Friday, January 14, 2011
It's Friday and I'm going to party all night long (or at least until 10:30 PM):
with a book, a space heater, and a cup of tea.
And you thought I didn't have a wild side...
Because I'm into a party theme here, I've included a few ideas from Jack Handey concerning how to be a success at a party. I'm probably going to try both of them tonight while I'm reading. (If you ever watched SNL in the 90's, you'll know what I'm talking about.):
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Hungry for the beautiful things.
"It seems to me that we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them." -- George Eliot
The metal planter rusted below the apple tree near the broken wood planks that served as a "bridge" across the wider part of the irrigation ditch. This was a sacred place that spoke of love and history, the hunger for the apple and the ear. The blue house rested 3 acres down the hill, and I lived in it, under the ground in the bedroom in the corner.
"Is this going to be your bedroom then?" Grandpa asked.
"Yes, this one here," I said even though it was nothing more than a few rebar stakes marking where the concrete foundation would be poured.
"It's far away from the other rooms." Pause. "I like to be alone, too," he said. And somehow, he seemed to turn into a hawk at that point in my memory, lifting himself from that dirt floor that would one day be "a room of my own" and he flew above me, alone, watching, part of the air and the invisible hand that lifted him there.
The rain was coming down, so I put on the long, green army jacket I'd been hiding in lately. The clunky wind chime I'd made in art class in one hand and Patches beside me with her skittish gate, head bowed from the past abuse she'd come away from. (The Lord asks us not to punish or kill our animals with cruelty. All things in that gentle hand, the one that understands what it means to end the life of something He created.) And the rain came down through the fields, down through the leaves, darkening bark of trees. June, and I was free from school, in my room and writing, reading, listening to music all day. Now out in the rain that shiver patters through the leaves. I hang the wind chime there, pick a tart green apple, and fly straight into the air, up through the rain that washes us.
The metal planter rusted below the apple tree near the broken wood planks that served as a "bridge" across the wider part of the irrigation ditch. This was a sacred place that spoke of love and history, the hunger for the apple and the ear. The blue house rested 3 acres down the hill, and I lived in it, under the ground in the bedroom in the corner.
"Is this going to be your bedroom then?" Grandpa asked.
"Yes, this one here," I said even though it was nothing more than a few rebar stakes marking where the concrete foundation would be poured.
"It's far away from the other rooms." Pause. "I like to be alone, too," he said. And somehow, he seemed to turn into a hawk at that point in my memory, lifting himself from that dirt floor that would one day be "a room of my own" and he flew above me, alone, watching, part of the air and the invisible hand that lifted him there.
The rain was coming down, so I put on the long, green army jacket I'd been hiding in lately. The clunky wind chime I'd made in art class in one hand and Patches beside me with her skittish gate, head bowed from the past abuse she'd come away from. (The Lord asks us not to punish or kill our animals with cruelty. All things in that gentle hand, the one that understands what it means to end the life of something He created.) And the rain came down through the fields, down through the leaves, darkening bark of trees. June, and I was free from school, in my room and writing, reading, listening to music all day. Now out in the rain that shiver patters through the leaves. I hang the wind chime there, pick a tart green apple, and fly straight into the air, up through the rain that washes us.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
It's Funny Because It's True
Nora while filling our homemade bean bags with beans: "Mommy? Do you know why they call it a funnel?" "No, why?" "Because it's fun."
"Grandpa, do you know that we are neighbors on a farm and the farmer lives behind us but we don't go to his house? We just send him letters." (I guess Lynn lives in the grain bins out back. Nora knows not to play around them, so we have to send him "letters" instead of visiting--the rent checks that I leave in his windshield wiper on the 1st.)
Nora explaining to Grandpa that I also wear boots but they are cowGIRL boots and he has cowBOY boots: "Do you have a pair of cowgirl boots, Nora?" "No, because I would need to get calfgirl boots. I'm just little."
"Grandpa, do you know that we are neighbors on a farm and the farmer lives behind us but we don't go to his house? We just send him letters." (I guess Lynn lives in the grain bins out back. Nora knows not to play around them, so we have to send him "letters" instead of visiting--the rent checks that I leave in his windshield wiper on the 1st.)
Nora explaining to Grandpa that I also wear boots but they are cowGIRL boots and he has cowBOY boots: "Do you have a pair of cowgirl boots, Nora?" "No, because I would need to get calfgirl boots. I'm just little."
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hmmm.
Hm.
You, blank screen, are a mystery tonight.
First day back teaching. I didn't sleep much last night.
Reading the night before: "In nothing be anxious." Why is this so hard for me, Lord? Forgive me my doubt. Let me know with my bones that you hold not only enough, but more than enough (the gooseberry bush with the overripe berries left over after picking and picking and picking.)
I am willing (vulnerable enough) to release the terror grip around the locked heart of my mouth to receive the words I struggle to say to those I love so much. Instead, let me hear THEM. Those that speak around me, to me.
Give Me everything you have, and I will do the rest.
(old wounds resurface in front of others speaking in a group terror that I have overcome by asking Him to get me out of my way and I wrestle it down instead of letting it go mistaking its intentions relax and let it breathe a count down back to one: I believe and know you can do it. The faith of a friend.)
I want to erase this post. But I won't because it doesn't want to be perfect.
Give me a spirit primed to receive all things as You will them. Take this anxiety, deadly weed wound around the heart's mouth. I am made of what I was willing to receive. Let me never turn You away.
You're trying too hard...trying too hard. It's not even up to you. Give it up, sister.
Today was stunning. More than I could have asked.
Monday, January 10, 2011
A Snow Day with Nora
She immediately gets down on the ground and rolls without stopping over the top of the snow from the front steps to the orchard.
Snow angels with big wings. Small wings. One wing. Pants. Crazy hair.
We are penguins looking for icicles to eat. (There's one in our freezer right now.)
"Look what I found!" (Digging up her turtle sandbox as if she'd never seen it before.) This new planet.
Cats egg-shell footed over the snow. They hate this stuff.
Hot chocolate. Blanket warmed in the dryer. Barbies. Listening to her voice all day throughout the house, talking, singing, jumping, rolling. Completely wild with loving life. Making a complete mess while baking (and me trying to "keep it in the bowl.") "I'm covered in this stuff!" she says, obviously delighted.
This is joy.
Then later, her laughter turning to tears, to laughter again. "I can't figure out what I'm feeling, so I got mixed up with my tears." I'm holding her because I know this place:
But it's hard to write it. The edge. I don't know what I'm thinking exactly, only that joy requires a loss of control, demands that vulnerability I've been thinking about and trying to live within. I live with a teacher.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
White, Frozen Fields
At last: the snow.
And what more could we ask, those of us starting out on some new page (each day), excited or scared or both? Pure potential.
Whatever my fear or my thrill, I ask that You walk in me, placing my feet across the expanse, one movement conveying the next. A(t) pea(ie)ce of(in) You. Let me be that vehicle, the medium, the gesture.
Let me not fear my vulnerability but rather see it as the space made for love to enter and exit, no matter if it breaks the field in two.
And what more could we ask, those of us starting out on some new page (each day), excited or scared or both? Pure potential.
Whatever my fear or my thrill, I ask that You walk in me, placing my feet across the expanse, one movement conveying the next. A(t) pea(ie)ce of(in) You. Let me be that vehicle, the medium, the gesture.
Let me not fear my vulnerability but rather see it as the space made for love to enter and exit, no matter if it breaks the field in two.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
That's Just Women's Work
Did I get your attention?
A small, simple 90-page book has found its way into my home, and I've gladly made a space for it on my bedside table. It goes by the name of The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work by Kathleen Norris.
Here's a small sample. You'll see why I love it.
"God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great Cosmic Cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" (Ps 90:5), or to put it in more personal and theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed every day" (2 Cor 4:16)."
Bring me to my knees so I might wash the floor in that presence.
I actually love the rhythm, the movement, and pace of this work--I have a dishwasher, but I don't use it. I'll trade the mop for a bucket and rag. I love snapping beans. Crochet. The small, simple signs that say I was here, and it was full of peace. Slowness. A job, a seemingly small, unpaid job done well--that my whole soul was a part of it, in fact that it felt calmed pulling one apricot after another from the branch.
To grow, to mother, to cook, to sing, to sew, to stitch one note, one word after another--it's so simple. And I get it. I really get it. I was made for this.
A small, simple 90-page book has found its way into my home, and I've gladly made a space for it on my bedside table. It goes by the name of The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy, and Women's Work by Kathleen Norris.
Here's a small sample. You'll see why I love it.
"God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great Cosmic Cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" (Ps 90:5), or to put it in more personal and theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed every day" (2 Cor 4:16)."
Bring me to my knees so I might wash the floor in that presence.
I actually love the rhythm, the movement, and pace of this work--I have a dishwasher, but I don't use it. I'll trade the mop for a bucket and rag. I love snapping beans. Crochet. The small, simple signs that say I was here, and it was full of peace. Slowness. A job, a seemingly small, unpaid job done well--that my whole soul was a part of it, in fact that it felt calmed pulling one apricot after another from the branch.
To grow, to mother, to cook, to sing, to sew, to stitch one note, one word after another--it's so simple. And I get it. I really get it. I was made for this.
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