for fear that someone will say, "But it should be you. This is the way."

And now I think that the dare is finally this: to be spiritually beautiful right where I am, in the way He has gifted and wooed me to be.

Quotes from Chapter 5 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

After the Running, the Lullaby

2011-01-21T13:08:00.008-05:00

"Hurry and impatience are sure marks of an amateur."

Ann quotes Evelyn Underhill, and I think of my favorite unhurried moments right off... the slow tracing of fingers on a face and arm, the slow lullaby singing to my Eldest just a few nights ago ("Will you sing to me, Mommy?" that 13-year-old asked like a child), the slow mornings and evenings of sitting on my girls' sled and just sipping tea.

I like slow.

I like fast too. I admit a certain thrill to riding through the woods on horseback (oh, that was long, long ago). A thrill to meeting deadlines. The joy of racing around the block (My lullaby-girl likes to dare me, "Run, I'll beat you!" And, long-legged, younger, she always does.)

Suddenly curious, I look up the word deadline. I know what it means, of course. But I want the roots. The formerly-meant meaning.

A boundary around a military prison beyond which a prisoner could not venture without risk of being shot by the guards.

I think about this. When does fast mean death to me, the kind of death Ann hopes to save us from? Is it fast itself that's the problem? Maybe the formerly-meant meaning of the word deadline holds the answer (the questions?)...

Am I a prisoner to my deadlines? Have I surrounded myself with unforgiving guards? Am I myself sometimes the unforgiving guard?

God is the first guard, and He is forgiving. He gave us work, he did. I don't know that he minds fast. But he gave us Sabbath too. Permission to rest. After the running comes the lullaby, the tracing, and tea sipped glory-slow.

Or, like Ann says it, Suds...all color in sun.

Quotes from Chapter 4 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Was it Really the Lists?

2011-01-20T21:05:00.006-05:00

There is a part of me that feels like a failure reading a whole book about the saving power of gratitude lists. My lists never saved, only fell flat. I wonder now, did I forget the poetry?

Because, reading Ann's lists, I am struck. She says she's writing simple things; she believes she's being grateful by number after sweet (and sometimes hard) number. But, maybe because it is all written down in one place now, I see it within seconds. She is doing more. She is writing poetry, folding beauty into single words, lines, phrases. Mining the moments for images that seer and sing, wonder and woo.

Morning shadows across old floors, she writes. Then, jam piled high on toast. Her words are what begin to pile high for me. If I take out the numbers and just stack the words, the poems appear...

Wind flying cold wild in hair
Grandma's pressure pot still dancing
Old men looking for words just perfect.

I know she experiences this as a kind of thankfulness, this putting down of poetic words. I wonder if it is something more... the beginning of a dance she engaged in with the Spirit...

and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters...

And what did the Spirit of God do but begin spilling words in pure Genesis poetry, the refrain being "it is good"?

Suddenly I do not feel like a list-failure anymore. I make my lists, I do. Lists without numbers. A thousand lines, like Ann? Maybe in time. Poem after poem after poem, naming the world and grief and spirit and dreams.

Quotes from Chapter 3 of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

A Mirage of the Moon

2011-01-19T17:19:00.008-05:00

She wakes from nightmares—friend Ann— only to feel her sheets and realize, It was all a dream, a mirage of the moon.

Today I am still dealing with a string of mini-crises— the latest being a flood in the basement (how can this be, when we got trenches dug and a sump put in last year? Well, the rains have nowhere to go, so this year they are welling up from under the house itself, where frozen ground has said, 'there is no room.')

A few minutes ago, before reading Ann's words, I'd been climbing the stairs and thinking of the beauty of this small house, despite the current troubles. I'd been thinking of Lemony Snicket, who made me laugh with his running theme on perspective, in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Then I opened to these words, It was all a dream, a mirage of the moon, and suddenly I was back on the stairs with Lemony and his perspective, thinking, There is some way in which all the crises we encounter are mirages. Our end is glory.

There are stars, says Ann, when she wakes from the nightmares.

There is glory beyond this moment, I say.

Maybe even a strange kind of glory in this moment— me moving sopping boxes, me being resourceful and finding another sump to use to direct the new water towards the new-last-year sump, me climbing old red oak stairs and opening the book of a friend. And just now, the sun over the river, over snowy trees— a lick of red welcoming the new moon rising.

Perspective. It doesn't take away the pain. But it does sift through for the glory.

Quotes from Chapter Two of One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.

Writing in the World Together

2011-01-18T17:49:00.005-05:00

I open the package and find Ann's words— these words that stole so many hours, so they could become gifts to others.

These are not just the words of a stranger, these hard-wrought words. They are the words of a friend. I know how hard they were to put down, to pull out. And I'm not talking about the effort of craft (which seems so effortless to me when I watch her do her thing). I'm talking about the effort of laying out the heart bare.

It is a strange thing to put our hearts in a book and see that book travel on. It is a sacrifice, this writer's life— if we write true. Because someone is going to say something or even simply ignore us. And a thousand beautiful compliments can be so easily wiped away with one dour response. Likewise, a thousand beautiful compliments can fool us into thinking we are not who we really are.

This is why we must write in the world together. A cord of three strands (or more) is not quickly broken.

I always wished I could have what the "great writers" had. Shaw had L'Engle. Lewis had Tolkien. Just friends, you see, to be there before and after and during the words. To see the heart that went in. To know the heart that is also outside the words.

In some ways, the online community is just that. My L'Engle. My Tolkien. And for today, on the table, my Ann. And so many days, my you.

Writing is not, cannot be, the solitary thing it's made out to be. Maybe this is true of any art, of anywhere we dare to put our hearts.

Talking Back: Of Art Pilgrimages and Rosaries

2011-01-17T17:34:00.005-05:00

"If I could decide my own 'program' of spiritual practice, it would look like... [be honest, not compliant here]" she said in God in the Yard. (It was an open-response opportunity in Chapter 2.)

It feels mildly subversive to write, "My program would look like an art pilgrimage, tea-drinking outdoors, ballet, the rosary, and onions (yes, onions)."

For a long time I considered Scripture-reading to be the only real spiritual practice. Prayer was a close second, and I was careful to respond to Scripture in my journal by recording my prayers. Don't get me wrong. I love Scripture. And prayer is obviously a long-term aspect of a life of faith.

But there is something of the glory of God that cannot be found simply in words and in two dimensions. God is a universe wide (and wider). God created all that is around me. Each scent and color, each sound, each movement, potentially tells me something of God. Not as if these things ARE God. But they are God's expressions. If I believe Genesis, I must believe that.

So my spiritual practice looks unconventional: art, dance, slicing onions. But the thread that holds it together is the praise that arises when I touch these dimensions. It is the spiritual practice of the Creator himself in Genesis... that one that responds with whispers, or shouts, "It is good."

God also said, "It is not good," when he saw man alone. That too is spiritual practice... seeing the not-good, and opening our hands to fill the void.

In the end, my practice seems very simple. See, hear, touch the world, and respond.

Talking Back: Playing Towards God

2011-01-10T08:00:00.002-05:00

As you know, I'm going through God in the Yard. This week I finished Chapter One.

The author said I could pick an idea that was new to me, and blog about it. I chose the idea of playing towards God.

Too often, I think we work towards God— try to orchestrate every last thing, try to be productive, make a "profit," prove the business of our souls.

Playing feels different. It is a trusting thing which says, "Let's see what comes." It is (perhaps) more prone to rhythms, shifts, songs, images.

For me, the rosary is going to be a new way to play towards God this year. I don't know what I'll find along the beads, but this week I found my pastels again, after many, many months...

The Rosary

The mysteries—the subjects of contemplation that one moves through as one prays each subdivision of beads—are related aspects of Christ's life: five glad events, five sad events, five teaching events, and five glorious events.

— p.xiii, The Rosary by Garry Wills.

Talking Back for 12 Weeks

2011-01-04T08:00:00.003-05:00

I am a person who has been known to talk to herself. Even aloud. I don't know why I do this. I find a strange delight in it.

So it seems natural for me to do what I've decided to do. Talk back to myself for 12 weeks, by going through God in the Yard.

Lest you think me terribly vain (though you might be able to make a case for that :), I will tell you why I made this decision.

The group I speak to on a regular basis (except this Spring) has decided to go through God in the Yard together. I usually study along with whatever they study. So here we are. I'm going to be talking back to myself, for the purpose of engaging with others.

Andrea is part of this group too, which is kind of fun.

In looking at the book, I decided on a basic approach I'll almost surely depart from...

• Read a chapter a week, probably on Sundays, and journal during the reading (there are guided opportunities within each chapter)

• Throughout the week, answer one question a day (from the discussion question section at the back of the book). With the exception of the first chapter, which has seven questions, this works out perfectly because there are six questions for each chapter. One a day, excluding Sunday. :)

• Somehow tie in my rosary journey and my art pilgrimage, probably on Sundays. The tie-in might be so loose no one will recognize it. That's okay. The author told me the journey is mine :)

So far I did the introduction and chapter one. I heard today that the study actually begins in March, but I'm thinking I'll keep going now that I started. This will put me a little ahead, but I suppose I might be anyway since I've read the book before. ;-)

In the Intro, I liked the opening poem, and I'm actually taking it to heart this year. Paying attention to small things. Things within reach. Living bit by bit. Like the journey, which happens one little step at a time. (Except when we catch the occasional bus and go miles in minutes. There are always exceptions, aren't there... )

Here is the poem, and I think I may have already found a moon, in my focus on the rosary...

Find a single
tree, find
the moon.
It doesn't
take much.
Just begin.

The Year of the Rosary

2011-01-03T08:00:00.001-05:00

When I was a little girl, I had a rosary. I don't remember what it looked like. I just know I had one, because I was Catholic and somebody gave me a rosary.

It probably burned in one of the house fires that ensured I have no childhood homes to take my children back to. No place to say, "Here I grew. There was the little petunia garden. That is the window to my old room. There was the floor I sat on and played with my rosary and said a few Hail Mary's when I'd been bad to my sister. (Whenever I went to the priest it was usually to confess that I'd been bad to my sister, you know.)"

Maybe it was pink glass beads. Or blue. I've always loved blue, and I would like it if the rosary had been blue glass. But I was a girl, and it was probably pink. It probably had a silver Jesus on a silver cross, hanging on the end. And I probably did my share of looking into his face and feeling sorry that people did such a thing to him.

That rosary is gone and I never replaced it. Because one day I wasn't Catholic anymore and rosaries were for people who didn't know how to *really* pray. So I was counseled.

I am glad that I went on Retreat this past Fall, and someone recognized that I needed a new rosary. I think maybe he suspected that I don't really know how to pray.

It is a beautiful rosary, though it has no Jesus. Only a cross. I cannot look at his face, because there is no face to look at. As a grown up, I feel a small sense of grace in this. Now that I know it was not just people who put him there. It was me. And it IS me still. Growing up reveals this to a person.

So the empty cross is a solace, in its way.

It has been a long time since I've gone to a priest, confessed that I was bad to my sister. Said a few Hail Mary's along glass beads and knelt at the altar.

And this is why I'm thinking to make this the year of the rosary. Not to say any Hail Marys, (though surely she has much to teach me). But because I still have sisters, so to speak.

The rosary may just help me remember that, bead by bead.

The Gifted Rosary photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Sermon Notes Poetry: Isaiah 46

2010-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

I like writing poetry during sermons. I find it gets me writing in different rhythms, with different words, because I'm lifting and sifting someone else's speech. I have to be really open for what may come.

For some reason our church calendar scheduled a bible passage on idols, set for the first week of the Advent season. Maybe that makes more sense than it seems to on the surface. Maybe Advent is about being open for what may come. If we have idols in our "manger," they might need to move aside.

Isaiah 46

I told you
ahead of time—
admit it,
no silver, bronze, stone
could ever hold you
like my words.

*

It's a race,
political on its face;
could any contender
be found equal
when the polls open,
chads begin to fall.

*

Evacuate your idols
see
if you can flee
me, wood and stone
totter like Bobo dolls,
wobble in the
wind.

*

I have made you,
will carry you—
get your idols off the wagon,
hop in, I'll take you
for a tender spin.

*

Greed is about
God-ands...
digital cameras,
batteries without love
multiplied by gadgets
we carry around,
feed like idols
who eat lilies, lotus,
lentils, a bowl of beef.

*

Idols stress you out.
All that running after,
all that carrying,
all that appetite
for gifts, the little silver
bracelets, gardens,
a suitcase filled
for yet another trip.

*

Botanists searched for a rare species
somewhere in the Alps— a boy
was lowered down the canyon,
his father
held
the
rope.

*

Halfway across the ice,
dusk began to sing
a coal miner's tune,
and night didn't creak.

These poems are offered for One Shot Wednesday.

Gentle on My Mind

2010-11-22T13:14:00.004-05:00

She has got me thinking. About spiritual practice.

I know I don't fit into the formulas. I just don't. (And she's not suggesting formulas are the answer.)

Yet there are things I do. Directions that capture my attention.

Today, for instance, I am thinking about gentility. It is fascinating to me that some people experience me as gentle and others don't. (I've had comments made in both directions.)

I can't say I understand this very well. I can say it has me curious enough to do some focused musing on the topic of gentility.

My first discovery at dictionary.com makes me laugh. This is not really the gentility I'm seeking...

1. good breeding or refinement
2. affected or pretentious politeness or elegance
3. the status of belonging to polite society
4. members of polite society collectively

My second discovery also makes me laugh. I look up the word gentle and find it can mean quiet. Quiet I am not! :)

Gentle has its down sides: unduly submissive, weak, servile, docile, tame.

And its up sides: peaceful, soothing, tender, humane, merciful, kind, courteous, noble.

One of its antonym sets is: violent, sudden.

Where to begin in pursuit of gentility? I think it doesn't hurt that I'm taking ballet. It trains thoughtfulness, deliberateness into the body. Suddenness is out. It can hurt the muscles and the visual effect. Verbally, I think I tend to be the sudden type. I come from a family that loves to answer quickly. Nothing wrong with that in certain contexts.

But perhaps this is where I'll begin. The issue of suddenness. Maybe tomorrow I'll look into the book of Proverbs and see what I can find. To gently instruct both body and mind.

Sermon Notes Poetry: Psalm 90

2010-11-17T13:30:00.006-05:00

More poetry from the pews. Um, we don't have pews. We have maroon, cushiony chairs. Still, here are the poems...

*

How busy are you,
Moses,
you've got edges
of Egypt, entrances
departures
promised
lands on your mind,
questions of who am I
and how will I
be remembered.

*

Artful life
beautiful life
well-lived life
with hands
established or maybe
work established
regardless
of our hands.

*

Drop rain
in wood, on stream,
drop rain on the way
to bird-woven oceans.

*

Wise, be
heart skilled,
be craftspeople,
select strands
of dying, be
priestly life-living
be numbered-day
wise.

*

Brevity is
mourning without
death, death without
mourning, death
without sex, or maybe
sex without death.

*

My life is an hour
and three quarters,
eighteen minutes at best,
I won't even get my
stained glass into the window
before it's time to go.

*

But I have to admit
that sometimes
my life
feels like an eternity.

*

Can you believe
we believed enough
to leave—onions, lotus,
hippos in the river,
but when we got where
we were going, we
couldn't leave, believe
again.

*

Moses's astounding prayer,
fragile sweeping
us like moaning grass,
turning us in time,
saying we are more
than our eighteen minutes,
more than a day.

*

How do we, tell me
how do we get in
on the deal,
the dwelling-place
God-condo deal
with lotus
floating in the
courtyard pool.

*

Cana Redux

A prayer for dark times,
exile work captive
land no more
promises mortal hands
rats racing towards
the future, we need
naom and her
sweet Ruth
and perhaps a bit
of the barley harvest,
and... beer?

*

The Old Man Says

We're going to have
to pray
to ask
to God
to build
to bring,
let's not
forget
to.

Ascension

2010-11-12T10:33:00.005-05:00

I'm reading a book called Apollo's Angels. It's a beautifully-written history of ballet. Apollo apparently represents the 'body ideal' and of course angels go to the author's assertion that dancers desire to ascend (and as she points out, much of ballet indeed includes sprites, sylphs and other winged things).

The other day, while reading this book, and after having chosen to dance that morning with surrender in mind, I was struck by this quote...

"If anything, ballet is purifying, every movement physically honed and essential, with no superfluity or excess: it is a kind of grace."

I'm not sure that grace is always without superfluity or excess, but this is perhaps the particular grace of ballet.

Thinking on all this, I ended up writing a poem (you are not surprised, yes? :)

Ascension

Apollo's angels
will come at different hours
lifting high their delicate hands

praising the wind
that wraps itself
around the feet of God

Apollo's angels
will leap in mirrored halls
finding the heart that beats in time

with satined feet;
they will come
waving chiffon on currents of

perfumed air, there will be
no memory of their movements
beyond these bodies

that knew this prayer.

Cataloging the Day

2010-11-06T17:23:00.004-04:00

It's Autumn here in the Northeast. I go outside about three times a day now, sit and watch the trees—the sunrise or sunset or clouds playing at their edges. Sometimes I write a little poetry. This one is about 1/3 catalog-technique. Which is to say, it only has two lines of cataloging.

Sometimes Christians feel they should only catalog the bright side of life. You have probably noticed... I am not that kind of Christian...

Autumn

has stolen the lilies,
and I am here
touching bronze broken stalks
where pollen-heavy flowers
bent. The air is dry,
the leaves are dry—
so too, a tiny piece
of my heart.

Check out the invitation to write a catalog poem, at TheHighCalling.org.

Sermon Notes Poetry: Psalm 47

2010-10-19T07:27:00.003-04:00

I didn't write much this time. Three poems. Two worth sharing. Here they are. An odd kind of sermon notes...

Psalm 47

All nations
see you rain on the mountains,
the rivers filled with
children of Israel,
Egypt, Babylon.
Fathers called Abraham
and not called Abraham, clamor,
and the rocks cry out
as the nations trek white-robed, palm-fisted
to the crown of the mountain
where our mothers promised
to meet us.

Revelations

Go leaf-keeping
this week,
turn Autumn
on end.
See if you don't
find God
right there, rough-cool
between your fingers,
yellow
burning.

Reflections Dance

2010-10-14T13:18:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I danced.

It had been a long time.

Maybe you couldn't call what I did dancing. My ankles are still stiff, my muscles weak compared to what they were. But I looked in the mirror and my reflection moved and somehow it felt like the beginning of a dance.

At times, I sat on the floor and waited. For my self to catch up. My mind, my body, my hope.

The teacher smiled and said it was okay. I was there, and it was okay. "Be gentle on yourself," she said.

I wanted to tell the whole room (it was fuller than it had ever been)... "Really, I haven't always been this way. I'm not a dancer, to be sure, but I used to be able to move through a whole class." I wanted them to know I belonged there. I wanted to be more than a suggestion of what is real and good.

For some reason, my mind turned to the Chilean miners. I thought of them coming to light. I wondered if they'd both remembered and forgotten what it was like to see by day. I wondered if they felt the need to belong again to the world, if they felt the need to say, "I am real and good."

That is such an odd connection. I don't know why I made it. Something about a return after months. Something about both forgetting and remembering. Something about shadows and reflections. Maybe it is the whole Plato's Cave thing. The real, dancing in shadows on the wall. The wondering if we are the shadows or the real or both.

Words are escaping me on this. I want to say I am both— the dance and the reflection of the dance. The shadow and the real. I want to say that both are beautiful. Just see for yourself...

Pound Ridge Reflections photos, by L.L. Barkat. In honor of Claire's HighCalling PhotoPlay.

Start with Spam, End with a Rosary

2010-10-07T12:30:00.006-04:00

They gave me gifts.

It started with crowned Spam, in a lovely box that smelled like soap. (Yes, Mr. Airport Searcher, there IS a story behind that.) Other things followed. Stone, paper, ceramic, wax.

Then, on the final day, one of our team members gave me his rosary. When he pulled it out of his pocket and moved it towards me, I understood immediately what was happening. Before he could get a word out, I burst into tears. This rosary, it was made by his own hands. It was, as he told me later, the most important thing he had that he could give me.

What do you do with jade and chocolate stone beads, a silver cross on a sturdy brown string? What do you do with a line of prayers that have been someone else's? (He told me what each bead had meant to him. There were people, and the Shema, and other things I didn't hear because I was just looking, looking at this thing he'd put into my hands.)

The rosary now sits on my white wooden window sill. I told him yesterday I think it is (was) how he sees, or maybe touches, God. Bead by bead by bead, hoping along the way.

There are days when I think I see and touch God too. And days when I feel the world is nothing, watched by No One.

But now I have a rosary touched by prayers, through which I can hope along the way. It is waiting for new people and maybe a Psalm. It is waiting for me.

Me and My Friend and His Rosary photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Healing in My Inbox

2010-09-24T15:08:00.004-04:00

I feel almost there.

Just a few leftover aches around the ankles. Just some minor fatigue.

What brings us to health? So many things. Eating well, sleeping, and laughing (in my case, I watched Mr. Bean every night for a few weeks straight.)

And you.

Your sweet sentiments, prayers, emails, flowers.

Yes, flowers. In my inbox. The ones you see here are from A Simple Country Girl. She had given me some advice on supplements (which I followed) and she was checking in to see how I was feeling.

And she sent me flowers. Big, big flowers. I scrolled down slowly, taking them in bit by bit. My breath caught when I reached the bottom of the picture and saw a few leaves fallen. It reminded me of how fragile we are, and how much love we need in our fragility.

Thank you all for granting me your bouquets of love.

Autumn Flowers photo by A Simple Country Girl. Used with permission.

Walking the Spiral Path

2010-09-14T08:00:00.001-04:00

She gets uncomfortable at the thought of spiritual rules. I understand. It's not that life doesn't benefit from rules; it's just that rules can also become ends in themselves, eventually choking off life.

In regards to artists, Julia Cameron puts it this way, "We insist on a straight and narrow when the Artist's Way is a spiral path." Pushing it further she notes, "An artist cannot replicate a prior success indefinitely. Those who attempt to work too long with formulas, even their own formula, eventually leach themselves of their creative truths."

The result, says Cameron, is that we "sink to the bottom and die." Put another way, "A certain deep artistic weariness sets in. We must summon our enthusiasm... instead of reveling in each day's creative task."

I wonder if Cameron's observations about artists can be applied to spirituality. Is it possible that rules and formulas eventually leach us of vitality and interest? If so, I'd prefer to walk a spiral path.

On Eating Vanilla Yogurt and Watching the Sun Set

2010-09-11T11:13:00.003-04:00

I am not going to say I like being sick. Or even that I don't mind being sick. I hate being sick.

I hate the bruises on my ankles, and the way I am losing weight, and the pain. I hate that I can't stand on my own two feet for more than five minutes and that I sleep until 11 o'clock each day like an infant who has just come into the world.

A really good spiritual sport would say, "When I am weak, then He is strong." And that would be true of course. She might pretend that she could be sick just about forever, and that would be cool with her. But I would prefer to say, just now, that I hate being sick, and I am glad that all of this will supposedly be gone in six weeks' time.

This late morning when my daughter brought me my new "regular," yogurt with a generous dollop of strawberry jam, I noticed a difference. She must have used vanilla yogurt instead of plain. She must have used the yogurt my friend purchased (a different brand).

I ate the yogurt very slowly. It was delicious. Vanilla, in a way my own brand is not vanilla. It occurred to me that if I hadn't been sick my friend wouldn't have gone shopping for me. I wouldn't be tasting this yogurt. Maybe ever. It reminded me of the sunsets I've been seeing from my bedroom window. Usually at sunset time I am downstairs cooking or cleaning.

None of this makes me want to say I don't mind being sick. The world was made for peace and so was I, and when that peace is broken by pain, something deep within me cries, "No!"

But I will say that grace is a sneaky and resilient thing. It can find its way into our bowls and through our windows, bringing us a measure of peace to which we can say, "Yes."

The Gift of Coming Home

2010-09-02T10:09:00.009-04:00

I am in my own bed.

Sometimes I forget what a beautiful thing that is.

On my bedside table are the flowers picked by my children and my "adopted daughter" (girl who I love because she is lovable... a neighbor's child who makes me laugh and who keeps my own children company). I could see from the bouquet's constitution that there had been a visit to my yard and two other neighbors' yards (one neighbor is in France, and I sincerely hope she will not mind the filching of a rose for my sake).

The rose especially fills my senses.

This is what I missed in the hospital. There, the smells were sickly, like the lingering scent of a room cleaned up after death. It clung to the sheets, so I tried to breathe through my mouth instead. I am overly sensitive to fragrances, so the smells were a special kind of unhappiness for me.

I am okay it seems. My legs hurt impossibly and I can't walk very well— a result of inflammation we never got answers about. My fever is gone and I can almost think again.

I realize I will probably never catch up with all the kind people who have left (and may still leave) comments on my blogs over the past week and a half. It's too much. I will have to let it go and hope that people understand.

While I was in a rented bed, I forgot to be afraid. I feel like that was some kind of mistake on my part. Instead, I lay listening to French music and dreaming of dancers. I talked on the phone to a few friends who made me laugh.

And I counted the hours until I could come home.

Bouquet near Hospital Bracelet photo, by L.L. Barkat.

Solace is a Chocolate

2010-08-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

I like my chocolate dark
and just a touch
before bitter. I like my
chocolate barely sweet.
There are hands
that would close my lips,
priests who would say
I should feel guilty for
taking thin Lindts
on my tongue
like wafers at communion.
What do they know
of the Christ at Cana,
who is just now leaning in
to slip me another piece
of solace.

We are writing "solace" poems at HighCallingBlogs. Want to join us?

Sermon Notes Poetry: Philippians

2010-08-23T07:21:00.005-04:00

Catching up on posting these. Two weeks worth of sermon notes poetry for the price of one. At the church I attend, we have outside speakers come twice a month. It gives us a more rounded perspective from the pulpit. My daughter and I were marveling that some speakers inspire better poetry (in my case) and sketches (in her case) than others.

Philippians 1:15-29

"Proof"

We are the true
progressives, marching
students into sanctified
lines; I can show you
charts that flower
white like paper
columbines.

"Bring them"

to Jesus, the one
who rises beyond
suicide bombs,
resurrects breath
from vacuum
of atomic cries.

Philippians 4:4-13

"By Order"

Don't worry that you can't reach the top shelf,
you know what's up there, don't you?
Practice the prayer of thanksgiving,
and a piece of God will tumble down.

"Pense"

When you lift your minds,
do it with books, art, the Yankee game—
you could build a tower all the way
to heaven, but I suspect you'll find God
far before you reach the top floor.

"Paul's Brag"

I went searching for the Ark
but shipwrecked along the way.
Don't say you couldn't do it too;
it's a matter of Christ calling
to the Christ in you. Even cows
returned the covenantal box*
when an empty, bell-fringed tent
murmured them home.

*see 1 Samuel 6

Only When I Dance

2010-08-19T14:47:00.003-04:00

I watched him dance the dance of a story— a true story of a man whose dance danced him, rather than the other way 'round. It was breathtaking.

And I wondered why it has taken me this long to experience the language of dance. Such language gives shivers, sends us inside ourselves and out again.

You can find the dance that made me wonder where I've been without this language, tucked in the middle of this documentary, but only if you get the film. Unfortunately, it's not in the trailer...

Put it in a Psalm: Sorrows and Tangerine Petals

2010-08-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

A while back, Glynn tried the 'Put it in a Psalm' lament exercise from God in the Yard. His words stayed with me.

This morning I thought, why not? Why not give it a try too? So I sat outside, listened to the morning and the burdens of my heart, and put them in a Psalm...

Sorrows and Tangerine Petals

I tire of trying, of holding on
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good

I chaff at the myriad tasks before me
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good

I stir our sorrows, stare into the pot,
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good

I think that the world is too much with us,
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good

Sun barely touches the black-eyed Susans,
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good

Dew kisses the edges of tangerine tropicals,
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

From rose-painted teacup, creme fragrance rises,
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

Give thanks, give thanks,
for the touches barely, the kisses
moist, the tangerine petals, and eyes of brown,
for teacups painted and Earl-Grey filled,
for Spirit in all this glory found.

When Did We Get 'Spiritual Practice' Stuck?

2010-08-14T06:04:00.009-04:00

I am musing on A Simple Country Girl's beautiful teapot and crockery photo. Such a sweet gift in celebration of the little Tea Pilgrimage my girls and I are doing this year.

The photo, quite by accident, ended up with a window-pane shadow on its belly. Unmistakable shape of a cross, on the roundness of promise.

A thought pushes in, a question really, or two... when did we get so 'spiritual practice' stuck that we narrowed our lives down to the cross and not the marvelous round belly of life after it? When did we declare that the Christian life must focus mostly on our sin and failure and penance ('spiritual practice' often seems to be a dressed-up form of penance), rather than celebrate the communion the cross ushered in?

I picture our problem this way... the cross opened a door to a beautiful place (the book of Revelation pictures it as a banqueting place, communion on a grand scale). But we are still busy huddling near the door, wiping our feet on the doormat and worrying about how ill-dressed we are for the occasion. Candles are flickering at the table, china is glimmering and silver is refracting flame, and bread is split open with steam and fragrance rising. But we are stuck at the door.

Maybe the shadow-cross on A Simple Country Girl's teapot was a photographic accident. But I wake thinking it is an invitation to embrace life after the cross, to embrace freedom as simple as a joyful cup of tea (this morning I've tried out a new Creme Earl Grey) and have that be as Christian as a trip to the confessional.

One Year Later

2010-07-29T17:48:00.007-04:00

I checked the date of my very first Art Pilgrimage post. Tomorrow marks one year.

One year since I began in spite of feeling like an impostor. One year since I bought pastels. Can you believe it?

I hardly can.

And I am not ready to end the journey.

This coming year will be different. The visual arts will still be with me, but I am moving on to the art of dance. It seems fitting that today I went to the library and found books on ballet (and a spicy looking memoir on tango). I also picked up two films, one on Jerome Robbins and one on Martha Graham.

Can I tell you I never foresaw where this Pilgrimage would take me?

I'm in it for at least another year. And who knows where it will take me still...

In the Beginning Was the Dance

2010-07-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

Dance gets around my ordinary ways of thinking. I can't evaluate, process, analyze. I have to imitate, mirror, experience. It asks things of me I don't know how to give. It makes me a child again, seeking, watching.

Yesterday I smiled through much of my ballet dancing. It was reaching into untouched places, pulling up joy, spilling it out of toes and fingertips. If I could have laughed without causing too much interruption, I believe I would have.

Then, last night, awakened from dreams, I remembered a dancer I met in New York City this spring. I don't know what we were talking about, but I suddenly said to him, "In the beginning was the dance..." And I pictured the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters like a dove, dancing us into existence.

I also remembered an exchange I had with someone else who could not accept that God speaks through much of anything but words and text. "In the beginning was the Word..." he told me. I asked him what was in the end. Asked him to look at John-the-disciple's other ways of picturing God in Revelation. Secretly, I also wanted to say, "In the beginning was the dance..." To my mind, it's there in Proverbs too... Wisdom, the Christ-figure, dancing at the feet of God at the moment of Creation, just like a child.

In the beginning was the dance. And I am learning how to let it take me in its arms. Turn me out to the world.

RELATED:
Laura's Silence

Dancing with the General

2010-07-13T18:57:00.002-04:00

Some people can change a whole room by their presence.

That's what she did yesterday.

My regular new acquaintances weren't at ballet. But she was.

I had never met her before, and as I took my place at the barre I felt uncomfortable, like I had no business sharing this space with her.

Was it the way she literally looked down her nose when she talked to the teacher? Or maybe it was the way she strutted like a General across the floor, shoulders back, each sway of the hip a declaration or a dare.

I felt tears rise. How could it be that I wanted to cry like a little child and run out of the room? I purposed to ignore her, but it was work. I accomplished less in her presence. I thought maybe I should salute her and say, "Yes, General Noriega."

It was a reminder to me of how fragile beginnings can be. And how we must not let things get in our way. And how we must try not to get in the way of others who are beginning things that long ago became second nature to us.

Tomorrow, if The General is there, I think I will pretend I'm a child picking daisies and offering them to the air.

Sermon Notes Poetry: 2 Thessalonians

2010-07-12T09:04:00.005-04:00

Maybe you know who started all this poetry-during-sermons stuff. And who followed suit. Then, like another wise soul has said, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

If my pastor ever reads these, he will know I was listening. Sort of. I apologize (sort of) for chronicling his sermon on 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12 by adding my odd daydreams to his earnest words.

Question

Where does
the truth lie,
in what back room
does it spread itself
flat to the floor
and pretend.

Injustice

is coffee beans
never finding their way
to your grinder
or a French press,
but instead pouring
like brown pearls
into a dolphined sea.

Apocalypse

Jesus will come
with flowers
and blazing angels,
blast the little herb garden
into bloom.

Everlasting

destruction is
saying the garden
is okay, it is just
okay. Take your
bouquet of blazing
angels and put it in
the neighbor's yard.
I will watch from
the back window.

Guilty

Do we know, did we want
to know, wouldn't we
rather stick with the oregano
leaning, sage sprawling,
rosemary scrubbing the
edge of each day?

Watching

Through the window,
nose pressed
to rippled glass,
could I have any
sense of what
I was missing.

Long-Term Perspective

If I unlatch the
wrought iron gate,
Jesus will grow in me,
and the heat of his fiery
eyes will set the tips
of my petals aflame.

Dancing on Spec

2010-07-03T12:11:00.003-04:00

What does it take to dance?

Maybe the same things it takes to write.

Julia Cameron says she writes on spec. In other words, she doesn't need a guarantee that her writing will "go anywhere." She gives herself permission to simply write for the joy of it. When counseling a writing friend who is afraid of looking foolish, she reminds, "All we need is the courage to do the next right thing."

I have been thinking about this before Julia said it. I have been thinking about what it takes to play piano, study French, dance ballet. All these things have required permission from me. Permission to do one thing at a time. One more scale under my fingers, one more foreign phrase, and now one more pointed toe.

To the fearful writer friend, Julia also says, "Don't worry about being new. Worry about being human."

Translation...

Don't worry about being Chopin, worry about feeling the notes. Don't worry about working as a translator, worry about the way French caresses the heart. Don't worry about being Nutcracker material (slim, graceful, strong), just worry about embracing the surprise of movement.

Go ahead, I hear Julia say. Play, speak, dance on spec. The delight is yours.

After The Dressing Room

2010-07-02T14:52:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was happy with my body.

Today, not so much.

Shopping for ballet leggings can do that to a person. Suddenly the shape of my legs was made real by black cotton, running from ankle to thigh and onward, hugging all the way.

Tomorrow I am going to try to be happy with my body again. Or maybe even this afternoon, if I find it in me. I think it will come to this: remembering there is art in this body, art that wants to reach through my fingertips, touch the ceiling.

I should have known that an art pilgrimage would go all the way. Ask me to love everything about me, on my way to loving the world.

Let me begin with my feet then. I like the way they curve when I point my toes. I won't try to love more than this for today. Just my feet. And the way they curve.

The Art of Moving

2010-06-30T13:05:00.006-04:00

It was a snap decision. I looked up the details on their website, dialed a number, left a message for Connie.

When I told a friend about my intentions, I said I had just decided "yes" last night, after Connie called me back.

But maybe I had been wanting this for a long time. I've been on an Art Pilgrimage and the thought has crossed my mind that sometime this art might need to move to my body. Maybe I would need to learn what it is to be a dancer.

Reading The Artist's Way, I remembered (as Julia asked me to) what I had always wanted to do as a child. I remembered that if life had been different I could have continued the ballet class my grandmother paid for (and I went to only for a short time). I remembered that I have always wanted to feel the air with my fingertips and toes, in just this way.

So I called Connie. And she said, "Come."

I did. Today.

First position. Second. Third. I remembered these. I watched. I tried. For long moments I was completely lost. I know some French, but not the ballet teacher's words that tell me what to do. At some point it occurred to me that, yes, there is a sequence. Everything to the front, now to the side, then to the back. I found little ways in, even as I got lost along the way.

"Move like a queen," she said. "Majestic."

Okay. I will never be a dancer among dancers. But I can pretend, just for a while, to be a queen.

God in the Yard: In the Beginning • Week 1

2010-06-03T08:27:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow I meet with my writing friend to begin our collaboration. But today I thought I should begin somewhere. Here are a few thoughts on structuring Week 1 in the God in the Yard Devotional Companion book. I welcome your suggestions, insights, conversation. Someday I will put all this together into a coherent whole. But for now it seemed good to begin...

From God in the Yard, Week 1

When I was a child, I lived in the woods.

Not literally, of course. I wasn’t a pint-sized Paul Bunyan, wielding my axe, toddling around with a stuffed blue ox. The woods were a place I sought solace from a difficult life. There, I watched the creek change from silver-green ribbon, to amber, from ice-blue to spring’s rush and tumble of white. I floated sticks and made pine needle beds. Sometimes I raced my sister across the creek rocks, then knocked her into the reeds. In the woods I was free...

A Few Thoughts on Beginnings

"Tell me about when I was born." My youngest child loves to say this when I turn off the light and tuck her in bed. Maybe the story of her beginnings gives her solace for the darkness she will now face alone. Maybe it informs and comforts her dreams. Maybe it is simply about connection or the pleasure of remembrance. Stories of beginnings are rich and powerful.

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath note that remembering how we began, or how we came to a place, especially a place of difficulty, is often more valuable than thinking towards a vision of some hoped-for future. Unraveling the past, or following the trail from past to present, if you will, does more to propel us forward than trying to magically jump into an abstract tomorrow.

It was interesting to me to see that both Glynn and Laura chose to focus on the "When I was a child" option, in embarking on their first week with God in the Yard. Maybe they did other activities too, but this was the one they both chose to share. Stories of beginnings. Could it be that we instinctively know we move forward by first going back?

Beginnings in Scripture (all taken from the KJV)

Morning Reading • Genesis 1:1-31

Excerpt... "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.'"

Afternoon Reading • Psalm 139:11-16

Excerpt... "My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

Evening Reading • Luke 2:22-38

Excerpt... "And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem."

Ways to Consider

In each of the passages above, it might be helpful to ponder...

1. Who are the characters present in the passage? (Don't shy from listing the animals as well :)

2. What is the setting like? What can we see, smell, hear?

3. What is happening in the passage?

4. Do you know more about any of these stories? About what happened before or after these particular moments? How do they relate (or not seem to relate) to the "beginnings" in these passages?

5. Can you relate one of your own "beginnings" stories to any of these passages?

Prayer

In the beginning, you created, Lord. In this new moment of beginnings, create in me.

Art for Reflection

Anunciation, by L.L. Barkat (pictured above). Do you have other recommendations? Contributions? Let me know.

Musical selection

To be selected (this is not my forte :)

-----
Notes to Myself (and anyone else who wants to listen :)...

Need to consider:

1. how well this captures the essence of Chapter 1
2. how to make the connection to spiritual practice (or not)
3. whether the questions are deep and wide enough, have the right focus
4. whether certain "natural" aspects can be played up (since GIY's setting is one of outdoor solitude), or whether they even need to be

A Date Long Due

2010-05-31T11:44:00.006-04:00

Yesterday I was alone.

I considered feeling lonely.

Then I decided I had better things to do.

I went on a date.

With myself.

First I tried to find a park I'd heard about. I couldn't find it. I ended up in a nursing home parking lot, overlooking the river. I parked in the sun. It was too hot, but I put my seat back and I took a nap. When I woke, I pulled out of the drive and noticed these seeds. Of course I had to get out of the car and take time to explore them.

Not to be defeated in my search for the elusive park, I eventually sort of found it. Except I couldn't find my way by road. So I left the car in a strange empty lot near the highway, and I walked. I found this tunnel. It was sweet to listen to the echo of two voices at the other end— friends hiding from the sun, maybe hiding in each other on this warm afternoon.

At the end of the tunnel, I saw wild roses. I love the way light infuses petals.

The park was smaller than I'd hoped, and crowded. I moved on to another park. As it turned out, it was crowded too. People with people with people. I went alone to a shady hill and listened to all their sounds. I listened to the birds. Closed my eyes, napped again, sat and dreamed, wrote. I pointed my camera towards the river, then towards the sky and enjoyed my time with them, with me.

Sunday photos by L.L. Barkat.

Companion Together

2010-05-18T16:12:00.005-04:00

God in the Yard is off to print, and I'm thinking about a companion e-book (maybe something for a dollar, or free downloadable)— a resource that people could use as an individual devotional or group-study help.

This might seem unnecessary, because God in the Yard already involves activity, journaling and small-group discussion possibilities.

But I can see how some people are going to want more opportunities for Scripture juxtapositions. Right now I'm wondering if it would make sense to provide an Old Testament reference, grouped with a Psalm reference and something from the life of Christ. Pairing art and maybe music suggestions might also be cool.

Well, as you can see, I'm totally thinking out loud here. I'm also thinking that though I've asked a wonderful writer and bible study teacher to help me develop this, I'd also like to extend the companion opportunity to you. It wouldn't necessarily require that you read God in the Yard. You could chime in here with thoughts, questions, recommendations. And if I can eventually create something that also includes links, I'd like to link to you if I use your contribution.

Anyway. Would you think with me? Walk with me? Companion together?

Just for the Fun of It

2010-04-24T11:01:00.004-04:00

When I started this Art Pilgrimage, I didn't have any rationale I understood. It was just for the fun of it.

And that is why I am reading things like this enormous book on Art History. I can't give you a single good reason for it. I have no plans to be a curator, an art historian, an art history teacher.

When do we stop doing things just for the fun of it? When do we begin doing everything in life for "a reason"?

I don't know. But I'm done with that. I really am.

But here's the strange thing. There have been "outcomes" connected to my pilgrimage. Ones I didn't foresee. Ones that go past amorphous (and wonderful) happenings like personal satisfaction and spiritual awakening.

In a convoluted path that would take too much room to explain, the Pilgrimage led to a poetry book. Then someone wanted to buy one of the art pieces I posted here (I gave it away... why not? :) And, most recently, another piece was chosen for an art show in Germany. Um, what?

I am not saying all this to try to impress you (we have a different kind of relationship than that, I hope). I am saying all this to give you a nudge. Are there things you've been wanting to do "just because"? Do they seem frivolous, out-of-place, hard to justify or explain?

All the better. These are deep places. Why not... jump in.

Note to the Shepherd

2010-04-09T10:49:00.003-04:00

I never wanted to be
the bush, burning,
turning sorrow to ash,
flaming, naming
dark things with
embers and light.
It takes so much
to be rooted, give
my arms to ignite
a simple day, a blue-
black night.

I really liked Marcus's heretical poem. Then it got me thinking about what it means to actually be the burning bush. So of course I turned to poetry to work out my thoughts a little further. :)

RELATED:
Glynn's Sacred Sand
Karen's Not Me. I AM

Together in the Woods

2010-03-31T10:52:00.007-04:00

Remember when I said I am not alone on this journey?

It's true.

This past week I found new companions, Amanda and Julie (daughter and mom poets).

And I received comfort from someone I've known on-line. Oh, but wasn't it great to see, to put our hands together, Kathleen?

Who knows where we'll keep traveling together after meeting at a conference, in the woods of California. Who knows...

Redwoods and Hands photos, by L.L. Barkat.

Going Bookless

2010-03-23T14:57:00.005-04:00

All right. I did it. I went bookless for the week.

Cameron wanted me to do it. She said I would probably balk. She was right.

What was I supposed to do in lieu of reading? She suggested knitting (I used to do that; I find it tedious now), gardening, playing an instrument, and other things I can't remember. She promised I would find something important. I'm not sure about that. Though sometimes it takes a while to discover what has just happened in our soul unawares.

I did find two fire poems which I have been looking for a really long time (one still stashed away, waiting for the collaborative touch of Kelly Langner Sauer.) I found my guitar (again... I seem to lose track of it over and over, but I wanted something to put my voice to, so I found my guitar). I played piano, cleaned (a lot, a lot and can't believe how much I could still do if I were so inclined; if you are reading this, RM, know that I am terribly jealous of your clean, peaceful house :)

Mostly I found permission.

Reading is something I often feel compelled to do. It's even part of my job (I did read a little here and there on-line, but I curbed it as much as possible). It felt freeing to know I wasn't allowed to read, as much as it bugged me too (how many times did I reach for a book, then just sit down on my bed and do nothing, while I tried to re-envision who I am through what I do?)

I didn't much like going bookless. Yet I did find those things I may not have otherwise found. So I'm thinking I might do this again sometime.

Right after I read a few good books.

Whimsy at My Feet

2010-03-15T19:12:00.004-04:00

Did I tell you about my purple toe nails?

I painted them dark pearly purple.

When I kick off my slippers at night, I swing my feet at the edge of the bed. And I look at my whimsical purple nails.

Cameron says that when we go through The Artist's Way, we'll see changes in ourselves. We might clean out our closets (hey, I did that already! How did she know?) Still, she forgot to tell me about the nail polish. I am SO not a nail polish kind of girl. But this seemed right. A private indulgence. An odd beauty, like keeping irises in the closet and not caring that no one can see them.

Is this why God made iridescent sea creatures that creep around the ocean floor, making the dark beautiful to no one in particular? If God were a girl like me, sitting at the edge of the bed, would God choose a lick of purple polish too?

Candles at 56 Irving Place photo by L.L. Barkat.

5th Date

2010-03-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

I travel to New York City to attend IAM's Encounter conference.

Where should I stay?

Any other time, I might choose a rectangular room, indoor-outdoor carpeted grey, with faux flowers on the desk (these rooms always have a desk, ask you to work while you are away).

But I decide that maybe I can find an Artist's Date in where I stay.

So instead of a hotel, I choose The Inn at 56 Irving Place.

When I walk in after dark and am greeted by a friendly host named Scott, when I smell the fresh flowers and see white orchids cascading in a peaceful bouquet, when I see the dark wood and high ceilings and antique furniture I know this was the right choice.

It is a place I can read poetry (and I do). It is a place where I can sleep deeper than I have in a while (and I do). It is a place that revives me. Leads me to write poetry...

56 Irving Place, Gramercy Park

for Sarah Haliwell and Neruda

I love your poems. I held them in a dark room, gardenia scented,
lit only by a candle bulb peering over an aged bed. The headboard
and the footboard were dark too, and carved. Sheets white and soft.
There were sirens outside, muted by plaster, old oak, a mirrored
wardrobe in the corner, tall and gently imposing. I took a picture
of me in slate blue nightwear that looked almost Japanese, loose
as the garb that strong men wear for taekwondo, but shirred like
a lily at the short sleeves. Before I took your words to bed,
before I dreamed.

In the morning I sit by myself in the breakfast room. Vivaldi's Spring, or something like that, plays while I eat whole-wheat artisan bread, cheese, raspberries, blackberries. I use a whole pat of butter on my toast. Jasmine green tea warms my mouth, opens me with sweet fragrance.

And I feel oddly alone and whole at the same time. The way Sarah's poetry simultaneously retreats and surges...

how I long for a heartland
root-bound and simple
tideless
surefooted
but then again oh

I do so love the deep

Inn at 56 Irving Place photos by L.L. Barkat. Excerpt from Sarah Haliwell's poem "watermark", used with permission.

4th Date

2010-02-26T20:20:00.006-05:00

This kind of day asks you to come along. How can you resist? It is the easiest date. You needn't plan a thing.

The boundaries between you-as-adult and you-as-child become a blur. You walk into white and laugh. How can it be? How can the world really look like this?

You climb the small hill. Trees creak, branches threaten to break under weight of snow. The child in you doesn't care.

So you take a chance and, like Alice, you fall through a hole, into another world...

Snow photos by L.L. Barkat. For PhotoPlay, at HighCallingBlogs.

RELATED:
Monica's Fire Dance
nAncY's boundaries and opportunities

3rd Date

2010-02-22T12:58:00.006-05:00

This past week... was like one long Artist's Date. Airports and snow at one end of the date... airports and sun-going-down at the other end.

New York, Pittsburgh. Beaver Falls.

A chapel with 1300(?) students, listening (and not :) to my thoughts on Ash Wednesday. An inn with a golden, long-haired dog named Roo (and me with too much black wool clothing to keep hair-free).

Doors, paths, walkways. Rooms, tables, dishes. Lamps, fireplaces, gatherings. Poems, lots of poems. And poets. More than you would think.

It will take time to trace and retrace, to understand. For now, I am simply, beautifully overwhelmed with the gifts. And excited by the unwrapping to come.

Geneva College Library Door photo, by L.L. Barkat.

A Gift While I Rested

2010-02-11T08:40:00.004-05:00

Sometimes a fellow traveler offers you a gift. She might live a mile away, or she (and her sisters) might live on the other side of a continent.

Her mother might put the gift in a little basket, cover it with a linen cloth, and set it beside you while you are taking a rest.

That's what Kathleen Overby did for me. These photos were taken by her daughter Tessa, who recently "restored" with her sisters at a rustic cabin. The photos, said Kathleen, were a gift from the girls, to "honor [my] yes."

I asked, could I share them with others, for we are not alone. And they graciously agreed.

Photos by Tessa Overby. Used with permission.

2nd Date

2010-02-10T13:49:00.004-05:00

I am almost sure this doesn't count as a date. Cameron said nothing about going in, just about going out— to shops, parks, museums, roads not taken.

But I called it a date. Maybe I was just trying to cheer myself for a chore. But maybe not. Can we go in for an Artist's date?

I went into my dark wooden dresser, into my closet. I tossed a light green shirt that was stained and worn, but before I tossed it, I used it to dust the edge of the drawer. I tossed a scrap of packaging (what was it doing in there?) and a black racer t-shirt that had a lot (a lot!) of holes in it. I threw away an old coral-colored sleeveless mock turtleneck. I liked the tone of that shirt, but it wasn't so great on me; why did I wear it just because someone gave it to me as her hand-me-down?

The closet was equally full of questions. Why did I wear the red wool blazer cut too full, pink embroidered "nice-girl" sweater and the white embroidered one that, frankly, always seemed to have two flowers like bulls-eyes in exactly the wrong place? What of the pastel yellow suit and the taupe one? Bad colors both, at least for me. And designs that either overpowered or muted.

I threw away everything I'd never liked, everything too stained, everything I was pretending about. I saved some white t-shirts, because sometimes my girls ask for an old one to make over.

I didn't have to walk very far to go on this date. It was warm inside, while the snow was falling outside (is still). Can I tell you one of my favorite parts of the date?

...pulling the little chain that shuts off the "candle" light in my closet, and closing the door.