Traveling at the Speed of Life

Star Gazing

2007-09-20T05:36:00.000-04:00

I'm catching up with unread magazines that piled up over the summer and discovered David Owen's article about the disappearance of the night sky in an August New Yorker.

Owen writes that terrestrial illumination of the night sky by artificial lamps have washed out our view of the stars. The Bortle Dark-Sky Scale classifies the sky along nine points. In Galileo's time the night sky across the globe would be a Class 1. Most American suburbs are Class 5, 6, or 7.

With a homemade telescope less powerful than one you'd buy an eight-year-old, Galileo described the moon's terrain, could see that the Milky Way was made of individual stars, and that Jupiter had moons (which he called planets). Most Americans have only seen the the Milky Way in pictures, yet in Galileo's day it cast a shadow over the earth on clear nights.

Today, star-gazing is nothing like it was for our grandparents. Even from the Grand Canyon -- that vast protected area -- the brightest feature on a clear night is Las Vegas 175 miles away.

I still remember the thrill of seeing a true night sky (probably a Class 4 or 5) on a clear summer night while camping on the shores of Lake Huron 11 or 12 years ago. Having always lived in cities, I didn't know that you could see satellites streak across the sky, or that there were shooting stars every night, or even that the sky held so many stars. It hadn't occurred to me that the stars on Orion's belt were just the brightest stars. Believing my eyes, I thought the stars I could see were the only stars in that part of the sky.

I know. It's crazy. Ignorance becomes a truth if it's reinforced often enough.

How impoverished our existence is without the night sky. I need the stars to remind me of my lack of consequence -- that my life, my problems are quite small. To remind me of the vastness of all I do not know. Of the mysterious heavens. It was 1992 when the Vatican officially confirmed Galileo's findings that the Earth moved around the Sun -- only 359 years after he was tried for heresy under threat of torture by the Inquisition.

In those days to look at the night sky could be dangerous because the right mind could draw unsettling conclusions about the nature of things. Nowadays, the night sky might still have something to teach us about our place in the universe -- if only we could see it.

Days of Silence, Days of Awe

2007-09-17T07:25:00.000-04:00

My father's death has bludgeoned me into an unfamiliar silence. The days between posts feel like accusations -- days when I should have written something but didn't.

"Should."

In this unfamiliarly quiet and solitary state, I sense accusations everywhere. The dust under the beds, the dishes in the sink, letters unanswered, pounds not lost, words not found. But, of course, these "shoulds" are all my own. No one convicts me for the dust or the dishes or the letters, or the silence.

These are the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar -- the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur -- a liminal time of introspection when Jewish tradition holds that God writes everyone's name in the book of life and decides who will live and who will die (and how) this year.

One rabbi writes that these are days to experience our brokenheartedness in a deep way as we attend to our lives and all that is done and undone, known and unknown, broken and whole.

These are days to sit in awe and silence at the great mysteries of life and death as God/the world/life announces our place in the family of things (with a nod to Mary Oliver).

Happy birthday to the whole world

2007-09-16T16:40:00.001-04:00

The Jewish high holidays celebrate the birthday of creation and call humanity to reflect, repent, and recommit to the healing of the world. When you reflect on your life, you bump into death as well, so the holidays are also a confrontation with life's fragility and death's mystery.

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed
On Yom Kippur it is sealed.

Here is a humorous and deep offering from Leonard Cohen

And who by fire,
who by water,
who in the sunshine,
who in the night time,
who by high ordeal,
who by common trial,
who in your merry merry month of may,
who by very slow decay,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who in her lonely slip,
who by barbiturate,
who in these realms of love,
who by something blunt,
and who by avalanche,
who by powder,
who for his greed,
who for his hunger,
and who shall I say is calling?

And who by brave assent,
who by accident,
who in solitude,
who in this mirror,
who by his lady's command,
who by his own hand,
who in mortal chains,
who in power,
and who shall I say is calling?

Transformative moments

2007-08-02T13:33:00.000-04:00

A quotation caught my eye the other day. It's from the liner notes of Keith Jarrett's CD "Radiance" as quoted in Trinity News, a publication of Trinity Church, Wall Street.

Transformative

moments

are

very

rare,

they

seem

due

our

inattention.

Psalms for these days

2007-07-25T05:31:00.000-04:00

After my father died, I found that I needed a new spiritual discipline -- something to hang each day on. In hard times, the psalms speak to the heart. So, I am in the midst writing each psalm in my own words, in my own way. These are not translations or "improvements." The biblical psalms are communal songs. They are meant for the community to sing or say. They are what they are.

I'm trying something more intimate; a dialogue with an ever-present inner companion, rather than an omnipotent God that dwells elsewhere. I'm working with the theme, imagery, or direction of the original psalm with a goal of keeping the feel of a psalm and not modern poetry.

Here's a try:

Psalm 5.

Search my thoughts and come to my aid;
I am in trouble again.

I know that if I am quiet in the morning and watch for you,
anxiety and fear cannot get a foothold.

You hold open a door and gladly I enter your house;
the heart of peace.

If only I could stay there always
in your sheltering love.

But my own mind betrays me
with anger, resentment, envy, worry, judgment.

My mind is a yawning abyss of distraction;
my thoughts swing from tree to tree when what I need most is
a clear pool of still water.

Freedom from myself, freedom from the agony of uncertainty
is what I seek;

but suffering waits inside the door.
It never knocks before coming in.

Be my shelter, Friend, for I take refuge in you;
shield me, defend me against the chatter of my own mind.

Waiting for Harry

2007-07-20T21:47:00.000-04:00

I've been away from work for a couple of weeks now and it finally feels like vacation. I turned off the cellphone and stopped reading email for a week and started to relax. I have plowed through several Michigan mysteries and am ready for Harry Potter. I did turn on my Blackberry and glanced at the volume of email and found myself tensing. So I turned it off again.

We decided to vacation locally this year. We made our back porch into our "cottage" and have been reading, eating, playing scrabble, and hanging with the doggies. We only answer the phone if we want to and have taken some day trips (more on those later).

One concession to consumer-culture: We're bringing our girl to a downtown Ann Arbor bookstore tonight so we can be part of the Harry Potter finale. I found the sixth book difficult to get through, in part, because Harry was insufferably self-absorbed (well-done JKR, you captured some of the more disagreeable aspects of adolescence very well!). But I'm looking forward to the last book and am curious to see how JKR ends it all.

I hope you're reading for fun. It's summer, after all.

Mercy in the laundry

2007-07-16T20:37:00.000-04:00

If you live with others, intimacy is inevitable. I mean the bodily kind of intimacy. We make sounds, take up space, and leave trails of one sort or another wherever we go.

It might be the baby brother whose non-stop crying interrupts your sleep; the little sister who tears up your homework; the closed-door argument you can't help but hear; the drunken roommate who throws up next to the bed crying about her boyfriend. The sick child who projectile-vomits onto your face. The friend who squeezes your shoulder as she walks by. Our boundaries are porous.

Growing up in a family gigantic by today's standards, I learned right away about the benefits of a closed door. For a few years I had my own room and I loved closing the door on my family. I imagined that whatever I did behind the door belonged only to me. It was my sanctuary. I even told myself that when I sang along with Cat Stevens, no one could hear me. How tolerant my family was of my own noise-making and God-knows-what else. As the eldest, I thought of myself as the tolerant one. Eldests can be clueless in this way.

It has been lovely -- and also sad -- to reestablish this strange and familiar intimacy as I've spent more time with my family these last few years. When my father was ill, he maintained his privacy and dignity around us children by calling for my mother when he needed help getting to the bathroom or had an accident. During one of our last visits, though, this boundary began to erode. He wasn't feeling well and stayed in his room for the day. We talked for a while and he began to tire. As I was leaving the room, he asked if I would empty the portable urinal. The request came so casually, he might as well have been asking me to hand him the sports section.

I took it to the bathroom and as I poured it out, my first thought was "This is weird. I'm dumping my father's urine." My second thought was, "He changed my diapers. I dump his pee. No difference." Someone will do this for me some day.

When our bodies don't work so well, we rely on each other and the boundaries we've thrown up don't make sense. When my mother's hand surgery meant she couldn't apply polish to her nails, I asked her if she'd like me to do it. She almost cried. "We haven't been this intimate in so long," said the one who nursed me.

When my sisters were visiting a while back, I developed a headache so intense I couldn't open my eyes. I laid myself down on the bed and the sister whose diapers I had changed 25 years ago rubbed my feet, touching me in a way she had never done before.

This weekend, we did some laundry for my father-in-law while visiting him in Indiana. He's very independent -- scarily so. He had a stroke a few years ago and lists to the left like a sinking ship, but is indomitable for now. Still, he needs attention and care. Laundry is one of those things he puts off since it means a trip to the basement. It is a small thing we do when we're there.

With my own dad gone, this chore took on more power than I expected. Standing in the basement and folding his underwear as I took it out of the dryer I saw that he wears the same v-neck Hanes my own dad wore. In fact, I rescued a couple before my mom gave away dad's clothes. I wear them once in awhile around the house and they're a comfort. My father-in-law is the only father I have now, and while we do not have a history of intimacy, to fold his v-necks was as much a mercy to me as a help to him. It was as if I was doing a kindness for my own father who had given me so much.

A kindness I pray I will return in time.

Vatican in the news this week

2007-07-12T11:03:00.000-04:00

This week the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a clarification of Roman Catholic ecclesiology titled Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church and Pope Benedict restored the Tridentine Latin Rite for use by Catholics.

Here are some official and unofficial (but thoughtful) responses from Catholics and Protestants:

Evangelical News (EV.org)

World Alliance of Reformed Churches

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA)

Liberal Catholic News Blog

Inside the Vatican.com

The Times of London (Ruth Gledhill)

Anglican Continuum

Sister Joan Chittister, OSB

Zenit.org

United Church of Canada

Summer treats

2007-07-10T21:55:00.001-04:00

Does that roasted sugary pillow on the end of a stick say anything about you?

My family did not vacation. We picnicked on Lake Erie. It doesn't sound very appealing, I know -- especially if you know what Lake Erie was like in the 70s. With four children (and later six), vacation travel wasn't much of an option for my family. So cookouts at the beach were our summer diversions, once or twice each year. There was also the occasional company picnic where we could be sure to eat a few hot dogs and slices of watermelon, throw a frisbee, play some egg toss, and roast marshmallows.

As a child, my preference was to allow the marshmallow to burst into flame. I would hold my blazing torch for a few seconds like the most exciting act at the circus, blow it out and triumphantly swallow the charred gooey lump whole. Every marshmallow was a little thrill.

I have since married someone who has introduced me to the charms of slow-cooking your confections. The marshmallow with the golden brown crust and the creamy center is the prize of one who knows the fruits of patience.

I still like the thrills of the fire, but those golden ones are worth the wait.

Summer reading

2007-07-07T09:15:00.000-04:00

Our kids started participating in the Ann Arbor District Library's summer reading program long ago. It's encouraged a habit of reading for pleasure. Now we do it, too. You sign up and keep track of the books you read. At the end of the summer, if you've read five books, you get a coupon for a free gift.

When I was in 6th grade, a few of us kept track of all the books we read that year. I wish I still had that list. I read like my life depended on it. I wanted my list to be the longest. I kept an open book on my lap at my desk and would read during school, after school, in the bathroom, under the covers with a flashlight. I was obsessed.

I was caught in a bibliomaniacal equivalent of a pie-eating contest and I began to cut corners because I wanted to WIN. It was a downward moral spiral. How much of a book did I have to read to put it on my list? Could I skip a word? A paragraph? Could I skim? If I read like "Evelyn Wood", was that reading? Could I count that? If I read enough to summarize the main points or plot, would that count?

I'm generalist, not a specialist and my reading reflects this commitment. Outside of a few mysteries every summer and a couple of literary novels, I read to keep up with the conversation about spiritual, religious, and cultural issues and ideas -- poetry, the NY Times, Salon, WSJ, Chronicle of Higher Ed, the New Yorker, collections of essays, a few novels, scholarly articles.

I don't read every word anymore -- I don't have time -- but I feel a little guilty about it. An author means every word to be read. Somehow, skipping a word or a paragraph still feels a little like cheating, a petty dishonesty - a sorry consequence of trying to keep up. Occasionally a writer will make me read all of her, like Mary Oliver or Annie Dillard or Joan Didion. In her collection of essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman threw me to the ground and ordered me to the dictionary to keep up, but it was my pleasure. Thank God for writers who make us savor language and ideas, the ones who make us love reading again.

In the year of the book-eating contest I read 60 books -- the most ever for me. I don't remember whether I won the contest. But every time I put a book on my list, I'm reminded of the slippery slope of reading -- its pleasures and dangers.

Time away

2007-07-03T16:11:00.000-04:00

We made a promise to our kids that when they each turned thirteen, we'd take them on a trip -- just one kid and "the moms." The first one out of the chute wanted drums instead. The second wanted England (that was last year -- a glorious trip with The Girl.)

This year we’re taking the last one. He elected to play golf with us so we rented a Lake Huron cottage near some pretty public courses. The cottage is nicknamed by its owner “Timeway.” It’s got most everything you’d want in a cottage: quiet neighbors, plenty of room, an operational kitchen, and access to the water.

The only unnerving thing about the place (other than the cottage down the street with the U.S. and Confederate flags adorning the entrance) is the clocks. None of them show a time anywhere near the correct one and we didn’t bring watches. We wander from room to room checking the time throughout the day forgetting that we’re in “Timeaway.”

While our trip is going pretty well -- we're playing golf and scrabble, walking the dogs, and hanging out on the beach -- it's painful to see how hard it is to be Junior. He is his own Timeaway. Entering and following conversations, staying in the present instead of lurching into the safety of his imagination, feeling good about what he can do instead of feeling bad about what what he can't -- all these things make daily life difficult for him and for us at times. He's a lovely, imaginative, tender creature but he is always just out of step with those around him.

For now, we're doing our best, as he inches into adolescence, to love him, hold him, kick his butt, and remind him that he's not alone, however alone he may feel - and that being him and being here now can be pretty okay.

Non sequitur . . .
My vote for the best religious supply store name: St. Joseph's Power Tools in Lexington, Michigan. Junior got a statue of his favorite saint, St. Francis. We loaded up on prayer cards.

Growing anyway

2007-06-25T08:35:00.000-04:00

Junior and I are visiting with my mom for a few days. It is reassuring to see that she is grieving and also getting on with life -- sadness, inertia and bursts of activity in a single day. Yesterday, we picked up a bunch of gerbera daises to plant in the pots in the front of the house. Mom kept saying "You can't believe how happy it makes me to see flowers. I wouldn't have done this by myself."

This week my colleague and I ran a workshop for women ranging in age from 24 to 84 to explore notions of a successful life -- how each woman might define success for herself at this moment in her life. I was (still am) in awe of the oldest of the women -- how they talked about their lives as works in progress. One woman in her eighties recently lost her husband -- a man she clearly loved deeply and one whom supported and nurtured her as well. Through some tears she eloquently spoke about adjusting to this new time in her life and how she was eager to see what it would bring, what she would do next.

Another woman in her seventies said that she still didn't have a sense of purpose, didn't know who she but still sensed she was "becoming" (her word) -- that she was growing, learning, developing.

What a gift to listen to these women -- old and wise and settled in some ways, young and searching and unsettled in others. The Broadway play version of Joan Didion's book The Year of Magical Thinking begins with the words, "This will happen to you." Life does happen to us, just like the weather. We have choices about how to handle whatever comes our way, but at this moment I see just how much of the creativity -- the art of life -- is dealing with whatever comes. Death and life are the same -- they are neither good nor bad; they just are.

My mother said she was feeling guilty about neglecting her garden because she didn't want God to be disappointed. But then she said, "but God understands what I'm going through." It's good to hear that she knows what she's going through -- what we're going through.

Small stuff

2007-06-05T10:49:00.000-04:00

Thanks for your comforting words and intentions during the last several weeks.

My father has never been so present to me as he has been since he died. There are reminders of him everywhere in the things he loved or hated, in what he did or didn't do, what he said or didn't say, the things we said or didn't say to each other. Grief creeps in through the fissures of my daily life, sometimes like a goblin jumping out from behind a bush -- BOO! But mostly grief is like a muggy summer day. It dribbles in through the cracks and weighs everything down.

We've lived many hours distance from each other for over 20 years, so it's not his active daily presence I miss so much as wondering about him. I miss wondering how he is doing. I miss asking my mom, "How's Dad?" in our phone conversations. I miss gathering data for our visits. I can't file away a Yankee stat or a Jeter story or a mechanical question for a later conversation with him. I make mental notes and then have to tear them up.

I'm not grieving the big stuff -- the relationship I wish I had with my father or all the heavy deep and real conversations we should have, could have had. I think I've made peace with those things (though I might find out I'm wrong). I'm grieving the small stuff about him. Feeding the dogs treats they weren't supposed to eat. Late night boxing on HBO. Large print crossword puzzles. V-neck undershirts. The way he came to life in the presence of babies. The sound of surprise and pleasure in his voice when we talked on the phone.

It's mostly small stuff.

But that's life, I guess. Small stuff.

Saying goodbye

2007-04-20T23:46:00.000-04:00

My dad died this morning.

My family is gathering and so far my mom is doing well, though we're all a little numb.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers during this time.

Love, love, love . . .

It's not the weight you carry, but how you carry it

2007-04-18T18:02:00.001-04:00

From Mary Oliver's book Thirst for all those grieving these days.

Heavy

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poets said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it--
books, bricks, grief--
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled--
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

Blogging the Bible

2007-04-01T08:13:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to highlight David Plotz's "Blogging the Bible" project at Slate.com.

Plotz describes himself as a proud but not particularly observant Jew who realized that he -- like a lot of religious people -- didn't know his bible very well. There's the bible we hear at services and then there's the underground bible -- the passages you'll never hear in polite company. Like the rape of Dinah (explored brilliantly in Anita Diamant's The Red Tent) or the rather boring tribal census in Numbers.

As the Christian Holy Week begins today with Palm Sunday and Pesach begins tomorrow with the first Seder, it's a good time to check out your holy books.

Bite-sized big thoughts

2007-03-18T16:40:00.000-04:00

Browsing at my local college library I found a book edited by John Brockman founder of edge.org which is devoted to "closing the gap" between scientific and literary intellectual culture. He promotes the notion of a Third Culture "where literary intellectuals are on speaking terms with scientists." Stephen Jay Gould and Albert Einstein would have fit the Third Culture role -- scientists who were sought out for their wisdom about life as well as their scientific discoveries. Arriving at edge.org is a little like walking into a Mensa meeting on steroids, but still accessible to the rest of us in the back of the class.

Anyway, this book asks 110 contemporary "thinkers" about science and such to briefly answer the question "What do you believe but cannot prove?"

Since the "chapters" are only a page or two, it's an easy bedtime read. It's fun to see what thread each person picks up.

There is life elsewhere in the universe.
True love exists.
Language is a necessary precondition for consciousness.
Today's children are the unintended victims of economic and technologic progress.
Moral reasoning and mathematical reasoning follow the same process.
Alien life-forms, if they exist, will know how to count.

Ian McEwan (a novelist of all things) writes:

"That this span [of life] is brief, that consciousness is an accidental gift of blind processes, makes our existence all the more precious and our responsibilities for it all the more profound."

The Passage

2007-03-17T09:07:00.000-04:00

I am not much of a grudge-holder. If anything, I forgive sooner than I ought, taking way more responsibility for whatever went wrong in a relationship than I should.

But this does not apply to authors of books. I tend to dwell on offenses committed in print. The spoken word is ephemeral; the written word is forever.

Last night, I allowed myself the luxury of sinking into my reading chair with an afghan, a cup of tea and my book as the the first (and last?) big Nor'easter brought some belated winter to Northampton. I was really cozy. As I read, I jotted notes as usual in the margins with my little golf pencil. Reading, jotting, thinking, reading again. Then came the Passage and the Great Disappointment.

I read books like I make friends, with a sense of openness and possibility. I try to create an alliance with the writer in order to understand them. I read critically, of course, but I give a lot of leeway. When I was a philosophy graduate student, I remember feeling excited by nearly everything we read. Descartes, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Marx, Plato, de Beauvoir, Dewey, Derrida -- all of them are right about something -- all have something important to show us, something new. But my fellow students laughed at me a little because I seemed naive. I didn't approach every text with a switchblade.

So, I do experience a bit of betrayal when a writer disappoints. I'm on your side, I say. C'mon, let's not go there. I don't know if I can still be your friend, if you take me down that road.

Words are sneaky. They let the cat out of the bag even when we don't know the cat's in there.

This is what makes writing (real writing, not blogging) such a courageous practice. Sooner or later you are bound to disappoint. The words we use and don't use reveal who we are and what we think, even without our permission. Eventually a reader will get to your soft unprotected parts.

I can't even find the Passage that caught me up short in O'Reilly's book. It was a paragraph that I could not dignify with a pencil mark -- not even a "NO!" in the margin. And now it seems to have disappeared from the page altogether. I wanted to pretend it wasn't there because it revealed a bias of hers I could not accept and did not anticipate. She had me, then she lost me. I finished the book out of respect, but it wasn't easy.

Readers and writers have a right to expect responsibility and care from each other. And with every friendship, some forgiveness is required. I'm working on it.

In motion and at rest

2007-03-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I had what parents call "alone time." The dishes in the sink, the carpet mottled with bits of cedar shavings from the guinea pig, unopened mail stacked on the dining table -- none of these mattered because Junior was out for the night.

So I went wild and took myself out to dinner downtown and read a book, Mary Rose O'Reilly's The Love of Impermanent Things, a mid-life memoir. I also recommend her earlier boook The Barn at the End of the World about her spiritual wanderings as a "Quaker Buddhist shepherd" and temporary member of Thich Nhat Hanh's community at Plum Village. Her keen attention to the natural world -- particularly animals -- reminds me a bit of work by Annie Dillard and Mary Oliver.

She quotes Hafiz, the Sufi poet:

Just sit there right now
Don't do a thing
Just rest.

For your separation from God,
From love,

Is the hardest work
In this
World.

Good words for a good Lenten practice.

Cautionary words for activists and mothers

2007-01-24T12:28:00.000-05:00

A friend shared this quotation from Thomas Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander:

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."

While remaining a Catholic priest, Merton studied other religions, philosophies and ideologies extensively and was a practitioner of Zen, having studied with D.T. Suzuki and others.

In time the snow will rise

2007-01-13T21:32:00.000-05:00

It's a long story. But my spouse and two of my children live in Michigan while I live here in Massachusetts with my youngest during the school year. We're used to it and we've made things work well enough over these years. But sometimes a hole opens up. The sweetness of time with my family in Michigan this Christmas left me feeling full for a while, but now I feel as though someone's tied heavy weights to my feet.

Last summer my oldest son introduced me to Sufjan Stevens' music. Santa brought his Christmas album this year. I listened to it over and over again during the holidays, hanging with family by the fire. His soft voice makes the sadness sweet. Wallowing in the yuck isn't so bad sometimes. I'm justing going with it for a little while.

That Was the Worst Christmas Ever (Sufjan Stevens)

Going outside
Shovelling snow in the driveway, driveway
Taking our shoes
Riding our sled down the hillside, hillside

Can you say what you want?
Can you say what you want to be?
Can you be what you want?
Can you be what you want?

Our father yells
Throwing our gifts in the woodstove, woodstove
My sister runs away
Taking her books to the schoolyard, schoolyard

In time the snow will rise, in time the snow will rise
In time the Lord will rise, in time the Lord will rise

Silent night, Holy night
Silent night, nothing feels right

Hope, Faith, Love, Forgiveness

2007-01-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

I've had a good week of time with spouse, children, and other lovely creatures and have returned to computer and work/home.

It is disturbingly warm here in the Great Lakes-Northeast Corridor, though the moon is utterly beautiful tonight.

I've been listening to podcasts of different sorts lately. Today, driving back from Michigan, I listened to an interview with Martin Marty, the emeritus historian of religion in America at the University of Chicago on the public radio show Speaking of Faith. He talked about Reinhold Niebuhr's influence and they featured a quotation from Niebuhr's book, The Irony of American History (1952) that seems right for the new year and on a day when we remember former President Gerald Ford.

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

Watching the clouds go by

2006-12-21T09:36:00.000-05:00

My education in art began with my father, who as it happens was influenced (though perhaps unconsciously) by Jasper Johns.

My father is a folk artist. He went to vocational high school not art school and has been drawing and painting his whole life. He can draw anything. But his most interesting work is his painting. He doesn't paint on canvas, but on walls, ceiling vents, pipes, cabinets. He would probably be horrified to hear my call it his "work" or even art. But just as my mother's creativity is exhibited in her sewing -- curtains, blankets, clothing, slip covers for chairs -- my father's shows up on the underside of things.

When I was about 10, he starting doodling with paint on the basement wall outside his little workshop. First, a bullseye, then the number 5, then geometic shapes (cubes, triangles), then flags and peace signs. All in bright colors. He covered the wall. Every week, it seemed, you could tell that my father had been working in his shop because he had added something to the wall. All of it surprising to my young eyes.

All of the images and the style of them -- the numerals, flags, bullseyes, the colors -- reflected Jasper Johns, but they were also stream-of-consciousness doodlings from my father's imagination.

Several years ago, I ventured into my parents' basement where my father's workshop is now. It's house I never lived in; they moved into it while was in college. He no longer can make his way to the basement unassisted. I was amazed to discover that the furnace, the ceiling, air vents, and pipes were covered with images, shades again of Jasper Johns.

In a recent New Yorker interview, Johns, talks about how his approach to painting has changed. When he was younger, he did not think so much about what he would put on the canvas. It just happened. Now he thinks more and he watches his thoughts go by like clouds before lifting the brush. He's not sure that's a good thing. Too much thought can erode creativity and risk-taking needed to make art.

I learned to appreciate artists by watching my father. He knows little about high art, but he loved to paint and draw and he did it where he could. His work will never hang in a museum or even be sold on Ebay and his best work, probably, is his children and grandchildren. But I learned by watching him and watching the wall, that life itself is a creative process. You can make your mark in your own way. You can start in your basement and see what happens there.

Waiting for something to happen

2006-12-12T05:18:00.000-05:00

The closest I come to paranoid, homicidal rage is when I want something NOW and something (or someone) else is in my way.

The fuel gauge says EMPTY and we're in a traffic jam at the Canadian border. Waiting, waiting. Gradually, every driver in every car on every side begins to look like my mortal enemy. And the customs officials must be stopped.

I'm running late to an "important"8:00 a.m. meeting. All sorts of terrible things will happen if I am late (typhoons, earthquakes, dirty looks, someone will have taken the last pastry) and Junior can't find his glasses. He did this on purpose, I know it. He's trying to sabatoge me.

When I impose my desired outcomes on a situation things get ugly.

I desire to get to work on time. Is that imposing my desire on a situation? Well, yes and no. If my intention to arrive at work on time becomes a pre-occupation -- it causes anxiety or distorted thinking -- then (Buddha might say) suffering ensues. This is not hard to see. I have the privilege of working in a place where I can be late for meetings and not lose my job. So my impatience -- my inability to wait without imposing my desired outcome -- is problematic, galling even (to me).

My rather innocent desire to be on time for a meeting (or not to run out of gas) becomes toxic when I project these outcomes as a reflection of ME.

I am in line at the toll bridge to Canada and I am running out of gas. What is my worry? If I run out of gas, I will be in the way. I will be late. I will be inconvenienced. I will inconvenience others. Others will see that I made a bad decision not to fill up the tank before getting to the bridge (after all, I should have known there would be long wait.) If I run out of gas everyone -- the whole world -- will see what a screw up I am. Because that is what I am; a screw up. See the line of distorted thinking that leads from impatience to insanity?

My friend Issho Fujita, the former Buddhist chaplain at Smith, would often say that spirituality is a project without expectation of attainment.

Being desirous creatures we are constantly looking ahead to outcomes -- to getting those desires met -- especially in a season where this very creaturely quality is exploited to great effect. We are never completely free of desire but maybe this spirituality project is about not holding on too tight to plans, outcomes, notions about who we are or what's possible for us.

Sometimes we hold tight to patterns or false beliefs because they comfort us. They are as familiar as old slippers. We are confined and do not even know it.

The thick darkness where God is

2006-12-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

Much of Christian tradition deploys the metaphors of light and darkness during the Advent season to great effect, but not always constructively.

The Episcopal collect for the first Sunday of Advent quotes Paul's Letter to the Romans (13:12) who urges his readers to "lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." This battle between the dark and light has continued to frame the experience of Christian faith ever since. Light is good; darkness is bad. This dualistic framework extends to other concepts as well: heaven/earth, body/spirit, Christians/Jews, us/them. To be a Christian (on these terms) is to be a soldier in a war against darkness.

But Mark's Gospel, the earliest Gospel to be written, has only one reference to light:
"But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light." [And this passage has Jesus quoting from Isaiah.] Jesus does not set up a duel.

As the tradition developed, the idea of a war between light and darkness became more prominent as writers tried to help early Christians understand their persecution under the Romans. Writers were also influenced by Hellenistic philosophy which emphasized oppositions.

But light and darkness were not always opposites. In Genesis, the darkness is associated with God's presence.

In the creation story we read: "darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

Later: "As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him." While in darkness, the Lord comes to Abram and speaks to him.

Exodus tells the story of Moses receiving the ten commandments and says: "The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was."

God was IN the darkness, not separate from it.

Maybe, like Abram and Moses, if we get closer to the darkness -- lean into the darkness -- we can find God there.

How do we lean into the darkness? In Zen practice, you meditate with your eyes slightly open, not shut. It is a practice which helps you soften your "gaze" in relation to thoughts, feelings, experiences and your environment. A soft focus, a relaxed jaw, an open posture allow you to be present to whatever comes without tension, without anxiety. This is one way.

Prayer.
Crying.
Walking.
Talking.
Making music.
Writing poetry.
These are other ways.

Scurrying from one thing to another, though, tends to create more anxiety; it tends to send us running from the God we might find within the darkness. I think that leaning into darkness -- like Abram and Moses -- requires a consistent practice. The wisest people I know have picked something -- meditation, prayer, yoga, walking, the rosary, violin -- and stuck with it. By developing a consistent practice, we develop a deeper understanding of ourselves and deeper spiritual roots.

As I told my 11 and 12 year olds this Sunday, yes, church is boring. Lots of times it's boring for me and I'm a priest. But it's boring the same way learning an instrument is boring. You never learn to play violin if you don't practice. Sometimes you don't feel like you're going to get anywhere with it, but then once in a while you make beautiful music. [Sometimes church or spiritual communities can be worse than boring; they can be toxic, but that's a different matter.]

The same goes for developing spiritual depth. The wise ones show me that if I practice living more deeply -- like a good poet does -- I have a chance of discovering what can be found there.

Walking in Four Directions

2006-11-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

The Christian season of Advent begins on Sunday.

In this here blog, I'll be writing about four Advent themes -- darkness, waiting, watching, and light -- from four directions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism.

I hope you'll feel free to share your observations, reflections, resources from your practice and traditions.

The comments are moderated to keep out spam, but if you write back (and want me to post your comment) I promise to do so promptly.

Hilltown light

2006-11-20T19:24:00.000-05:00

Some say that we become more ourselves -- closer to our essence -- as we age. The masks we assume over the course of our lives begin to crack as certain roles no longer apply. Eventually, we no longer reach for the mask.

I can't say whether this is true for everyone. With age comes complication. And in the elderly years illness, chronic pain, depression, financial troubles, loneliness -- all manner of things -- can jam up one's "becoming."

Just the same, I had the most grace-filled encounter Sunday morning with an elderly man who shone with light.

I was filling in at a little church in one of the hilltowns. A simple colonial wooden structure built in 1823, it was chilly but filled with sunlight. The scripture readings for the day were awe-ful -- apocalyptic warnings about the end times from the Book of Daniel and the Gospel of Mark. These are the sorts of readings that make preachers preach on some deep insight from a movie they saw on late night cable -- anything but the text.

I wrestled all week. But there was a phrase from Hebrews that grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go: "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

It led me to try to speak about suffering. Who can speak with any real wisdom about suffering, especially to those who suffer? But gamely I ventured forth, out of my depth, but impelled by this phrase. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

But aren't God's hands safe hands? Aren't they a resting place? A shelter from the storm? Isn't God warm and cuddly like a giant teddy bear? Life is teeming with God-awful-ness. There is the suffering that humans inflict on each other and the suffering we endure just because we are a fragile desiring species. If you were to draw a map of suffering, you would draw the earth. Isn't God is supposed to be our escape hatch? Isn't God our cosmic relief worker? Why would it be a fearful thing and not a lovely thing to be in God's hands?

I had no Good News to speak of when I addressed the pulpit. Only questions and a worry. I spied an elderly man in a wheelchair at the back of the church -- a former professor from my seminary (though I had never been his student). Years ago,he had written a book of meditations about death and AIDS that I admired as much for his boldness in writing it at all as for what he wrote. My first thought: "I'm toast. I have nothing to say. And I'll say my nothing poorly and embarass myself and Smith College." But a second thought came to me as I looked more closely at the man and not the role I put him in. He radiated a bright kindness. I am not aware of people's auras. I don't see their colors. But I saw him as light.

I sputtered and stumbled. There were a good many silences as I found my words. And then finally, I said what I had come to say about falling into the hands of the living God. The only thing that eases suffering, the only refuge that we have at all is love. But it is not an easy love, not the love of dreams. God's love for us and the love required of us is kitchen sink love. It is tired feet, sore legs, chapped hands and a willingness to keep at it even when you'd rather be somewhere else. That's all I know. It seemed, as I said the words, inchoate. Without consequence or power. So what? Lennon-McCartney said it better.

I ended with a quotation from Father Zossima in the Brothers Karamazov:

". . . love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage. But active love is labour and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science. But I predict that just when you see with horror that in spite of all your efforts you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it- at that very moment I predict that you will reach it and behold clearly the miraculous power of the Lord who has been all the time loving and mysteriously guiding you."

At the end of the service when I had a chance to meet this lovely brightness, I confessed that by choosing to preach about suffering I felt I had crawled out on a limb with no safe way back. Animated and slashing at the air with his hands he said, "What a fine sermon! You're right. There's no retreat from suffering. You have to go directly at it! There's no other way. It presents itself and you have to address it. You must get close to suffering to relieve it, not walk away."

I can't tell you how it felt to be near this man. It was as close to pure goodness as I have ever been. I can't explain it. It was not his affirmation that moved me; it was his spiritual bravery. He is a man who lives close to God.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, but once you do, you will fear nothing else.

Now if only I can get myself to let go of the rope and drop . . .

Small wire

2006-11-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

It's a grey morning and my heart feels heavy. Henryk Gorecki's "Third Symphony," the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, helps me lean into the heaviness.

This morning's poem is from Anne Sexton (1928-1974)

My faith
is a great weight
hung on a small wire,
as doth the spider
hang her baby on a thin web,
as doth the vine,
twiggy and wooden,
hold up grapes
like eyeballs,
as many angels
dance on the head of a pin.

God does not need
too much wire to keep Him there,
just a thin vein,
with blood pushing back and forth in it,
and some love.
As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.
So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.

The Fog of War

2006-11-16T19:51:00.000-05:00

The decision to become a parent is mostly a selfish one. If you ask a woman "why did you decide to have or adopt a child?" ten times out of ten the answer starts with the words "I want." "I wanted to have kids." "I wanted to be a mother." It's not a decision that is, at the beginning, typically embued with generosity. If you have a choice (and many women do not), you become a mom because you want to. End of story.

But in truth, there is nothing in life so likely to demoralize you as parenting. It takes my breath away sometimes.

The sentence that begins with "I want" never finishes with the words "to feel like crap at the end of the day." Or "worry for 30 years straight." We have no concept of the opportunities for spiritual growth available to us in becoming parents. If we would, we'd probably get a cat instead.

Junior decided to have a tantrum tonight because he didn't want to do his homework. I was calm, measured, didn't raise my voice -- I did the drill. Mindful parenting 101. I know how to do this and I figured I could wait him out. But he was fishing for a fight and, finally, I took the bait.

There is a seductive power imbalance between a parent and a child that dupes the sanest adult into thinking you are, somehow, in charge of things. It's your job to set rules, enforce them, pass judgment, grant rewards, mete out consequences, and administer your version of justice. Where else in your life do you have that kind of power?

"Why can't you watch TV, Junior? Because I said so."

Feel your head swell?

Well, the joke's on us. In any relationship there is a balance of power. You make the rules; Junior tests them. You offer unconditional love; Juniorette tells you how awful you are and how she wishes she'd never been born. If you're the child, you're straining toward freedom and it's your mother who's blocking the door. "If only . . ." you think. "If only."

It is our most complicated relationship and the one that changes the most over time. Neither of us is in charge and no one knows what's coming. We're just doing the best we can in uncertain conditions until the fog lifts -- around the time the grandchildren come along, I'm guessing.

According to Facebook . . .

2006-11-13T20:39:00.000-05:00

. . . my oldest has a girlfriend.
. . . my middle has a boyfriend.
. . . my youngest has a guinea pig.

Only the guinea pig has been sighted so far.

Liberating the divine spark within

2006-11-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

The word "tikkun" appears in the book of Ecclesiastes where it means "setting straight" or "setting in order." The 16th century mystic, Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught that God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. As God poured the Light into the vessels, they shattered, forming the world of matter. Humanity’s great task, in Luria's view, is to reunite the scattered Light, bringing the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world. This is tikkun olam -- repairing the world.

The site Inner Frontier says this: "Tikkun olam encompasses both the outer and the inner, both service to society by helping those in need and service to the Divine by liberating the spark within."

Today in Jerusalem, the gay community in Israel celebrated a gay pride parade with heavy police protection. The Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders condemned the event. But the divine spark cannot be wholly contained in the vessels of religion. It is too bright, beautiful, powerful, and dynamic.

To declare that your life is worth living, cherishing, and celebrating reunites one more shard of divinity with its maker.

Mazel tov!

Don't forget Katrina

2006-11-09T21:07:00.000-05:00

Today I listened to two formidable people talk about the continuing degradation of people and land along the Gulf Coast in communities devasted by hurricane Katrina.

Vernice Miller-Travis, director of GroundWork USA reported that he EPA (utterly ineffective under this administration) has determined that bioremediation of contaminated soil along the coast in places like New Orleans and Biloxi will not occur. This not because the soil is in such good shape or expected to recover on its own, but because it was already so polluted before Katrina, they cannot show that Katrina made it worse. Therefore, unless there is outcry, people will continue to live and work in neighborhoods with toxic levels of heavy metals such as lead and mercury.

Bill Stallworth, a city councillor, from East Biloxi, Mississippi described what happened in his city. E. Biloxi is a tiny peninsula which juts into the Gulf of Mexico. When Katrina hit, 85% of the buildings were destroyed and many homes were covered in eight feet of water. Shamefully, FEMA did not arrive for eight weeks and the Red Cross came three days after that.

A contributing factor to the devastation involves the casino industry. When legalized gambling moved beyond Las Vegas into southern coastal communites, the evangelicals did not want gambling "in" towns. So gulf communities finessed a zoning policy that put the casinos on barges. This made the way for Army Corps of Engineers to destroy the wetlands around Biloxi for the 13 casinos which ring the shore. When Katrina hit, the natural protection of the wetlands was gone, so the waves ran ashore full force. Now, those casinos are allowed to rebuild 800 ft. inland. To acquire this land, casinos have been waving cash at people who were poor before Katrina. Now, all many of these folks have is their land. Cash poor and needing to move on with their lives, the casinos are buying very valuable land on the cheap from traumatized people who feel they have no other choice.

Those communities are still traumatized. Still living in FEMA trailers the size (many of them) of a small camper. People are depressed, angry, and fearful. With tears in their eyes, our speakers told us about the death -- of the environment, the plant and animal life, people, dreams and hopes -- these communities experienced and still are suffering from.

What to do?

Their answer? Anything. Anything you can do, no matter how small helps. Go there. Stay here. But do something.

They said it is especially important, now that the Democrats have taken back leadership in Congress, to hold them accountable -- and to hold the federal government accountable -- for providing resources to these cities and towns affected by Katrina; resources that should have gone to help them but instead have gone to Iraq (and Halliburton).

So, write a letter to your representative and senator, this week. Tell them not to forget the communities affected by Katrina. Remind of them of the suffering there. Remind them of their responsibility. Tell them that you're watching.

How can I enter this question . . .

2006-11-06T20:08:00.000-05:00

Jane Hirschfield's poetry is as challenging as it is luminous, rooted (as it is) in the stuff of ordinary life and ordinary moments.

"you work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,
clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust." (from Rebus)

She is a Buddhist. I am, if I had to say, a kitchen table Buddhist and a kitchen sink Christian. I am attracted to the immediacy and accessibilty of Buddhist teachings about mindfulness. My kitchen table is where we have most of our conversations and entertain guests. Our arguments, disagreements, scoldings, thanksgivings, lovingly prepared meals and warmed up leftovers are all had at that table. It's in those activities that Buddhist wisdom guides me helping me to bring my attention to this moment, to this person, to this relationship, whatever is on my plate.

The kitchen sink is another thing altogether. That's where the mess comes home. It's at the sink where I confront the evidence of all those relationships. Every glass, plate, fork and teaspoon. Every pot, pan, and sponge. They all make it into the sink eventually. While the Buddha's teachings help me to be more present, more aware, in every moment, Jesus' teachings help me to see my relationship to the community and the larger world. I hate doing dishes. But it seems, that's all I do some days. You get the last one done and junior's juice glass is the one-more-thing. But Jesus always challenges me to think beyond my little world. It's not enough to pay attention to the person before me, he wants me to love them, too. And to know that I am loved. That there is enough love to go around and love is not easy.

Blessed are the poor and the meek,
Blessed are the sick and the frail,
Blessed are the prisoners, cashiers, and waitresses,
Blessed are the secretaries and plumbers,
Blessed are the children,
Blessed are the geeks and the freaks,
Blessed are the conservatives and the radicals,
Blessed are grasses of the field and the birds of the air.
Blessed are the squirrels and the dogs who chase them.

Blessed are you.

Caritas

2006-11-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up the kids were expected to give money to the church every week. We even had our own box of little envelopes, one for each week of the year (plus holy days of obligation). I would put in a dime or a quarter of "my" money.

The truth was I didn't have any money. We didn't get a consistent weekly allowance and I was not very good at asking for things. So I didn't have any of my own.

Around the age of 8, though, I discovered my father's stash. His pockets jingled with coins and at the end of the day he'd put a fistful on his dresser. I became expert (so I thought) at strategically grabbing coins I thought he wouldn't miss. It had to be a decent mix and not too many. If I took all quarters, he'd be sure to notice. So I was careful. A quarter, a couple of dimes, a nickel or two. A few pennies if there were a ton of them.

And every Sunday I was sure to put some in the envelope and some in the parish Poor Box. That left enough for a can of 7UP and chips from the corner store after school.

My father must have known, but he never said anything. I wish he had, since I carried around this burden of guilt for stealing the money. I'd go to confession and tell the priest. I'd vow never to do it again. But the cycle continued because I needed money and didn't know how to ask for it. If I had been able to ask my dad for money, I probably wouldn't have taken it. I suspect he thought he was doing me a favor by letting it go. It was a silent contract. He put the coins on the dresser. I took what I needed. We never talked about it.

Relationships can be like that sometimes.

Lost and found

2006-11-04T16:58:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I was motivated to work with the photos I took on the camino.

Here is a madonna posted in the doorway of a chapel whose original purpose was abandoned, but is now filled with the graffiti of peregrinos.

The words across her chest say "Perdid y Recibireis" -- the Galician dialect for "lost and found" (I think).

For centuries pilgrims have gotten lost on the way to Santiago. They would rely on other peregrinos and also local people to guide them back to the path, but this made them vulnerable to bandits. The lack of sign posts made it dangerous. So sometime in the last 20 years or so, a camino association has put signs -- spray-painted yellow arrows or stylized shells -- at intersections along the way. I think they are more common on the section we walked (the last 111k) than farther out.

The signs made us feel that we weren't alone because someone had prepared the way for us. "Um. DuhHHH!" says The Beloved.

.

High School Bard

2006-11-03T23:09:00.000-05:00

I took my son, Ben, to see his first Shakespeare -- a Northampton High School production of Twelfth Night. He howled with laughter.

When his English teacher asked the class to write their goals for the year, he wrote that he wanted to learn about Shakespeare's plays so he could impress his older sister.

It made smile to see the high school students clearly enjoying their performance, their garrulous friends cheering them on, and my boy following the story and laughing.

Can you even imagine that four hundred years after you're dead there'd be any trace of you, let alone that children would still be laughing at your jokes?

Dad's home

2006-11-02T21:52:00.000-05:00

Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts for my parents. My father is home (though phones are still unreliable, so I don't have details) and is doing better.

For all the saints

2006-11-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

On this All Souls Day, I've been thinking a lot about saints and souls, particularly the young ones.

Every day 34 Iraqi civilians are killed and 58 injured on average.
The average age of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq is 27.
One in every 200 Iraqi civilians killed is a baby.
A conservative estimate of the death toll in Darfur is over 397,000.
We don't even know how many people died in Katrina or the Tsunami or on the street from hunger and cold or slowly from addiction or loneliness.

What a privilege it is in this world to die in a bed with clean sheets and someone who cares nearby.

Makes me wonder what I'm doing in my comfy chair. Life is morally cluttered. It is as cluttered for the terrified boy-soldier as for his young wife back home. And it is for me who wonders some days whether it's okay to do my work in this field of the Lord's when I could be useful elsewhere -- this field of comfy chairs on whom sit the not so spiritually comfortable young souls on whom we all rely, ultimately, to save us and our planet.

The great public health innovator, Paul Farmer, was inspired by liberation theology's focus on God's preferential option for the poor and he has dedicated his life to bringing health care to Haiti. But for a medical doctor every person -- even a rich one -- is potentially a patient -- it is part of the human condition to be poor some of the time because we are not just souls, we are also bodies.

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia! (For All the Saints, William W. How, 1864)

Comic Relief

2006-11-01T20:47:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things about being named Jennifer Walters is that I have a Marvel Comic twin, She-Hulk! It has been one of the great surprises of Googling myself to discover that I am not alone. In fact, this other Jennifer Walters has a more interesting back story than I have. It involves being a UCLA-trained lawyer, the daughter of a sheriff, and the cousin of Bruce Banner (the Hulk -- who evidently has a few anger issues). She has superhuman strength and a lovely green hue. There is also a site which speculates in some detail about her religious proclivities.

Here are some similarities:

1. daughters of police officers
2. Catholic background (though there is some speculation about She-Hulk's religion)
3. basically shy
4. interested in the law
5. have advanced degrees
6. often late for appointments
7. not above using our good looks to tactical advantage

Everyone should have a comic book character as a mirror.

Give me 15 minutes

2006-11-01T09:15:00.000-05:00

I'm not apologizing but just the same I feel bad about it.

When the day to day details of getting on and getting by govern my life, I begin to feel as though I've lost my purchase in the "family of things". Dust mops, Kraft mac and cheese, and unmatched socks are all a part of staying in right relationship with my world. Shelter, food, clothing -- the basics can't be ignored, especially if you're a parent. The same goes for work: phone calls, emails, appointments are also basics of staying in relationship. But too much of a good thing ain't so hot.

A colleague and I spied each other checking email in the campus center on our way to something else today and we realized how pathetic we were. He said that once a year he does a personal time study and keeps track of his activities for a week in 15 minute chunks. He said that his actual time study did not look anything like he thought it would. Most of his time, he found, is spent doing "meta-work" -- the things you do to prepare for other things you want/have to do. Surprisingly little of his time is spent doing the thing he is "supposed" to be doing -- in his case biological research and teaching.

Mary Catherine Bateson said something at the Narratives of Success panel last week that continues to haunt me. She said that her biggest mistake as dean of the faculty at Amherst College (25+ years ago) was seeing herself as a servant of the college.

Bullseye.

When you come up as a working class Catholic kid in an ethnic urban village, everyone is in service of some kind or another. No one is management ; everyone is labor. And the servant image -- the suffering servant of Isaiah and the Johannine image of Christ washing the feet of his disciples -- is the primary guidepost. We who are raised to serve but now also lead have some inner work to do. It's easy to serve the institution (whatever yours happens to be) because it makes a claim on you and can be aggressive in its demands. This is especially the case when, like me, you are fortunate enough to work for an institution whose values and mission are personally meaningful (even if the institution you serve is your own family).

But such a commitment can become a form of idolatry -- all must bow to the god-like pull of the institution/job/relationship, etc. But you cannot serve two masters. God demands more of me, but the burden is lighter. More comes back to me when I am in right relationship with God because it requires solitude, breathing, prayer, and self-regard in addition to concern for others. To remember that I serve God alone wherever I may be employed, wherever I may be needed brings a little peace.

That's a good bloggie

2006-10-26T19:22:00.000-04:00

This blog isn't fancy or particularly deep, but when I send up a flare, friends respond.

Today I got several emails and a visitation from friends who keep watch over me via the internet.

One angel even sang a prayer for my dad with me.

He's doing better. Congestive heart failure sucks. He's in good spirits and comfortable. My mom and sibs (who are still dealing with the aftermath of Buffalo's October Surprise) sound tired but okay.

Thank you, thank you.

Prayers Welcome

2006-10-26T06:38:00.000-04:00

My dad's back in the hospital. This summer he spent four weeks in ICU and rehab recovering from a serious staph infection that weakened him. He's been home since late August hanging out at home and adjusting to his new ground floor habitat tricked out with a hospital bed and a NY Yankee motif. Yesterday he woke up in pain and gasping for breath.

My mom called the hospice nurse who tried to get him stabilized but finally called 911. He's in good hands -- God's and the folks' at Kenmore Mercy.

A New Guru

2006-10-25T20:57:00.000-04:00

Here is my new spiritual guide. Her name is Mei. She is a shih tzu who found me at the humane society on my birthday last month.

When I began the school year feeling a bit overwhelmed after the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, I decided to try to be more like a dog -- live simply and have low expectations. Unfortunately, my old dog Bozi doesn't do stairs so well anymore, so she stayed in Michigan. I missed her so much here in Northampton that I couldn't put her food bowl away. It sat empty on the floor for a month. Every morning I'd get up to make coffee and glance at the bowl with a heavy heart. I missed my dog -- as neurotic as she is. So, Mei came into my life. She is eight and a half pounds of clarity. She is unflappable, friendly, and playful. I've never had such a small dog before (she's about the size of a bag of chips). But she's got very attractive, calm psychic energy and she can sit on my lap while I knit or type.

Why would I want to emulate a dog? Dogs live in the moment. Every day is a good day. They don't hold grudges (unless you are super mean to them over a long period of time). Simple things matter most: good friends, a warm place to sleep, some food (even leftovers will do), water, a nice walk, and a scratch behind the ears. They make friends easily and are terrible liars.

Not a bad way to be. I think I can learn something.

If you can touch it, you can catch it

2006-10-24T20:31:00.000-04:00

I am working with a team of colleagues to develop a project called Women's Narratives of Success." We hope that by bringing women together (starting with undergraduates) to unpack family and cultural expectations, gender norms, their own complicated (and contradictory, perhaps) aspirations, choices, and anxieties each person will begin to construct a deep, rich, and self-defined concept of a successful life -- a concept that will be flexible enough to encompass failures, discontinuities, interruptions, choices, limits, ambitions, hopes, accomplishments, and unique talents and skills. One that can guide you through complexity and moral clutter.

Conventional frameworks of success tend to work against those who labor or live outside of corporate culture. How does my mother who spends so much of her day caring for my father frame success? She certainly can't measure it by all the money she's making, or by a throng of fans crowding the back stoop as she runs to the drugstore to get his insulin. This is certainly not how she expected or wanted to spend the last years of her marriage. And yet, she is phenomenally resilient -- lovely and graceful -- as she makes the most of each difficult day. She doesn't complain. She remains engaged, creative, and cheerful. She's amazing. Yet, few of the conventional attributes of success apply: wealth, land, power, leisure, popularity (celebrity), resume, awards, prizes. Nada. But those things were never of value and therefore don't figure in her definition of success. Healthy children; a secure peaceable home; kindness toward others; the practice of faith; creativity -- these count for her. If I had my vote, though, I think she should complain a little more.

Each of us wants to have a successful life -- hopefully on our own terms. But most of us worry that we're not doing very well in some key area. Maybe we have a clean and orderly house, but we're not having very much sex. Maybe our job is terrific and we just got a promotion (and - woohoo- a raise!) but the kids ate hot dogs for dinner three nights last week, had to pull a shirt from the dirty pile this morning and we feel a wee bit guilty about it. Or we have a deep faith in God, but we don't have time for prayer lately. (All of these are mitigated for a sizeable percentage of the population by better or more frequent sex, as it happens, but that's a topic for another day.)

You know the script. Women's lives are filled with anxiety and guilt and it starts early. My partner shared a story about one of her favorite violin students: she gets A+ in high school, gets a solo in the ballet recital every year, is making wonderful progress on a difficult Mozart concerto, is sweet and polite, and funny . . . and everytime -- I mean Everytime -- she makes a mistake, she says, "I'm sorry."

I played sports into my 30s and I noticed that it was common for girls and women (including myself) to apologize if we threw the ball off target. If the person I was playing catch with had to stretch to catch the ball or missed it altogether because my throw was a bit off, I always said "Sorry." Guys never say that. When I'd play catch with my dad and missed the ball -- even if he threw it off target -- he'd always say "If you can touch it, you can catch it!" I got better at catching it, but I still said "Sorry" when I missed.

As a kick-off for our project we had a wonderful event yesterday. It was a panel discussion with Betsy Stark (ABC News); Liz Phair (yes, THAT Liz Phair); RebeccaWalker; and Mary Catherine Bateson. Each of them was wise, complicated, and funny in her own way.

Betsy Stark described the challenges of working in the pressure-cooker of televison news. She related the ways that humor coupled with determination and small kindnesses can help to smooth a path (though it's clear that success in her field also requires sharp elbows and a pointy stick). Success comes with sacrifices no matter what your criteria may be.

Catherine Bateson commented that it is easy to make women feel guilty. It's a hole we seem to fall into very easily. She recommended we all put a sign up that says "FIGHT GUILT." Guilt doesn't serve anyone very well.

Liz Phair related that during her early success after the release of Exile in Guyville, she felt sick and weak when everyone else thought she was on top of the world. Now, more than 10 years later, she's stronger and clearer about her vision for her work and her life. You have to make time for things that matter because no one will give it to you.

Rebecca Walker took on the complexity of personhood in the context of limiting social roles, expectations, and definitions. She spoke about her having to come to terms with the fact that no one but her can incubate the vision for her life. The unmediated burden of others' projections and expectations is damaging to confidence and clarity of thought. You may find exemplars, role models, mentors, and teachers. But your life (your one wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver puts it) is your own. And so is the work. No one out there (wherever you think there is) is doing your work, is creating your music, launching your vision, or has your happiness in their pocket. No one can hand a successful life to you or make your life work for you.

Happiness, success, satisfaction, or inner peace is not outside of us; it is inside. Our mentors can point to doors for us, even open them. If we're very lucky, someone might cheer us on and say "You can do it." But we have to walk through on our own and then deal with whatever's on the other side.

Operator? Information. Give me Jesus . . .

2006-10-11T21:16:00.000-04:00

Time for a confession. I want to grow up to be Tim Gunn. Okay, so he's only a few years older than me and better looking (and better dressing). And he, unlike me, can hold his own next to Heidi Klum.

What fun to be the community mensch and friendly critic. What's interesting about Gunn is that while the object of commentary -- fashion -- is the most superficial of concerns, he is usually commenting on the creative process and is sensitive to the relationship between art and identity. It's not just a cocktail dress -- it's MY IDEA, my baby!

"I'm just not getting what you're trying to do here."

"It doesn't speak to me."

"I'm waiting for you to take a risk!"

"Don't bore me."

"Make it work!"

This little fantasy speaks to my soporific spiritual state. For the last month I've wanted someone to help me make my life work a little better. For a month the DSL, phone line, ISP, wireless router, cordless phone, my browser, the Blackberry, the server, the printer ink -- every single communication tool has been non-functional or jammed at some point. Just when one device returned to action, another would go out.

The great reformer Martin Luther said he was much too busy not to pray. Maybe getting back to basics would "make it work." Right relationship with God, says the prophet Isaiah, makes the rough places smooth. And they're pretty rough these days. I sense that my phone problems point to a deeper need to get back to a prayerful discipline. It might not bother me so much that the phone isn't working if I'm operating at a deeper level.

It comes out perfect every time!

2006-09-29T21:38:00.000-04:00

Some people think that leading a good life -- a moral life in some sense -- is like baking. You open up a book, find the correct recipe, follow it and !!voila!! --- a light and fluffy angel cake! Just like that. If we think we've happened upon a true ethical dilemma, or a moral mystery, it's because we haven't found the right recipe. Every problem has a solution. It's our job to find the right recipe and execute it perfectly every time.

The American philosopher John Dewey suggested that there really are true ethical dilemmas because, in his view, life is experimental. Each situation is new. We can draw on our collective or personal history of similar situations to address a problem, but it's not like finding the right key for a lock. It's more like trying to find a cure for cancer. We become aware of an interruption in the flow of our experience, we try to figure out the cause, hypothesize a solution based on our knowledge and experience, then try it out. See how it works. The moral life is a creative process carried out in good faith, but it's messy.

I suppose for Dewey (though I don't think he said this), the moral life is more like cooking than baking. There's more flexiblity, more room for variation; you get something nearly right and much of the time it's good enough. You can leave out an ingredient and still feed your family pretty well. It's not that there are no rules, maxims, principles, or values, it's that they can be applied in different ways and in different proportions in each situation depending on what's at stake.

Ethics are important to me not because I'm confident about what's right but precisely because I'm not.

Case in point: Last week I stopped at the post office to buy some stamps. Just as I opened my door to step out of the car, a woman I've never seen or met approached me. She asked if I would give her a ride to the Wal-Mart to pick up her five year-old son. It was clear that this was an urgent matter. She was emphatic but calm. Her left hand was in her coat pocket and for a second I wondered if she was setting me up. I checked for an accomplice. Seeing none, I said, "sure."

She got in on the passenger's side and as I was about to turn left toward the King Street Wal-Mart she directed me to the right. "It's that way," she pointed. Maybe I'm a little passive. Maybe I was a little dazed -- and truly, I have a crappy sense of direction -- so I turned right. In no time, I realized that I had volunteered to take Maria, not to the Wal-Mart down the road about 2 miles, but to the Wal-Mart 6 miles away in Hadley on the other side of the Connecticut River.

Okay. So, I'm going to Hadley with someone I've never met (who, it turns out had been just released from the hospital) to pick up a child that may or may not exist. She said that her son's father (who in the past had beaten her) had him overnight while she was at the hospital and his shift started at 7. It was now 8:30 a.m. Maria, maybe sensing the twinge of anxiety I couldn't hide, reassuringly showed me her keychain with a school picture of her son. Okay, he's real.

We got to Wal-Mart and she jumped out of the car to find Librado, her boy. I told her I'd wait for her and take them home. She returned alone. Librado was at his grandmother's in south Amherst. I dropped off Maria there a little while later. She jumped out. We waved good-bye and that was that.

At no point during this whole encounter was I confident that I doing the "right" thing. I didn't know if I was helping someone or whether I was setting myself up for a shake down or worse. I've met some excellent cons and until she got out of the car at the last stop, I didn't know whether or not Maria was one. I imagine she didn't know whether she could trust me either. Who knows? I could have freaked out at some point and left her on the side of the road somewhere. But her moral compass was turned toward caring for her son and she was determined to do this, even if it meant taking a chance on a stranger.

Was this a moral act? Or just naive? Was I doing one of the corporal works of mercy? (Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, give rides to desperate mothers.) Or was I just too scared to say no? Rather than feeling good about doing a good deed, it's left me feeling unsettled. Her request was clear, direct, uncomplicated and without ulterior motives. It was I -- in the good Samaritan role -- who was not so clear.

That passage from Hebrews 13:2 says: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." It's the "unawares-ness" of life tonight that gives me pause.

Buen Camino

2006-09-28T08:39:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been to Spain and back. Had some sins forgiven, perhaps; committed some additional ones, definitely. And I'm still an ass.

No change there. A beast of burden on the road toward God.

Since I've been back, all systems have been GO, but running a bit rough. It's not as though life isn't working, because it is, but little goes smoothly these days. The pilgrimage ran smack into the beginning of the academic year at Smith and also at middle school, so I've been flat out. Contemplating the experience is a necessity yet feels like a luxury given the demands of supervising nightly 8th grade homework (and the educational value of drawing a four-panel cartoon of the Constitutional Convention is . . . . what?).

I brought home a couple of blue toenails (see above) from Santiago courtesy of the intense downhills on the Way. I read the guidebooks and even the luminous Paulo Coehlo novel about the pilgrimage and yet I still imagined it to be a vigorous walk -- like playing 36 holes of golf several days in a row.

I was wrong. It's a beautiful country with wonderfully friendly (and patient) people. But the camino is punishing to the hips, knees, and feet. In every town you could tell the peregrinos from the touristas by their slow, stiff shuffle through town vainly trying to walk without putting any weight on their feet.

Santiago de Compostela is probably the only pilgrimage in which the pilgrims depart healthy and arrive lame. (Though going on Hajj to Mecca is proabably akin to this, but with the added complication of the occasional stampede.)

One of the loveliest aspects of walking the last 111 km of the camino (from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela) is the companionship of other pilgrims on foot or bicycle and the greeting "Buen Camino." It made me wish for a more companionable relationship with my fellow pilgrims on this side of the Atlantic as we make our daily trips to the market or the post office. "Hello" or "good day" don't have the same quality of blessing as "buen camino" muttered breathlessly to a fellow traveller as you conquer another hill (or as another downhill stretch conquers you).

I saw only one four-legged ass on the camino, though I can imagine it would make a good companion in the harder stretches (or at least a distraction). It’s not so bad to be an ass. An ass carried Solomon to Gihon, Mary to Bethlehem, Jesus into Jerusalem, Muhammed to Mecca, the Buddha on his road, and who-knows-how-many other weary ones over the ages. An ass is not such a bad thing to be.

I am in the blogging business again. Gracias por leer esto.

Buen camino.

El Burro Peregrino

2006-08-10T20:26:00.000-04:00

I am already an ass. Tomorrow I will be a pilgrim.

Our motley (and a wee bit anxious) group of three adults and two hands-full of teenagers from St. John's Church in Northampton will depart tomorrow around noon. We will ride to JFK airport and then fly to Madrid and make our way to the Way of St. James in the Field of Stars.

I am collecting stories of Spanish saints, figuring out how to pack my rucksack so I can take just enough with me and no more, and vacuuming the dog hair in the hallway.

I have kissed my parents, my children, and my spouse; patted the dogs; cleared my desk; answered emails; copied my passport; trusted the supremely competent and organized ones who planned our travels; and now there is nothing to do but walk and pray with my fellow peregrinos and keep an eye on the path for whatever has been placed there for me to discover.

John of the Cross, the famous 16th century Spanish mystic, very likely had a learning disability of some sort. His early teachers gave up on him, but the Jesuits did not and neither did Teresa of Avila who asked him to run a school. Later in life, as he became practiced at meditation -- of awakening to God's presence -- he wrote that if anyone wishes to be sure of the road you tread on, you must close your eyes and walk in the dark.

We are everyday peregrinos . . . and burros. Jackasses seeking God in the dark.

More at the end of August. Giddyup!

Heat Waves

2006-08-01T07:49:00.000-04:00

It's 7:30 a.m. and it's already 80 degrees. The heat pressing eastward from the plains is due to hit Massachusetts today with 100 degree temps.

In 1995, when an extreme heat wave hit Chicago and lingered for a week, thousands of people suffered from the heat and hundreds -- old people mainly -- died as a result. According to Eric Klinenberg, author of Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, over 700 people died.

While heat waves (and Category 5 hurricanes) are likely to become more frequent due to global warming, Klinenberg argues that the Chicago disaster was a social one and not merely a "natural" one. [We can argue that there are few truly "natural" disasters anymore given the giant human footprint on the earth's ecology, but that's for another time.]

Klinenberg calls the heat wave a "particle accelerator" for social conditions -- "every day disasters" that persist under the surface of perceptible ordinary life. As citizens we accept a certain level of deprivation ("the poor will be with us always") and demand its invisibility. We don't want to see the elderly, the poor, the chronically ill -- that's what made the video after Katrina so disturbing. The hurricane was also a particle accelerator making the searing inhumane but ordinary poverty of urban life visible.

Klinenberg says: "The death toll was the result of distinct dangers in Chicago's social environment: an increased population of isolated seniors who live and die alone; the culture of fear that makes city dwellers reluctant to trust their neighbors or, sometimes, even leave their houses; the abandonment of neighborhoods by businesses, service providers, and most residents, leaving only the most precarious behind; and the isolation and insecurity of single room occupancy dwellings and other last-ditch low-income housing. None of these common urban conditions show up as causes of death in the medical autopsies or political reports that establish the official record for the heat disaster."

Klinenberg found that in communities with busy public spaces, flourishing businesses (we're not talking Wal-Mart here but little grocery stores, storefront churches, bodegas) and street life, people stayed alive even without air conditioning. They felt safe enough to go out and people looked out for each other.

In the next heat wave, Chicago executed its emergency "heat plan," opening cooling centers and sending police door-to-door in neighborhoods where there was known to be concentrations of vulnerable people.

Does my city have an emergency heat plan? I'll have to check. . .

In the meantime, if you're having a heat wave, check on your people and find somewhere -- even a Wal-Mart -- to stay cool.

Toward Pilgrimage

2006-07-29T08:49:00.000-04:00

I'm readying myself to walk part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in two weeks. A group of young high schoolers from my church are going on a pilgrimage -- a path of spiritual discovery -- and I and two other adults are accompanying them.

The "Way of St. James" is a path in northern Spain that took hold in Europe during the middle ages. St. James the Apostle is said to be buried in Santiago, but the path itself probably pre-dates the 10th century when the Christian pilgrims began to walk it. The Camino is one of three medieval pilgrimages said to remove all your sins (the others are to Rome and Jerusalem). We're only walking the last 100k of the camino, so only a few of my sins will probably be taken away (hopefully the ones involving late-night snacking or even better the times I've lost my motherly patience). Mostly, I hope I will find a way back to my center.

I had a great (though unsettling) theology teacher in college, Sebastian Moore, OSB whose sermons were so esoteric they were incomprehensible. He took to handing them out on blue paper so his listeners had a prayer of following him. Much of what he struggled with (theologically and psychologically) was the problem of evil. I kept many of his "blue sheets" and one on sin caught my eye this week. He wrote that sin is not rule-breaking, but a "breach with the whole" of things -- a breach with God-reality. Moore thinks of this as the human condition -- we act and live as though we are alone, as though there is no God, no love, no hope -- as if it is all up to us. And so here we are.

I leave you with the Catholic anarchist Dorothy Day, who in her famous 1948 work, "On Pilgrimage" says some things that apply today:

"People sooner or later will have to admit that things are rapidly getting worse, not better. People said during the war that Hitler had the theory that the bigger the lie, the easier it was to get people to believe it. It seems to me we have quite a number of these big lies.

There is the lie of high wages.

There is the lie of widespread ownership.

There is the plentiful production lie.

There is the everyone-consuming-more lie." [end of quotation]

One of Satan's aliases is "the Author of Lies." At day care centers all over the country they tell children there are no bad people, just bad choices. But I disagree. Right now, the Author of Lies has a lot of spokespeople in high places.

This Just In

2006-07-26T16:15:00.000-04:00

So, friends, I'm back, sort of. Things I'm learning this summer from some men in my life . . . . . . . .

1. Lesson 1 (Teacher: my father-in-law, the family Scrabble champ): if you don't have the tiles, you can't win the game.

2. Lesson 2 (Teacher: same father-in-law): with patience, careful thought, and some hard work, you can overcome crappy tiles and put together some fine seven-letter words (bonus 50 points!).

3. Lesson 3 (Teacher: travels to baseball parks with my 16 year-old son): Baseball may be a multi-billion entertainment industry, but it's still most satisfying when played in the 'hood.

4. Lesson 4 (Teacher: my father's critical illness): If you get the chance to grow up, do it. Life presents you with a thousand opportunities a day to dig a little deeper into the marrow of its mysteries and I, for one, miss nine-hundred and ninety-nine of them on my best days. The New Testament recounts the story of Peter and the apostles being sent out to be "fishers of men [people]". But I imagine God as a fly-fisherman/woman standing on the shore throwing out the lure time after time, hour after hour waiting for me to bite.

My father (not the Scrabble champ-in-law) is critically ill. He is nearing the end of his life, though the end may be many months from now, and he is afraid some of the time. He's also cranky, I hear, and also humorous. There are some things only we can do. And there are some places only we can go; friends and family can only go with us so far and then we are on our own. Some have written that all of life is a preparation for death, but I rather think that life is preparation for life -- including that last step into death.

What is faith good for? Faith is good for those moments when no one but God can go with us. To be caught in God's net is to be free of worry and anxiety. It allows us to love people we could not love without God's love and to live as we could not without God's help. How else can we go fearlessly to God unless God is already our friend? We go from strength to strength.

There is a new book -- not out quite yet -- called "The Faith Club: A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew -- Three Women Search for Understanding" it looks like a very interesting read and they include some suggestions for how start your own "faith club." I look forward to reading and learning more. Keep watching the web for more info.

I hope you all are well. Pray for my dad.

The Sound of the Genuine

2006-06-08T09:57:00.000-04:00

Not in much of a writing mind-space lately, so here's some wisdom on discernment from Howard Thurman:

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.”

Saying Yes

2006-06-04T22:27:00.000-04:00

Here's a quote from the commencement address Stephen Colbert gave at Knox College:

"Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.

"Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."

2006-06-03T07:17:00.000-04:00

When I was a philosophy graduate student I was a TA for a professor whose teaching specialty was existentialism and phenomenology. He looked a bit like a shruken Gandalf from Lord of the Rings -- long thin hair, a scraggly beard, and cane. One day as we walked across campus one late fall day, he cheerily announced: "Ah, winter is coming. Everywhere you look there is death."

Though it is now late spring -- nearly summer -- everywhere I look there is death.

Last week's The New Yorker features a poem by Stanley Kunitz who died recently. It's titled "Halley's Comet." A first grader's imagination and fear is ignited when he hears from his teacher that Halley's Comet is hurtling through space and if it wanders off course, "there'd be no school tomorrow." It's a poem about waiting for death, the excitement about the next adventure and the sadness of leaving.

This spring I have felt the presence of death in the cracks of my life. It's come front and center a few times,

Kunitz poem:

Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red-brick building
at the foot of Green Street --
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end. (Stanley Kunitz, 1905-2006)

Living Vowed Lives

2006-05-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

Most people think of monks and nuns when they think of people who "take vows." When you look around, though, there are lots of oaths, vows, and covenants we make.

The contemporary Hippocratic Oath:. . . Above all, I must not play at God."
The Lawyer's Oath: ". . . I will not, for personal reasons, reject the cause of the defenseless or oppressed."
The Refuge Vows in which a Buddhist "takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha."
Marriage vows -- which come in all sorts of versions nowadays -- but boil down in most respects to taking another person to be your spouse "for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; until we are parted by death."
Ordination vows which, in the Episcopal tradition, which include saying "I will" to the following: "Will you do you best to pattern your life in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people?"

Vows are relational. In making them, we choose to bind ourselves in some way to a person, or a community in living our life. They make us accountable to our principles, values, our communities, and God (often).

Here is another set of vows which my spouse and I have chosen and which challenge us daily, but also in which we find refuge and strength. It is said to be a traditional Celtic vow, but I don't know that for sure:

I will drink at your well.
I will honor the journey of your spirit.
I will bring an undefended heart to our meeting place.
I will not negotiate by withholding.
I am not subject to disappointment.
I have no cherished outcome.

The face of God comes close

2006-05-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

Today was Baccalaureate at Smith. I felt such a deep cellular joy as the students streamed into the chapel wearing their black graduation robes with pride, amusement, and fear on their faces.

All my anxiety, sadness, grief, frustration, and fear I'd been holding for the last two weeks melted for a little while as the pews filled with graduates.

I am, these days, craving solitude. I vant to be alone. . . It takes energy to give one's full attention to anyone or anything and it takes refueling to sustain it. But in the midst of these beautiful, idiosyncratic, bright women, I felt like a kitten rolling in the sunlight.

The Thing Is

2006-05-18T08:30:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Jacqui for sending the full text of this poem by Ellen Bass which I cited in my last post:

THE THING IS

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face,
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

ELLEN BASS from Mules of Love

2006-05-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

My broken egg-of-a-self is a little more together today.

When I was in my 20s I worked at the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston. Now the center is in a spanking clean facility. Then it was in the roach-infested basement of the old apartment building just across the street from its current home. I would rattle my desk drawers before I opened them to scatter the critters. I still remember how my nose and eyes burned as the property manager sprayed industrial-strength pesticides around the perimeter of my office while I sat at my desk. (Ah, the good old days.) I started work there after graduate school, just two years after AIDS had become epidemic in the U.S. and before HIV had been identified as the critical etiological link.

I spent the next 10 years immersed in AIDS work of one kind or another -- medical care, counseling, community education, testing, wellness, alternative addiction treatments, medical education. It was an incredibly rich, wonderful, terribly difficult time. I grew up fast and attribute everything I know about almost anything important to the gay men -- my clients, colleagues, and friends -- who were also my teachers.

During those years it was not the elderly in my life who were sick and dying, it was my peer group.

This last week, in several situations, I've been with young people who are facing the sudden, unexpected loss of one of their own. And I am viscerally transported to a time when I was 24 and one of my close friends began to fail from AIDS. I wanted so much to do the right thing by him, but I wasn't sure what that was. And I remember feeling afraid for him, afraid for me. Feeling angry at myself because I hated my helplessness. Angry at him for getting sick. For getting AIDS. For dying. Anger at the silent inscrutable God. (Though God and I were not exactly on speaking terms at the time.)

I am so very sad. And still I marvel at the resilience of people -- old and young, sick and well -- and can practically taste their beauty. Life is a precious gift.

Yesterday, at a memorial service for Meg Sanders, a bicyclist, AIDS activist, artist, circus performer, and beloved fellow traveller, the Rev. Sam Wilde exhorted us to cherish life in the midst of grief and death using the words of Ellen Bass: "love life even when you do not have the stomach for it."

That feels exactly like what some of us are trying to do these days.

Things just slip through your hands sometimes

2006-05-14T16:30:00.000-04:00

We all have little signals that tell us all is not right between us and the world. Misplacing your keys four times in one day. Banging your head on a cupboard door. Remembering where you're supposed to be at 10 a.m. only it's already 11.

Well, in my world, I dropped two items into the toilet in the last 24 hours (my toothpaste and a stack of Dixie cups). Also an egg -- no, not in the toilet. I can't remember when I was so clumsy.

I feel like a broken egg today. The pieces are coming back together but I will probably continue to drip for a little a while.

Strength to Strength

2006-05-11T08:58:00.000-04:00

In the last couple of days I've been haunted by a prayer from the Episcopal burial rite:

"Grant that, increasing in knowledge and love of thee, s/he may
go from strength to strength in the life of perfect service in
thy heavenly kingdom. Amen."

Two things have been rumbling around for me. One is the prayer's presumption that after death a person continues to grow in love and knowledge of the divine and continues in God's service -- that our purpose or end (for eternity) is to learn, love, and serve.

Second, that phrase "going from strength to strength"(from Psalm 84) sounds like such a relief. Spiritual Club Med. So often lately I feel like I'm just flying white-knuckled from branch to branch. Going from strength to strength . . . what a concept.

See ball. Hit ball.

2006-05-08T20:39:00.000-04:00

Golf has been called a good walk spoiled. I grew up thinking it was something only rich white men did together while they talked about their money.

It wasn't something we played in my neighborhood. We played street hockey (I have the chipped tooth and scar to prove it). We played touch football in the street -- telephone poles and parked cars were the yard markers for our field. Basketball in our driveway, where Danny D. and I would collide in mid-air reaching for a rebound and he'd come down on the tops of my feet. Bowling happened once in a while after Mass on Girl Scout Sunday. We even played tennis, though we mostly hit balls against School 82. But golf? No way. There wasn't enough grass -- or money -- in our neighborhood for golf. I never knew anyone who played golf until I was in my 30s.

My friend Mary introduced me. She grew up near Detroit where her father worked at a Ford factory. She played on public courses with her mother and grandmother. One afternoon she gave me her grandmother's old clubs and took me out to hit some balls. I was half expecting to be escorted off the property as soon as the authorities were notified I was in the vicinity. Once I settled down, though -- it took me several tries -- I found that I liked golf very much. It's just a good walk, period.

I'm not very good at it, though occasionally, like most people, I can hit a good shot now and then. And that's enough to bring me back.

The best thing about golf, though, is what happens between the ears of the golfer. I can tell within 30 seconds of addressing the ball whether I am spiritually grounded or out of my mind. Practitioners of meditation talk about monkey mind and beginner's mind. Monkey mind swings from thought to thought like a monkey in the trees. When you notice your monkey mind in meditation (and in golf) it's tempting to suppress it or substitute some other object or word -- even with anger and judgment. ("Why can't I get this right?" "There I go again!" etc. etc.) The most helpful antedote, though, is simply breathing and focusing on the breath and on the body.

Beginner's mind, on the other hand, is about not knowing and being free of attachment to outcomes. It is the "innocence of first inquiry." You encounter each moment, each thought as for the first time, without judgment. See ball. Hit ball.

For me, golf is one of the best ways to get in touch with where I am inside. I can pass for calm, cool, and collected in lots of places in my life. But the mirror is unforgiving on the golf course. If mind and body are out of sync, there's no hiding. The ball follows the club head, which follows the hands, which follow the arms, the shoulders, the hips, the feet . . . Monkey mind, monkey body.

There's no judgment from the ball or the club or the trees or the green. It's all me when I hit into the sand trap or into the marsh. The sand doesn't complain or shout "How could you hit it here again?!" The marsh is silent.

So when I go into the office and look at my messy desk ,the papers don't say a word. It's me that looks at them and sees fault or the things I haven't gotten to. Papers are just papers. All those unanswered emails are just . . . well, what are they? Do they exist, actually? Well, there's just now and what I can do now. That's all.

I heard somewhere that even though golf equipment has improved significantly in the last 50 years, golf scores haven't. I'm not surprised.

See ball. Hit ball. It's got very little to do with the equipment.

Geology

2006-05-07T20:46:00.000-04:00

I spent this morning with nine young teenagers I am getting to know. I've been asked to accompany them on their spiritual pilgrimage this summer. We're walking part (70K) of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. It's such a privilege to be trusted by parents and kids both. They are a wonderful group. They treat one another with respect and real affection and toleration -- agape in practice (though they still have attention spans of about a nanosecond). All this, of course, will be tested mightily when we walk 10-15 miles day for a week in foreign land this August.

Ben and I made molasses cookies. A little too much clove for his taste so more for me!

Then we went with a good friend on a hike up Skinner Mountain (also known as Mt. Holyoke). No thunderstorms, as in this painting by Cole. It was so clear we could see for many miles in each direction: northeast to Mt. Monadnock, NH, due north to Mt. Snow, west to Mt. Greylock, and south to Hartford, CT (and some unidentified mountains beyond).

The hike came on just the right day and at the right time. My motherly patience had run out of gas and if I didn't do something, I was going to have to dig a hole in the backyard for me or my kid. A long walk up a steep hill was just what we both needed. The mountain could handle anything we could bring to it or throw at it.

Joan Didion, in her recent book The Year of Magical Thinking, writes:

"After a few years of failing to find meaning in the more commonly recommended venues I learned I could find it in geology, so I did. This enabled me to find meaning in the Episcopal litany, most acutely in the words as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, which I interpreted as a literal description of the constant changing of the earth, the unending erosion of the shores and mountains, the inexorable shifting of the geological structures that could throw up mountains and islands and could just as reliably take them away. I found earthquakes, even when I was in them, deeply satisfying, abruptly revealed evidence of the scheme in action. That the scheme could destroy the works of man might be a personal regret but remained, in the larger picture I had come to recognize, a matter of abiding indifference." (pp. 189-190)

That indifference today came as abiding comfort. Me and my concerns -- my impatience or anger or feelings of any sort -- don't add up to much so I could let them go for awhile on the mountain.

Turbulence.org

2006-05-06T09:43:00.000-04:00

Turbulence.org is a website devoted to artistic expression -- 10 years worth so far. There are some interesting community art and storytelling/story-collecting projects on the site.

One unusual and poignant project is The Saddest Thing I Own. People write short narratives to which readers can respond.

I know. It sounds incredibly depressing. But it isn't really. It's quite beautiful, like thumbing through a cosmic scrapbook.

(Image by Andy Goldsworthy)

Let light perpetual shine upon them

2006-05-05T20:45:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I attended a memorial service for a woman who died at the age of 101. She was the mother of a colleague, an only son who was devoted to her.

The service was unexpectedly moving. We were a small group; she outlived most of her peers by several decades. There was no casket or urn. Just a great bouquet of pink (her favorite color) roses, two candles, and prayers. There was no pagentry, no grand speeches. Yet, it was so powerful to be there to honor one of our own -- a fellow human, a sister traveler.

Several friends and colleagues have lost or nearly lost loved ones in recent weeks. Loss reminds us that we're breakable. My friends' vulnerability and courage as they cope and work has been very present to me. What else can they do? Those who remain keep going and carry on with this creaturely project.

Humans are not the only creatures known to grieve or honor their dead. Elephants have been known to die of grief. But they do not wash and shroud their dead, sit shiva, say Kaddesh, or sing Amazing Grace. Only we do that. It is our way of joining in the song of creation, blessing the creator as we bless the created.

Her Life in France

2006-05-04T20:10:00.000-04:00

For fun (yes, I do have fun), I am reading Julia Child's posthumous book, My Life in France. She began it with with her grandnephew, Alex Prud'homme who finished it when she died in 2004.

She was distinctive in every way. Like millions of others I grew up watching her cook on public television and never thought of her as particularly sensuous or pleasure-loving. But of course she was. Very. I love hearing "Julia stories" from people who met or knew her. Inevitably they reflect the robust physicality, grace, humor, and generosity that was Julia.

One lovely aspect of this last book is the use of quotations from letters during Paul and Julia's years as young expats working in Paris for the U.S. government after World War II.

Here's a passage from a letter from Paul to his twin brother, Charlie, that captures something of Paul and Julia's playful, passionate relationship. Her discovery of French food and her love for Paul are inextricable.

Paul writes, "Lipstick on my belly button and music in the air --- thaaat's Paris, son." (page 25)

Julia writes, "Those garlic-filled belches! Those silk-stockinged legs! Those mascara'd eyelashes! Those electric switches and toilet chains that never work!" (page 28)

It brings a smile just to think of them together drowning in wine and love.

Faithful like a dog

2006-05-02T15:54:00.000-04:00

My old dog is slowing down these days. Sometimes her back legs give out on her. She graying down to her paws. Her appetite isn't what it used to be, she's more confused than usual and, frankly, she's got old dog smell.

My son, Ben, adores her. Every night she settles in on the floor next to his bed and he falls off to sleep with his arm over the side resting in her fur.

In the morning, she rouses herself as I make coffee, banging her tail loudly on the furniture. After a quick hello and a little breakfast, she settles back down next to Ben's bed and waits for him to get up.

We think of dogs as faithful. Maybe faithfulness is too anthropomorphic to ascribe to a being with such simple needs. Maybe they're just blindly loyal or creatures of mere habit. But then again, maybe not. Maybe there is something to be learned regardless of where this capacity for constancy and attentiveness comes from. We're pretty simple creatures, too.

We want faith that will move mountains and certainty we can build a world upon. But we don't get either, really. The ancient philosopher Heraclitus was mostly right: all is flux. In a universe of constant change, faithfulness sometimes amounts to being more or less like a dog. On the hardest days just the basics can get us through.

Faithfulness isn't complicated. It's not even about believing in something or someone. It's about staying in there, even when you can't think of a single reason to. It's the mustard seed approach. You hang onto whatever scrap of hope you can find -- even if it's a scrap someone else is holding for you. That's the power of community and tradition. On days when faith is hard to come by, I take solace in knowing that others are holding my portion that day and I keep going.

May Day 2006

2006-05-01T13:03:00.000-04:00

Out of the Bubble and into the streets!

Today I'm particularly proud of Smith College students who gathered 150-200 strong and marched downtown at noon to join the town protest against the bill that (if passed) would make all illegal immigrants (and those who provide services to them) felons.

Here are some words on labor from priest, activist Jim Lewis in The Witness:

"The people who do the hard labor that brings us our food, clothes and the many services we all depend on for our daily life are hired hands. They are often treated as disposable people because as soon as their hands give out (or other parts of their bodies wear thin from the work they do), they are fired or discharged. Companies look for new hands — hands that will work for less, be compliant and not complain and never attempt to join a union.

Churches say grace over lovely parish hall suppers, but too often parishioners do not know what injustices they bless. The chicken on the plate comes from farmers who are close to bankruptcy because of the poor contracts forced upon them by poultry companies, and from a large black and immigrant process-plant workforce that makes less than livable wages in an unsafe environment. The vegetables and fruit that deck the plate are picked and gathered by migrant workers — one of the most exploited populations in our nation."

Justice starts, as Frances Crowe said today, with food. More on that in a future post.

Website of the Day: Justice for Immigrants , which has a good FAQ about immigration policy reform. Catholic bishops are to be commended for advocating civil disobedience in the face of injustice.

Banks of Boston

2006-04-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

Today I had occasion to be in Boston just for a couple of hours. It was heavenly to walk under the deep blue sky past all the Newbury Street shops I can't afford to shop in (and all those wound up young bankers and businessmen in their ill-fitting blue suits and red ties -- I'd forgotten how tight the city can be). I spied the swan boats gliding across the pond in the Public Garden. The graceful sweeping lines of the Boston Public Library. And all the people!

I've loved Boston since my first visit in 1975 on the only family vacation we ever took (that's a story for another post someday -- six children, two adults, one giant station wagon and no A/C).

I lived there for 8 years during grad school and afterward. It wasn't long enough. I love the bucolic People's Republic of Northampton, but there's something joyful and radiant about the big city energy -- the wonderful anonymity that gives permission for deviations from the norm -- that helps me breathe a little deeper and smile a little more.

Walking to School

2006-04-23T12:18:00.000-04:00

When I was a child I walked to school twice a day. St. Lawrence Grammar School was in an old Italian neighborhood in Buffalo, NY -- one class of about 25 for each grade and no school lunch. At noon and 2:45 the children filed out of the school and into the surrounding neighborhoods like passenger trains: There was the Edison Street line, the Wright Avenue line, the Delavan Avenue line and the Eggert Road line. A John Philip Sousa march poured out of the PA system twice a day making this ritual strangely festive as a safety patrol wearing an orange belt led each line of children down the steps and out of the school doors. It occurs to me now that some kids did not go home or if they did, there may not have been any lunch for them at noon, but this never entered my head at the time. That my own friends might be suffering or in want did not occur to me.

I must have left the house each day with at least one of my brothers, but I remember solitude most, and being lost in thought.

On one of these half-mile walks I had a lightbulb-over-your-head moment: I knew that I would never suffer enough to be holy.

Mind you, holiness was an explicit goal of a proper Catholic upbringing. A Good Life was good enough for others, but a Holy Life (Episcopalians would say "a godly life" -- very English-y) was what a Catholic would rightly aspire to. But holiness, I was learning, came only through sacrifice. You could bestow kindnesses and do Great Things, but holiness came at a cost and suffering would be required if you desired it (which you had to), however unfair it might seem.

I have no doubt that my lightbulb had a lot to do with having watched the movie Song of Bernadette on TV the night before my epiphany. Made in 1943, the movie stars Jennifer Jones (after whom I am named, as it turns out), playing Bernadette Soubirous, an illiterate Basque peasant girl from Lourdes. In 1858 Bernadette received a series of 18 apparitions and messages from a white-robed Lady at a grotto called Massabielle. On the 16th day, the Lady revealed herself as Mary and instructed Bernadette to tell the village priest to build a chapel on that spot. Millions of pilgrims have since traveled to Lourdes seeking healing from the Lady and the spring there.

After these apparitions, Bernadette became famous. For her own protection, she joined the convent and there she suffered a terrible illness and died at 35. In the film, Bernadette limps painfully as she prays and works with the convent nuns.

It moved my 12 year-old heart to see someone who had already suffered the indignity and humiliation of the priests and townspeople have to suffer physically, too. It was grossly unjust.

Like Joan of Arc (and Mary, and the women at the tomb, and women throughout history), Bernadette had an experience that no one would believe. Her gift and burden was having to claim the authority of her story anyway. In her I saw that you may come to believe unbelievable but true things. That they are unbelievable does not make them any less true and faithfulness requires you to stick to your story and be an outcast sometimes.

The idea that suffering and holiness (or enlightenment) are connected is not unique to Christianity, of course. That is the great insight of Buddhism: life is suffering. I think I accept that. And my adult self can accept that happiness is a fleeting -- almost otherworldly -- necessary gift that alights and then, like a sparrow, flutters off in another direction.

When I was 12, I thought the suffering that made you holy would be dramatic. A great loss, a painful disease, persecution by multitudes, a crucifixion. I didn't expect that suffering would be so mundane, so gnat-like -- a thousand little burdens. The attachments, the unexpressed wishes for life to be different, a little better, a little easier, love of others, lack of control, worried fitful sleep, pettiness, impatience and anger -- these are the portals of suffering I did not anticipate. The portals of privilege, perhaps, but suffering is suffering.

This is a problem for hagiographic Christianity since the great stories denude the ordinary of its power: the mother's suffering for her son who has no friends; the old woman who can't remember where she lives; the depressed teenager; the drug addict with nightmares. We can borrow the stories of patron saints who have been assigned to us: Bernadette is a patron saint of the sick;Ursicinus, the stiff neck; Therese of Lisieux, people with AIDS and airline pilots (go figure).

I still believe that there are holy lives. And that suffering is just a fact. And in little true stories you can't swallow whole but have to contend with. I am still pondering how they are all connected. I know better now than to pursue or desire the suffering of martyrs, prophets, or saints. That is a 12 year-old's fantasy of a holy life. Suffering and holiness will find you right where you are.

Holiness -- and happiness -- in adulthood is complex, like the smell of warm earth, not always a sweet thing but something that holds you up and then sticks to the bottom of your shoes. Yes, flowers, pretty things, exquisitely beautiful things grow in it, but it's messy and it smells.

Holy Saturday

2006-04-15T08:27:00.000-04:00

Holy Saturday -- the Christian holy day day between Good Friday and Easter -- is a day of vigil. There are traditionally no services until the evening.

It has a palpable in-between-ness to it -- it is neither here nor there. If you watch any of the movies based on the last days of Jesus, Saturday gets short shrift: the drama of the torture and crucifixion on Friday, a shot of the apostles hiding out, and then angels, women, and the empty tomb.

If you take the story as a narrative about the experience of real people (not just a theological statement), then Saturday must have been hell. (In the Apostle's Creed it says that Jesus descended to hell before being raised; maybe that's the only thing they could have imagined happening on that day since that's where they spent it.)

Like Jesus' 1st century followers, I don't know what's coming. My faith says that doesn't matter. You don't have to know, you're ready for anything because "God-with-us" is with you, too -- all the time. But my anxiety about all I don't know tells me otherwise and I need reminders.

After a Good Friday jammed with the evil and drama of human cruelty and suffering, Holy Saturday slams on the brakes. And we just sit here until Easter.

Here's some Rumi for the day:

Paradoxes: best wakefulness in sleep, wealth in having nothing, a pearl necklace fastened around an iron collar. Fire contained in boiling water. Revenues growing from funds flowing out. Giving is gainful employment. It brings in money. Taking time for ritual prayer and meditation saves time. Sweet fruit hide in leaves. Dung becomes food for the ground and generative power in trees. Nonexistence contains existence. Love encloses beauty. Brown flint and gray steel have orange candlelight in them. Inside fear, safety. In the black pupil of the eye, many brillancies. Inside the body-cow, a handsome prince. (Translated by Coleman Barks)

Smelling the flowers

2006-04-11T08:38:00.000-04:00

We've had three straight days of blue sky (unsullied by evil contrails that make the clear blue into a hazy off-white).

On Palm Sunday afternoon, Ben insisted that the Smith boathouse was open ("because it was almost summer"). I insisted that it wasn't ("because we had Work to do"). While I try not to argue with him -- to stick to my guns -- it was such a beautiful day, I half hoped he was right. So I called. He was. I let go of my tedious housekeeper's agenda for the day and we set off to the boathouse.

What Ben didn't tell me was that he and his church youth group had taken a walk along the Mill River that morning. He had stashed a load of tree bark for some project on the bank up river. When we got to the spot he bolted out of the kayak and scampered up the bank to fetch it. We strapped it to our vessel and continued paddling like Lewis and Clark loaded with provisions.

You can still hear the rumble of street traffic from the river, but it's so muted it sounds miles away, instead of a two minute walk up a hill. Crocuses and daffodils bobbed in the breeze and woodpeckers knocked away in search of Sunday brunch. The beavers haven't done too much damage to the trees along the river this year, though they're in trouble with the authorities inland where they set up house in an urban marshland, threatening to cause basement flooding.

Getting out in the water helped to release my stranglehold on the household "agenda." Housekeeping is not easy for me. It takes a good deal of mental energy to keep the clutter in check. It's not wasted energy because an orderly space is freeing --- think zendo. But choosing to obsess about dust and clutter on days like these is an insult to creation.

It's like the whole world is saying "Look-at-me, look-at-me, look-at-me!" How can I not?

From Mary Oliver's Wild Geese

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Christ Among the Partisans

2006-04-10T13:52:00.000-04:00

Garry Wills has a commendable editorial in the NY Times today. Here are a few excerpts (click on the title of this post for the full text):

". . . Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not."

". . .Some may think that removing Jesus from politics would mean removing morality from politics. They think we would all be better off if we took up the slogan "What would Jesus do?"

That is not a question his disciples ask in the Gospels. They never knew what Jesus was going to do next. He could round on Peter and call him "Satan." He could refuse to receive his mother when she asked to see him. He might tell his followers that they are unworthy of him if they do not hate their mother and their father. He might kill pigs by the hundreds. He might whip people out of church precincts."

" . . . The Gospels are scary, dark and demanding. It is not surprising that people want to tame them, dilute them, make them into generic encouragements to be loving and peaceful and fair. If that is all they are, then we may as well make Socrates our redeemer."

" . . . He was never that thing that all politicians wish to be esteemed — respectable. "

Solidarity

2006-04-08T11:22:00.000-04:00

While I have met a number of writers I admire, I do not have many signed copies of books. It feels selfish to want an autograph, a little like asking for a bit of someone’s soul.

But the other evening when Diane Gilliam Fisher was here, it was a relatively intimate group and so I succumbed to temptation and asked her to sign my book.

She signed, “with my friendship and in solidarity.”

I have not heard anyone use that word – solidarity – in a long time and that’s a shame.

It’s common now for activists to use the word “ally,” as in GLBT Students and Allies. It’s a fine word all right, but I’m troubled by the way it connotes relational distance nowadays. To say you are an ally may be to imply that “I’m with you but not of you.” Maybe it is meant to communicate respect for differences. But it does not carry, for me at least, the moral power of some other words: friendship, companionship, sisterhood or brotherhood, coalition, community.

According to the OED ally is an older word than solidarity (by 400 years) and the first definition says “kindred.” But in current usage ally is frequently a military term and speaks to interests rather than commitments.

Solidarity, on the other hand, came into currency in the 1840s and suggests a community “perfectly united.” The word itself has centrifugal force and power. Solidarity forever!

To be in solidarity with someone different from me, suggests a willingness to get messed up in the process of being with them, of letting go of my own interests in service of a larger vision. It connotes passion and long-suffering and the potential to be transformed, to have my eyes opened and my hands bloodied because I care about something or someone. To be in solidarity is to stay in the struggle.

The Real Deal

2006-04-06T09:06:00.000-04:00

Last night the poet Diane Gilliam Fisher came to Smith to read her work and talk about social class.

If you’ve not read her writing, particularly, Kettle Bottom, you should. She writes poetry that makes you feel more real. More human. More connected to everything. In Kettle Bottom, a community of West Virginia coal miners comes to life and Fisher tells their stories so effectively you can’t help but see yourself – not as a coal miner – but as person like other people -- human, broken, hopeful, desperate, whole.

Fisher writes poetry that makes me cry. So does Lucille Clifton, Annie Boutelle, and Jane Hirshfield. I’ll stop there, but you know what I mean. They are the real deal. Their poetry is based on their own observations and but it’s not about them. It’s not about self-expression or self-anything. Their poetry grapples with what is most real and often invisible. It is scripture, a prayer. Like a Gothic cathedral, poetry is an arrow to the sacred.

Listening to Diane Gilliam Fisher’s poetry (and her comments), made me want to stop writing altogether.

Or at least stop writing crap. She was so careful and reverent with words, more than any priest I’ve ever met. Christians blather on about the “Word made Flesh” with comparatively little respect for either. Me included.

We no longer have required “chapel” at colleges like Smith, but it would be marvelous if we could have required poetry. Get everyone into a room. Get quiet and just listen.

In Praise of Recess

2006-04-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

My son brought home an assignment titled "About Me" which asked him to write about what he'd like to learn. This is what he wrote:

I would like to have more time to play games.
I would like to have more experiments to do.
I would like to have more field trips.
I would like more group games.
I would like to go outside at least once a day.

While this is a great beginning to a critique of middle school education -- a world without recess -- it is also a pretty good place for reflection on one's own spiritual life.

Do I make time to play? Kick a can? Toss a stone across the pond? Dance or sing?
Can I think of my life as experimental? Am I wedded to one outcome or path? Am I open to learning from whatever and whomever I encounter? Can I change my mind about something I am "sure" of?
Do I get out of my bubble and seek out different people and experiences? Can my life -- where I am -- be an adventure?
Do I play well with others? How might I find people who bring out the joy in my life?
Do I -- literally -- go outside once a day and look at sky? Smell the air? Howl at the moon? Take a nap?
Do I give myself recess everyday?

"What does this have to do with my soul?" you might think.

Well, like the seventh grader whose own sense of well-being and possibility is stifled by a confining learning environment without natural light and air, good food, and positive relationships, so might our own. Thich Nhat Han writes about keeping a half while you meditate or pray. It might be worth trying and see what happens.

Who's watching out for you?

2006-04-02T07:16:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week with little time for writing here. Thanks for indulging my little fit (see last post). I'm better now.

One highlight of the week was hearing cartoonist Alison Bechdel talk about her work. While she's been working with the same group of characters for 20 years, they have grown and changed and gotten more complex, more believable over time. The best cartoonists (see also Garry Trudeau and Lynda Barry) use the 3 x 3 frame of pen and ink as a mirror of our times, but also of our own thinking and behaving.

One perceptive student observed that all of Bechdel's characters are archetypes or stereotypes -- the haughty intellectual, the earth-mother, the angry radical, the ageing hipppie. So how does the strip work so well? Why doesn't it fall flat? Why aren't we bored with it? Probably because we can see a bit of ourselves in all the characters. In every "type" there is also truth. And Bechdel brings intelligence and compassion to each frame so the strip is never about her (even if her characters occasionally get preachy).

In the early-ish days of women's music (cf. wimmin, womyn) back in the late 70s, early 80s (back before Dar Williams and Ani DiFranco), courage was required by the performers and the audience, since going to a "women's music" concert was tantamount to coming out or being perceived to have come out. So gay or straight, everyone who was there was taking a risk. There was an air of danger. It was thrilling. The personal really was political.

But after a while, I just couldn't stomach the concerts . The Personal part of Political became Ego -- the performer's ego. The musician would go on and on before each song about how we had to "take action" about whatever she was upset about at the moment. This of course, changed from concert to concert, and implied that the audience was a blank slate for her ethical screed. In her play, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Jane Wagner wrote that the audience is the most artful part of a performance. That's what got lost.

Alison Bechdel's work is still humble. Incredibly intelligient, brave and threatening, compassionate and funny, but humble. And the audience is part of her art.

One of my favorite quotations is attributed to James Baldwin but I've never managed to find the source: "The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don't see."

When I read DTWOF, I feel the love.

Prayers going up

2006-03-23T20:23:00.000-05:00

What an odd world. Ordered and disordered. Comprehensible and utterly mysterious.

Last night I learned that lovely, sweet, gentle, quirky, humorous Herb Busch died. I had the blessing of his friendship (along with Michael, his partner) while I was in Ann Arbor. They asked me to preside at the celebration of their holy union. A union of two-spirit men under a single blanket. Herb developed cancer last year and last night he died beloved in the presence of his family. I wish that I could be there now.

Celeste and the kids are at Faz's memorial service.

As I write, my "baby" sister, Jess, is delivering (being delivered of?) a baby boy. I wish I could be there, too.

Maybe it's Herb coming in for another round. . . I don't know.

Life goes out, life comes in, then goes out again. Like the tide. Like breath. Sometimes the life/death/life rhythm is comforting, sometimes it just is/isn't/is. That's all.

From Jane Siberry . . .

all the candles in the world would not be enough
to match the burning in our souls
and the fever in our hearts
and the fervor in our eyes
as we're hoping and we're praying
and we're setting out into the streets
the back streets of the world
and a prayer going up
and a prayer going down
and the darkened eaves the pigeons
and the candlelight processions
on the streets down below
as we're searching and we're seeking
and we're goin' goin' forgive us lord
we're goin' goin' down
goin' down on our knees
amen.

The Power of Naming

2006-03-21T08:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's NPR segment "This I Believe" featured a powerful mini-essay by Eve Ensler, writer of The Vagina Monologues. Regardless of your opinion about the play, her essay is worth reading or listening to. Click the title of this entry to get it.

May I Have Your Attention, Please?

2006-03-17T18:49:00.001-05:00

This week I learned about the keisaku or kyosaku, a practice in Zen Buddhism. The meditator makes a request for keisaku from the priest by signalling with gassho (palms together, head bowed). The sensei responds by striking the student across the shoulders with a stick. It is is an attempt to bring one from fatigue to mindful attention.

I live with my own keisaku -- usually in the form of my own feelings, thoughts, reactions. The fatigue and lack of discipline that brings about impatience, willfulness, anger -- need I say it? -- attachment -- my narrowness, my petty agendas, my investment in outcomes that matter little. Shouting at my son to brush his teeth "this very minute!" Cursing household appliances that don't operate just so. Grinding my teeth with impatience as the cashier at the grocery store chats up the customer in front of me.

Sometimes it is a difficult person (given to me as a teacher) who delivers the blows. Why is it hard to forgive or trust? What am I afraid of? What is my anger trying to tell me?

Sometimes the keisaku comes in the form of a lover who helps me to see what I could not see -- how I am worthy of love and care. That I'm not crazy. Or a failure. Or so special.

I fear that we are collectively receiving cosmic blows in the form of armed conflicts, global climate change, public health pandemics -- but our society is in a stupor, numbed by gluttonous consumption, too drunk to feel them.

There is a price for our spiritual stupor.

Goodbye, Hello

2006-03-14T08:21:00.000-05:00

Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2)

Angels live among us, of this I am certain.

Our mailman in Ann Arbor is one angel. He is also a gnome. A squat little man with a snowy beard, he looks as though he might be blind with his crooked downward gaze. But he lumbers on through our neighborhood each day cheerfully delivering the mail and a treat for good doggies.

Sometimes your angel is the pizza guy. We lost our pizza guy, our angel, this week. Faz Husain, (Faz Hello Pizza, Ann Arbor) died. I want to say he was only 54, but maybe it's better to give thanks for all of those years.

What a sweet, generous, and beautiful man. He did not just sell pizza, he showered love. An Indian immigrant from a traditional Muslim family, his marriage to Nikki was arranged by their parents in the 1970s. Though a very modern man in some ways, he was steadfastly traditional in others. He would often talk about how hard it was to find a husband good enough for his daughter Nadia. "Jennifer (he would always use my name), Jennifer, you have no idea how many emails and letters I get from India proposing marriage to my daughter! I have a big job to do! Pray for me!" She was finally married just a few months ago.

After September 11th, his flyers featured the American flag ("United We Stand"). After the attack at least one Muslim-owned restaurant went under in Ann Arbor. I worried that some people might not get their pizza from him anymore. He did too, I guess, but he never spoke of prejudice -- only love and faith.

His pizzeria was covered in snapshots of Faz with famous and not so famous people: Muhammad Ali, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Bob Hope, the senior George Bush, local celebrities, sports stars, high school teams. Faz practically gave away his pizzas, selling hundreds at cost to schools and fraternities for fundraisers. I regret that I never got my picture taken with Faz. I wanted one for my wall.

Pizza was communion -- a way of giving and receiving divine love. (Halal communion, but communion nonetheless.)

In January I picked up a pizza and showed Faz my cast. I asked him how he was doing. He said, somewhat ominously but honestly as usual, "Your hand will be fine, Jennifer. Me, I've a got a big problem with my lungs. Very serious. Pray for me, Jennifer." No complaints, just the truth, and some instructions: Pray.

Faz's mind was always on God. So many times he told me to pray - for him, for the country, for myself. All was hallowed: his pizza, his community, his children, his Nikki. He read the obituaries and attended hundreds of funerals through the years just to show his family's concern and support. Over 500 people attended his burial this weekend, returning the love.

Rest in peace in paradise, Faz. We'll pray for you and for your beautiful family. Angels all.

Pray for us, too. You know how much we need it. And thanks for everything.

Ash Wednesday in Flight

2006-03-03T10:37:00.000-05:00

I spent most of Ash Wednesday at 39,000 feet. No ashes. No liturgy. Only the hum of the jet engines of an Airbus travelling west across the Atlantic from London. But next to me was my daughter Julia, breathing softly as she rested against the window looking out at the clouds. The plane's info screen said the outside air was 65 below zero but my girl was a cozy 98.6.

What a wonder. That a creature made of breath and stardust could be so soft and lovely, filled with light and curiosity. Ashes? Eventually. But now, only soft love.

My friend, Linda Roach, in her relative youth wrote a poem that has forever remained with me. The final lines are "Remember, woman, that you are love, and to love you shall return."

Those are always the words that mark my forehead in Lent.

How I Wonder

2006-02-18T22:58:00.000-05:00

I heard the most haunting rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star today at my son's cello recital. She must have been about five years old with a serious almost blank expression of concentration as she played Twinkle very, very slowly pulling each note out of the cello. And just at the end, one note fell flat (. . . a diamond in the *sky*) and plunged the whole tune into a melancholy key, that strangely suited her.

Breathe on me, Breath of God

2006-02-13T05:36:00.000-05:00

It's 5:30 a.m. I'm finished with sleep and my old dog lies curled on the rug breathing softly. What a lovely sound, breath. When my son was a tiny infant swaddled in his bassinet at the foot of the bed, I would get up in the middle of the night to check his breathing. There wasn't anything wrong with him, but he would lie so still as he slept it was unnerving. I had to bend low and put my ear to his chest. The sound of a peaceful sleeper is so beautiful. All that quiet life coming in.

Non Sequiturs

2006-02-10T22:01:00.000-05:00

The Olympic Village People . . . . Okay, is it just me or is it beyond bizarre that the Olympic athletes are entering the stadium to disco music? The Macedonian team just paraded in to that inspiring theme, "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer. Kazakstan follows Israel to the throbbing beat of "I Feel Love."

Liar, Liar . . . An article in last Sunday's NY Times magazine about the "science of lying" noted that the three qualities that characterize a morally mature person also characterize a good liar: the capacity to think strategically, to put yourself in others' shoes, and to manage your emotions.

The best thing we have . . . From an old interview with Patti Smith: "No matter what happens around us, or to our loved ones, or whatever difficult tasks we have to face, life is the best thing we have. The opportunity to be on the planet even for a short period of time, the opportunity to love and be loved, the opportunity to create something that inspires others or do something that affects other people, the opportunity just to breathe, just to experience the ocean or nature or other human being is worth it."

In Orbit . . . They say that when you're in orbit around the earth, you're in a free fall and if you close your eyes when you're in space, you can feel yourself falling.

Riding the Earth - Ophelia Zepeda
She said she felt the earth move again.
I never knew whether she meant she felt a tremor
or whether it was the rotation of the earth.
I like to think she felt the rotation, because
anyone can feel a tremor.
And when she felt this
she could see herself
standing on the earth's surface.
Her thick, wide feet solidly planted,
toes digging in.
Her visualizations so strong
she almost feels her body arch
against the centrifugal force of the rotation.
She sees herself with her long har floating,
floating in the atmosphere of stardust.
She rides her planet the way a child rides a toy.
Her company is the boy who takes the sun on its daily journey
and the man in the moon smiles as she passes by.

Slow and steady

2006-01-12T20:47:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your prayers for healing -- they seem to be working. My cast is removable now, so I can type. And the O.T. says I'm healing well, though I have to be careful and wear the cast most of the time so I don't re-injure it or tear the tendon.

I'm back at work and starting to get back in a groove, though it's still slow going since nearly everything takes a bit longer to do.

I hope you all are well. Let me know how you are!

Where is Thumbkin?

2005-12-07T09:12:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving morning I had a kitchen accident resulting in a laceration (love that word . . . it's got a great sound) which severed the artery and nerve in my right thumb and neverly severed the tendon.

We spent about 5 hours in the ER getting me temporarily stitched up. We still had food and friends for dinner, which is lovely -- though my enjoyment was colored by the haze of Tylenol with codeine.

I've been unable to drive safely given the precariousness of my thumb and the wintery roads, so I've been in Michigan since the accident -- working from home when I can.

I had surgery last week and yesterday I had a cast put on which will stabilize and protect the thumb. I think I'll be getting back to work next week to pick up mail and re-group with staff before the end of the semseter.

Prognosis for the thumb is still unknown. The surgeon sewed up the tendon and reconnected the nerve sheath, but can't say whether it will all "take." Time will tell.

For now I will be sporadically updating (since typing is awkward and still painful).

Advent (the four weeks before Christmas) is wilderness time. Time to encounter my creatureliness, my dependence on others, on God. Time to re-discover that I need help, I can't do everything by My Self. Time to rediscover that I am loved, and worthy of care, and learn (again) to accept that.

All Souls

2005-11-02T22:20:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to follow the coverage of Rosa Parks' death very closely. But I am frustrated by the hagiography of Mother Parks as a lone individual -- a simple seamstress who'd had enough. At the time of her illegal act of defiance, she was already a member of the NAACP. The mistreatment of blacks on busses was institutionalized and long-standing. She was already involved in raising money to defend a 15 year-old girl who had been arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. Parks was not highly schooled; she did not receive her high school diploma until she was 21. But she was highly educated. She allowed her conscience and her courage to be informed and raised by her circumstances and her community. She was the symbol of a movement, but she was part of one long before her historic act of resistance.

I'm grateful that her life and her death have received considered attention. It was particularly fitting that her funeral took place on All Souls' Day. It's a day set apart in the Christian calendar (esp. Catholic) to pray for all the departed. On this day when we remember Rosa Parks, I remember, too, all those who have given their lives to set others free.

Moving on

2005-10-31T11:28:00.000-05:00

Now that the world series is over, maybe I can get back into a writing rhythm. Jesus is no longer drowning, but he's got a hell of a mess on his hands. It's been interesting and depressing to see how quickly the media left the gulf coast to ridicule Harriet Miers.

My son and I were looking on-line for guidance about home-made Halloween decorations and I found this site from the King Family in Waveland, Mississippi. The name of the town should give you a clue about its location. From the looks of it, it was wiped off the map. There is a famous aerial shot of a church steeple standing forlornly on a ravaged lot looking for its building. That was Christ Episcopal Church -- the King family's church.

It is very difficult to stay with these images. And I am grateful to the Kings for putting them up to see and take in. In a way, I understand the media's preference for mocking Miers. These images, like images from Iraq, Darfur, the earthquake in Kashmir, are hard to look at. And they're a big downer from an ad-selling standpoint. We're all supposed to "move on" to more pleasant things, things that will make us feel better about shopping.

Well I don't want to move on. I don't think it is moral to move on unless I take them with me somehow. Just like it is not moral to move on from the mental image of Matthew Shepherd beaten to death and bound to a fence because he was gay. Or from the image of James Byrd, Jr. who was dragged to pieces behind a pickup truck because he was black. Or from the spectre of people jumping from the Twin Towers, or the piles of bodies in the Nazi death camps. I have to take them with me -- spiritually.

There is no getting back to normal. There is no moving on as though these things did not happen, or that they do not change us. If I pay attention, I am changed by what I see. And it matters whether or not I act.

We can move on, but not alone. Let's take them all with us.

Jesus is drowning

2005-09-05T09:59:00.000-04:00

Jesus is drowning.
Jesus wades waist-high through sewage carrying a baby limp from dehydration.
Jesus collapses in the gutter clinging to a sack of diapers.
Jesus is trapped in the attic of the only thing he's got left in the world and the water is rising.
Jesus leads an old lady from her house to a leaky rowboat; then turns back to find others.
Jesus is on his knees crying "Why have you abandoned us?"
Jesus dangles a metal basket from a helicopter to a woman trapped on a rooftop with her child.
Jesus breaks into a Winn-Dixie to steal food and orange juice.
Jesus sits on a curb in the searing heat hollow-eyed.
Jesus is driving on no sleep to Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, Bogalusa, Picayune, Hattiesburg, and Mobile looking for his brothers and sisters.
Jesus hasn't been heard from.
Jesus is waiting by the phone and glued to the tv.
Jesus slumps in a urine-soaked wheelchair in the fetid hallway of the Superdome. Someone has covered him with a loose white sheet.
This time don't roll away the stone. Put it back in the levee.
Jesus is drowning.

Back in the Saddle

2005-08-22T20:11:00.000-04:00

I may be back at work and back in town and even back in the saddle, but I don't quite have a grip on the reins. The school year already feels like a horse that's getting away. I've had a very good summer vacation -- restorative and quiet with a fair amount of physical activity (mainly interior house painting and a little roof work). The physical activity (even the hard, uncomfortable, sweaty kind) is a good balance to the sedentary academic world.

New year's resolution: MOVE MORE (and write more).

So, now that I'm back, I'll be blogging more. Thanks for reading. Hope you're all doing well. Let me know.

Howl's Moving Castle

2005-06-25T09:38:00.000-04:00

Vacation has finally begun for my family and last night we celebrated by going to see Howl's Moving Castle by the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki. He also made Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.

Not as transportive as Mononoke or Spirited Away, but still wonderful. Miyazaki has a profound respect for nature, girls, and the power of the human imagination. Howl's character is part Peter Pan, part Batman, and part Jessica Simpson -- really fun.

Go see these! I'm off for a while.

Blessings and peace.

Pi Eating Contests

2005-06-21T16:09:00.000-04:00

I'm finally reading The Life of Pi though I'm having a hard time describing what it's about. I love the premise -- or at least this aspect of it: a young Indian man growing up in the 1970s trying to love God through Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity who ends up adrift, a castaway, on a boat with a tiger. (I'm not very far along in my reading.)

My daughter who is studying for confirmation in a Christian denomination learned a bit about Islam and Hinduism this year in seventh grade social studies. Her question, given the similarities among these religions as she sees them: why doesn't someone just invent a new religion and call it "Hislam?"

She's decided that she is okay with being a Christian because "Jesus is cool." This is cool by me since I also think Jesus is fascinating. But she is uncomfortable with "The Great Commission" -- the admonition to make disciples of all nations and what Christian Religion has made of it. Me too.

Evangelization often takes on the character of forcing bulbs rather than planting seeds. There is a great focus on harvesting -- an aggressive, results-oriented activity -- and not enough on planting -- a mysterious, fragile, and ambiguous one. When we plant, we really do not have a sense of how things will turn out. We do our best to cultivate and nourish the soil, but even that is not in our control. We put in our seeds at the prescribed depth, but who knows what the rain and critters will do? What about the sun and heat? Not in our control. The zinnia seeds I carefully placed in certain section of my garden have been shifted around by torrents of spring rain poring off the roof. The zinnias have sprouted in little clusters here and there. I'll just have to see what they do. My kids, too. And my students. And me.

The Great religions
are the
Ships,
Poets the life
Boats.
Every sane person I know has jumped
Overboard. --- Hafiz

Happy Solstice!

Finders keepers

2005-06-18T11:45:00.000-04:00

I just came home from a Saturday morning trot around the neighborhood tag sales. I spent five dollars on a bag full of plastic "habitrail" hamster tubes for my boy's gerbil. (Don't tell him.) The owner probably would have given them to me for less, so great was her desire to be rid of them. I will, no doubt, be in her shoes in no time as my house is likely to become a gerbil transit system. What was I thinking??

I'm doing a little spring cleaning, which means I'm plowing through papers. Here are a couple of rescued quotes from my collection:

"If anyone wants to know what Spirit is,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face close. Like this. " (Rumi)

"I used to think that truth was eternal . . . I know now that this isn't so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things. " (Lucy Grealy, "Autobiography of a Face")

This I Believe

2005-06-08T20:56:00.000-04:00

Thanks for your comments and emails about my last "cranky" post. Just admitting to myself that I'm having a hard time of it helped to clear some of the blockage. I'm not very good at asking for help but I need it every day. I know that.

NPR has a new collaboration with a project called This I Believe which is really worthwhile. It's a recasting of a radio program in the 1950s hosted by Edward R. Murrow. I heard one of the radio-essays a few weeks ago -- "Be Cool to the Pizza Dude" -- which was humorous and illuminating. So I gave it a try -- a 500-word essay on the topic. It's harder than you think.

I submitted it to the program, so I'm not supposed to publish it until I'm rejected, so I can't share it here right now. I'll keep you posted. But in any case, I encourage everyone to try it. Follow their guidelines and write your own essay. Find out what you believe. Then submit it.

I'm not the Dalai Lama

2005-06-06T21:02:00.000-04:00

. . . or Mother Teresa or Thich Nhat Hanh or JP II.

I'm Cranky. I don't feel mindful or on any enlightened path. The only path I'm on leads to the washer and dryer three flights down.

I am aware that the aforementioned spiritual beings did not raise children. It's infinitely easier to have concern for the collective when you are not being sucked dry by a hobbit. I think that being a parent causes you to lose brain cells. In order to be okay with saying (a dozen times twice a day) "It's time to brush your teeth! Really. Now!" you have to give over some gray matter along with your ego. I feel like Robot on Lost in Space: Danger, Will Robinson, danger! It does not compute!

On the bright side, I'm blogging again. That feels good.

School's Out

2005-05-16T14:04:00.000-04:00

Here's a fun "timesuck" (thanks to Sara at Going Jesus).

Bumper Sticker I'd Like to See

2005-05-04T10:50:00.000-04:00

No Doubt, No Awakening.
Great Doubt, Great Awakening.

Little Bang

2005-05-03T09:35:00.000-04:00

image by celeste ellis whiting

Big Bang

2005-05-03T08:49:00.000-04:00

So, my son, Ben, and I are driving through Holyoke Sunday afternoon and we passed an old cemetery. The conversation turned to death and dying and then to creation stories.

Ben on the origin of the universe:

"I think that God is much bigger than the universe and that the whole thing can fit in God's hand. The universe is filled with all kinds of things including dense black holes which are under tremendous pressure. I think that after God created the universe, God held it tight, squeezing it hard in one hand."

"The big bang came when God finally decided to let go. KABOOM! Everything went flying."

The Lake of Beauty

2005-04-29T14:16:00.000-04:00

For students entering reading period before exams . . .

Let your mind be quiet, realising the beauty of the world,
and the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.
All that you have within you, all that your heart desires,
all that your Nature so specially fits you for -- that or the
counterpart of it of it waits embedded in the great Whole, for you.
It will surely come to you.

Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time
will it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of
hands will make no difference.
Therefore do not begin that game at all.
Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind
in this direction and in that,
lest you become like a spring lost and
dissipated in the desert.

But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them
still, so still;
And let them become clear, so clear -- so limpid, so mirror-like;
at last the mountains and sky shall glass themselves in peaceful beauty,
and the antelope shall descend to drink and to gaze at her
reflected image, and the lion to quench his thirst,
and Love himself shall come and bend over and catch his
own likeness in you.
(Edward Carpenter, 1844- 1929)