12.07.2010
today I am a quintessential old woman
sitting on the porch with aching muscles, a blanket spread across my knees, and needlework in my hands
11.30.2010
Getting It Across. U.A. Fanthorpe.
‘His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things.’
St. John 16:29-30
This is the hard thing.
Not being God, the Son of Man,
—I was born for that part—
But patiently incising on these yokel faces,
Mystified, bored and mortal,
The vital mnemonics they never remember.
There is enough of Man in my God
For me to construe their frowns. I feel
The jaw-cracking yawns they try to hide
When out I come with one of my old
Chestnuts. Christ! Not that bloody
Sower again, they are saying, or God!
Not the Prodigal fucking Son.
Give us a new one, for Messiah’s sake.
They know my unknowable parables as well
As each other’s shaggy dog stories.
I say! I say! I say! There was this Samaritan,
This Philistine and this Roman…or
What did the high priest say
To the belly dancer? All they need
Is the cue for laughs. My sheep and goats,
Virgins, pigs, figtrees, loaves and lepers
Confuse them. Fishing, whether for fish or men,
Has unfitted them for analogy.
Yet these are my mouths. Through them only
Can I speak with Augustine, Aquinas, Martin, Paul
Regius Professors of Divinity,
And you, and you.
How can I cram the sense of Heaven’s kingdom
Into our pidgin-Aramaic quayside jargon?
I envy Moses, who could choose
The diuturnity of stone for waymarks
Between man and Me. He broke the tablets,
Of course. I too know the easy messages
Are the ones not worth transmitting;
But he could at least carve.
The prophets too, however luckless
Their lives and instructions, inscribed on wood,
Papyrus, walls, their jaundiced oracles.
I alone must write on flesh. Not even
The congenial face of my Baptist cousin,
My crooked affinity Judas, who understands,
Men who would give me accurately to the unborn
As if I were something simple, like bread.
But Pete, with his headband stuffed with fishhooks,
His gift for rushing in where angels wouldn’t,
Tom, for whom metaphor is anathema,
And James and John, who want the room at the top—
These numskulls are my medium. I called them.
I am tattooing God on their makeshift lives.
My Keystone Cops of disciples, always,
Running absurdly away, or lying ineptly,
Cutting off ears and falling into the water,
These Sancho Panzas must tread my Quixote life,
Dying ridiculous and undignified,
Flayed and stoned and crucified upside down.
They are the dear, the human, the dense, for whom
My message is. That might, had I not touched them,
Have died decent respectable upright deaths in bed.
St. John 16:29-30
This is the hard thing.
Not being God, the Son of Man,
—I was born for that part—
But patiently incising on these yokel faces,
Mystified, bored and mortal,
The vital mnemonics they never remember.
There is enough of Man in my God
For me to construe their frowns. I feel
The jaw-cracking yawns they try to hide
When out I come with one of my old
Chestnuts. Christ! Not that bloody
Sower again, they are saying, or God!
Not the Prodigal fucking Son.
Give us a new one, for Messiah’s sake.
They know my unknowable parables as well
As each other’s shaggy dog stories.
I say! I say! I say! There was this Samaritan,
This Philistine and this Roman…or
What did the high priest say
To the belly dancer? All they need
Is the cue for laughs. My sheep and goats,
Virgins, pigs, figtrees, loaves and lepers
Confuse them. Fishing, whether for fish or men,
Has unfitted them for analogy.
Yet these are my mouths. Through them only
Can I speak with Augustine, Aquinas, Martin, Paul
Regius Professors of Divinity,
And you, and you.
How can I cram the sense of Heaven’s kingdom
Into our pidgin-Aramaic quayside jargon?
I envy Moses, who could choose
The diuturnity of stone for waymarks
Between man and Me. He broke the tablets,
Of course. I too know the easy messages
Are the ones not worth transmitting;
But he could at least carve.
The prophets too, however luckless
Their lives and instructions, inscribed on wood,
Papyrus, walls, their jaundiced oracles.
I alone must write on flesh. Not even
The congenial face of my Baptist cousin,
My crooked affinity Judas, who understands,
Men who would give me accurately to the unborn
As if I were something simple, like bread.
But Pete, with his headband stuffed with fishhooks,
His gift for rushing in where angels wouldn’t,
Tom, for whom metaphor is anathema,
And James and John, who want the room at the top—
These numskulls are my medium. I called them.
I am tattooing God on their makeshift lives.
My Keystone Cops of disciples, always,
Running absurdly away, or lying ineptly,
Cutting off ears and falling into the water,
These Sancho Panzas must tread my Quixote life,
Dying ridiculous and undignified,
Flayed and stoned and crucified upside down.
They are the dear, the human, the dense, for whom
My message is. That might, had I not touched them,
Have died decent respectable upright deaths in bed.
11.18.2010
weepies
yesterday when you were young
everything you needed done was done for you
now you do it on your own but you find you're all alone
what can you do?
I know that you think you're not good for anything
the world makes you feel so small...
and oh isn't it strange how things can change you
isn't it strange how we change orbit in our lives?
no bread crumb trail to follow through your days
all it takes is a little faith and a lot of heart
everything you needed done was done for you
now you do it on your own but you find you're all alone
what can you do?
I know that you think you're not good for anything
the world makes you feel so small...
and oh isn't it strange how things can change you
isn't it strange how we change orbit in our lives?
no bread crumb trail to follow through your days
all it takes is a little faith and a lot of heart
10.25.2010
10.24.2010
I will try | Mary Oliver
I will try.
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I come, like red bird, to sing.
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and--
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?
-Mary Oliver
I will step from the house to see what I see
and hear and I will praise it.
I did not come into this world
to be comforted.
I come, like red bird, to sing.
But I'm not red bird, with his head-mop of flame
and the red triangle of his mouth
full of tongue and whistles,
but a woman whose love has vanished
who thinks now, too much, of roots
and the dark places
where everything is simply holding on.
But this too, I believe, is a place
where God is keeping watch
until we rise, and step forth again and--
but wait. Be still. Listen!
Is it red bird? Or something
inside myself, singing?
-Mary Oliver
10.22.2010
talked with an old old friend today
who once knew me so well
he said
your words don't sound like yourself anymore
have the past few months really held so much change
that my cadences, the way I tie my words together
sound like a stranger's?
he said
your words don't sound like yourself anymore
have the past few months really held so much change
that my cadences, the way I tie my words together
sound like a stranger's?
10.20.2010
it seems that all my bridges have been burned but you say that's exactly how this grace thing works
This morning I am thinking of the multiple faces of grace, one of which is traffic tickets.
First day of finals week my last semester after baking for thirteen hours straight for a bake sale and not sleeping and running on stress and anger I ran a stop sign on purpose. In all my four years of college, there has never been a cop at that intersection, but this time, the one time I didn’t stop, there he was, waiting for me.
I had planned on writing two papers that day, but spent an hour staring blankly at my computer screen through watery eyes. I packed my bag and walked and prayed, clutching a ball of tissues in my hand. Here I was, on the threshold of adulthood, wanting to prove myself strong and independent and responsible, and failing, so soon, so tangibly.
The tears subsided; I called my parents finally, and their voices and words held no judgment or blame or anger towards me, just grace, forgiveness, complete acceptance.
The past few days my mind has been an impossible knot of memories, images, emotions. The words that slip from my mouth reveal themselves to be half-truths, meaningless. But this story keeps surfacing in my subconscious, as though there is some metaphor within that will be the key to unraveling these lies, this knot in my head and my heart.
It seems this scene has been reenacted for me over and over in small ways the last few weeks. I am amazed by how thoughtlessly I hurt the ones I love the most, by my tendency to always say the wrong thing and leave so much undone. These people I have taken for granted, taken advantage of, treated unwell—they meet me daily, time and again, with so much grace, so much forgiveness, so much patience, loving me in spite of myself.
I am humbled. I deserve none of it. Even more, this grace leaves no room for guilt or shame or self-pity; instead, it makes room for healing and growth, pronounces you clean and lovely and perfect, even when you are bruised and bleeding, with scars of infidelity disfiguring your face.
Mumford and Sons, in concert. I expected to come out refreshed, renewed, and empowered; instead, I came out weary and emotionally drained, hanging fragilely to hope. With each song, they took my heart, ripped it into slivers, then pieced it back together again, singing truth that burrowed into the depths of me, calling up forgotten memories and emotions, ringing my soul. I prayed their lyrics as they sang, shades and layers of new meanings emerging and fading. Yet somehow, their words, their music felt too small for the room, the truth they were getting at too evasive, too large to fit into letters and words and sounds and chords. And it was too much for me to hold inside my small, fragile being, made me feel lost and little and afraid and lonely, paralyzed, incapable not only of living, but of facing anything—the world, home, my friends, myself. There is so little that I understand, so little that I can do; I cannot even look inside myself and into my past and understand who I am or how I have arrived here. What good can I bring to a world that is starved for significance?
But beneath it all, I can sense the Spirit at work. And I am seeing not only the mysteriousness of how she works, but the complicatedness, the paradox. I can feel the numbness slowly slipping away, replaced with something that feels sad and heavy and difficult but at least it is honest and real:
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
For Christ came to save the weak and wounded, the broken and the battered: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Yesterday and today, I have been practicing being not okay, letting all the sadness and pain I have denied flood in. And I think I am beginning to catch a glimpse of the mystery, swallowing in small baby-sized bites of meaning these big inscrutable words—faithfulness and absolution and love and rest and peace.
Lord, I curl in Thy grey
gossamer hammock
that swings by one
elastic thread to thin
twigs that could, that should
break but don’t.
*
I do nothing, I give You
nothing. Yet You hold me
minute by minute
from falling.
Lord, you provide.
First day of finals week my last semester after baking for thirteen hours straight for a bake sale and not sleeping and running on stress and anger I ran a stop sign on purpose. In all my four years of college, there has never been a cop at that intersection, but this time, the one time I didn’t stop, there he was, waiting for me.
I had planned on writing two papers that day, but spent an hour staring blankly at my computer screen through watery eyes. I packed my bag and walked and prayed, clutching a ball of tissues in my hand. Here I was, on the threshold of adulthood, wanting to prove myself strong and independent and responsible, and failing, so soon, so tangibly.
The tears subsided; I called my parents finally, and their voices and words held no judgment or blame or anger towards me, just grace, forgiveness, complete acceptance.
The past few days my mind has been an impossible knot of memories, images, emotions. The words that slip from my mouth reveal themselves to be half-truths, meaningless. But this story keeps surfacing in my subconscious, as though there is some metaphor within that will be the key to unraveling these lies, this knot in my head and my heart.
It seems this scene has been reenacted for me over and over in small ways the last few weeks. I am amazed by how thoughtlessly I hurt the ones I love the most, by my tendency to always say the wrong thing and leave so much undone. These people I have taken for granted, taken advantage of, treated unwell—they meet me daily, time and again, with so much grace, so much forgiveness, so much patience, loving me in spite of myself.
I am humbled. I deserve none of it. Even more, this grace leaves no room for guilt or shame or self-pity; instead, it makes room for healing and growth, pronounces you clean and lovely and perfect, even when you are bruised and bleeding, with scars of infidelity disfiguring your face.
Mumford and Sons, in concert. I expected to come out refreshed, renewed, and empowered; instead, I came out weary and emotionally drained, hanging fragilely to hope. With each song, they took my heart, ripped it into slivers, then pieced it back together again, singing truth that burrowed into the depths of me, calling up forgotten memories and emotions, ringing my soul. I prayed their lyrics as they sang, shades and layers of new meanings emerging and fading. Yet somehow, their words, their music felt too small for the room, the truth they were getting at too evasive, too large to fit into letters and words and sounds and chords. And it was too much for me to hold inside my small, fragile being, made me feel lost and little and afraid and lonely, paralyzed, incapable not only of living, but of facing anything—the world, home, my friends, myself. There is so little that I understand, so little that I can do; I cannot even look inside myself and into my past and understand who I am or how I have arrived here. What good can I bring to a world that is starved for significance?
But beneath it all, I can sense the Spirit at work. And I am seeing not only the mysteriousness of how she works, but the complicatedness, the paradox. I can feel the numbness slowly slipping away, replaced with something that feels sad and heavy and difficult but at least it is honest and real:
Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind of our, and Adam’s curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
For Christ came to save the weak and wounded, the broken and the battered: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Yesterday and today, I have been practicing being not okay, letting all the sadness and pain I have denied flood in. And I think I am beginning to catch a glimpse of the mystery, swallowing in small baby-sized bites of meaning these big inscrutable words—faithfulness and absolution and love and rest and peace.
Lord, I curl in Thy grey
gossamer hammock
that swings by one
elastic thread to thin
twigs that could, that should
break but don’t.
*
I do nothing, I give You
nothing. Yet You hold me
minute by minute
from falling.
Lord, you provide.
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