2.02.2011
1.29.2011
1.26.2011
Immanuel: Some Thoughts on Encounter
“The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.”
T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages V
Back in December I was thinking about the irony of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” how we are calling God, whose very name means God with us, to come be with us. We are asking Him to fulfill the promise inherent in His name and be with us, to ransom Israel who is still captive, to save us from our lonely exile. Where is this God who promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age?
In church, we’re making our way through the commandments, and this week we talked about number three, taking God’s name in vain. I left thinking about a sometimes inscrutable God who has a million names. But through all these different names, God is trying to help our small human minds understand who he is. When He says “I am your Savior, King, Friend, and Comforter,” He is telling us, “See, this is who I am and this and this and this. Test me; call on my name; trust me; ask me to save you and I will still the storm; ask me to be your King and I will rule your life; ask me to be your Friend and I will walk with you; ask me to be your Comforter and I will bring you rest.”
And when He says “I am Immanuel” he means, “I am with you always; look for me.” These names are metaphor; they are promise; they hold within them the hope of relationship.
Two and a half weeks ago I was sitting on the wall at Butterfly Beach, writing in my journal with great effort about that awful stoppered up sensation: wordless, numb, with all passion and laughter and joy and sadness run dry. A few hours later I sat at the dinner table in the bungalow drinking potato cream soup with some beautiful women. I knew a few of them very well and the others just a little. But we ‘built each other’s houses,’ spent time looking into each other’s eyes, affirming and blessing each other.
In their words and eyes I saw what I had been missing all that day and for weeks beforehand, and a longing stirred in me for a similar passion to grip my being, too. These women have fire in their hearts and it spills out in everything they do: in their looking, in their speaking, in their living. Rilke’s prayer was my prayer that night:
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one else ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
May what I do flow from me like a river. Those last few hours in California with dear friends and dear sisters, sharing meals and tea and chocolate cake and tears and a dance floor and four hours of wide-open space and ten thousand memories, my heart was brimming and breaking a thousand times over, and all I could say was thank you thank you thank you.
Those two days two weeks ago so many miles far have been swimming beneath the surface of my consciousness since I got here, restless till I could get my thoughts down on paper. On the plane, unpacking, learning new faces and new names, walking along the Thames…I was thinking of all those lonely days when I couldn’t wait to leave, and then the shift my last two days in California when grace crumbled the walls around my heart and let me see, feel all the things that should have been.
Then, when it feels most like you’re turning your back on something, leaving behind all the things you’ve lost on the road, God stops you and says “Wait, child. Stop running from ghosts and walk in the good way I have prepared for you.” That good way is the way of being, the practice of emptying yourself of restlessness and asking God to fulfill the promise of His name: to be here now. Only then, only when He has poured His endlessness into your small being can the fire spill from you like a river; only here, where eternity intersects human time, only now, in the moment of encounter, can healing happen.
I am beginning to understand now the importance of knowing the right names of things. Naming is a way of seeing; naming is a way of grounding oneself in the present; naming is encounter. Shannon used to tell me how she would learn the name of a plant then suddenly see it everywhere, in places she never noticed it before. Knowing the names of things and people helps us see them too, helps us acknowledge their presence, opens the way for not only encounter and significant interaction, but also surprise and miracle.
Rilke again:
Could we be here, then,
in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, apple-tree, window…
And the things, even as they pass,
understand that we praise them.
Transient, they are trusting us
to save them—us, the most transient of all.
and
I want to love the things
As no one has thought to love them,
Until they’re worthy of you and real.
These things, then—love, naming, sight, living—they can only happen in the moments when God’s unconditional love breaks through the clouds of past and future and holds you there, at peace, then flows from you and through you, completely unstoppered.
God is answering my prayers. My heart is healing, the fear that paralyzed me has been burned away by the fire that has taken hold of my heart, and the only words that come to mind are thank you.
T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages V
Back in December I was thinking about the irony of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” how we are calling God, whose very name means God with us, to come be with us. We are asking Him to fulfill the promise inherent in His name and be with us, to ransom Israel who is still captive, to save us from our lonely exile. Where is this God who promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age?
In church, we’re making our way through the commandments, and this week we talked about number three, taking God’s name in vain. I left thinking about a sometimes inscrutable God who has a million names. But through all these different names, God is trying to help our small human minds understand who he is. When He says “I am your Savior, King, Friend, and Comforter,” He is telling us, “See, this is who I am and this and this and this. Test me; call on my name; trust me; ask me to save you and I will still the storm; ask me to be your King and I will rule your life; ask me to be your Friend and I will walk with you; ask me to be your Comforter and I will bring you rest.”
And when He says “I am Immanuel” he means, “I am with you always; look for me.” These names are metaphor; they are promise; they hold within them the hope of relationship.
Two and a half weeks ago I was sitting on the wall at Butterfly Beach, writing in my journal with great effort about that awful stoppered up sensation: wordless, numb, with all passion and laughter and joy and sadness run dry. A few hours later I sat at the dinner table in the bungalow drinking potato cream soup with some beautiful women. I knew a few of them very well and the others just a little. But we ‘built each other’s houses,’ spent time looking into each other’s eyes, affirming and blessing each other.
In their words and eyes I saw what I had been missing all that day and for weeks beforehand, and a longing stirred in me for a similar passion to grip my being, too. These women have fire in their hearts and it spills out in everything they do: in their looking, in their speaking, in their living. Rilke’s prayer was my prayer that night:
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one else ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
May what I do flow from me like a river. Those last few hours in California with dear friends and dear sisters, sharing meals and tea and chocolate cake and tears and a dance floor and four hours of wide-open space and ten thousand memories, my heart was brimming and breaking a thousand times over, and all I could say was thank you thank you thank you.
Those two days two weeks ago so many miles far have been swimming beneath the surface of my consciousness since I got here, restless till I could get my thoughts down on paper. On the plane, unpacking, learning new faces and new names, walking along the Thames…I was thinking of all those lonely days when I couldn’t wait to leave, and then the shift my last two days in California when grace crumbled the walls around my heart and let me see, feel all the things that should have been.
Then, when it feels most like you’re turning your back on something, leaving behind all the things you’ve lost on the road, God stops you and says “Wait, child. Stop running from ghosts and walk in the good way I have prepared for you.” That good way is the way of being, the practice of emptying yourself of restlessness and asking God to fulfill the promise of His name: to be here now. Only then, only when He has poured His endlessness into your small being can the fire spill from you like a river; only here, where eternity intersects human time, only now, in the moment of encounter, can healing happen.
I am beginning to understand now the importance of knowing the right names of things. Naming is a way of seeing; naming is a way of grounding oneself in the present; naming is encounter. Shannon used to tell me how she would learn the name of a plant then suddenly see it everywhere, in places she never noticed it before. Knowing the names of things and people helps us see them too, helps us acknowledge their presence, opens the way for not only encounter and significant interaction, but also surprise and miracle.
Rilke again:
Could we be here, then,
in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, apple-tree, window…
And the things, even as they pass,
understand that we praise them.
Transient, they are trusting us
to save them—us, the most transient of all.
and
I want to love the things
As no one has thought to love them,
Until they’re worthy of you and real.
These things, then—love, naming, sight, living—they can only happen in the moments when God’s unconditional love breaks through the clouds of past and future and holds you there, at peace, then flows from you and through you, completely unstoppered.
God is answering my prayers. My heart is healing, the fear that paralyzed me has been burned away by the fire that has taken hold of my heart, and the only words that come to mind are thank you.
1.25.2011
Rilke
I’m too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.
I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones—
or alone.
I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.
I would describe myself
like a landscape I’ve studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I’m coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother’s face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.
to make each hour holy.
I’m too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing—
just as it is.
I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones—
or alone.
I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.
I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.
I would describe myself
like a landscape I’ve studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I’m coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother’s face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.
1.24.2011
Malachi 3:10
'Bring all the tithes into the store-house, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now with this,' says the LORD of hosts, 'if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.'
God has been so good to me. so good.
God has been so good to me. so good.
1.23.2011
In case you were wondering...
Here's a small bit about where I live.
It's really amazing how different this place is from anything else I've known. It reminds me a little bit of parts of New York I've seen, but when it comes down to it, this place is completely unique. The first few days here, I was asking questions non-stop, trying to understand why things are the way they are.
Here is a little bit of what I've learned about this place: The neighborhood I am living in is East Ham in the Newham Borough (which is also known as the Olympic Borough, and the Olympic Stadium is only about a 15 minute drive north). This is the poorest borough in all of London, because it's made up mostly of immigrants and the working class. When people start earning money, they move somewhere nicer, so the borough remains populated by the poorest people in London. For the most part, the only people with college educations who live here are Christians or other social activists who want to see improvement in the borough.
Because this is the Olympic borough, however, a lot of money, time, and thought are being invested here, which is helping to generate local interest in and care for this place. The Olympic committee is hoping that the Olympics will be a catalyst for revitalization and long-term social changes in this borough. The Christian communities are praying for a huge spiritual revival as well, and it's really just an amazing time to be here...it's like we're on the threshold of something huge.
As I mentioned above, this borough is filled with immigrants, and I can walk down a crowded street and not see a single white person, hear ten different languages and accents as people pass me by, and pass droves of women dressed in saris. My neighborhood is mostly populated by Asians, which is confusing because that means Indian, South Indian, Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, etc., but also means alot of excellent food for very cheap (as well as a lot of really disgusting fried fast food). What we call Asian (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), British people call Oriental.
The main religions here are Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and it's not rare at all to see women walking down the street wearing burkas, so nothing shows except their eyes. I've also heard stories of men who refuse to shake hands with women because their religion won't allow them to.
What I've seen already about the Christian church here (particularly with the church I am working with--Plaistow Christian Fellowship) is that it seems to have more purpose and is a lot more missional than churches back home, probably because the Christians here know that they're a minority and can see in real ways every day how legalistic and destructive other religions can be. My church in particular is like a little family--they all take care of each other and know everyone's business and have all known each other for years and years. One new and really exciting and beautiful thing that is happening here is that four of the main churches in this area are seeking unity by having joint services every few weeks, and encouraging the people to pool resources in our work towards transforming Newham.
It's really amazing how different this place is from anything else I've known. It reminds me a little bit of parts of New York I've seen, but when it comes down to it, this place is completely unique. The first few days here, I was asking questions non-stop, trying to understand why things are the way they are.
Here is a little bit of what I've learned about this place: The neighborhood I am living in is East Ham in the Newham Borough (which is also known as the Olympic Borough, and the Olympic Stadium is only about a 15 minute drive north). This is the poorest borough in all of London, because it's made up mostly of immigrants and the working class. When people start earning money, they move somewhere nicer, so the borough remains populated by the poorest people in London. For the most part, the only people with college educations who live here are Christians or other social activists who want to see improvement in the borough.
Because this is the Olympic borough, however, a lot of money, time, and thought are being invested here, which is helping to generate local interest in and care for this place. The Olympic committee is hoping that the Olympics will be a catalyst for revitalization and long-term social changes in this borough. The Christian communities are praying for a huge spiritual revival as well, and it's really just an amazing time to be here...it's like we're on the threshold of something huge.
As I mentioned above, this borough is filled with immigrants, and I can walk down a crowded street and not see a single white person, hear ten different languages and accents as people pass me by, and pass droves of women dressed in saris. My neighborhood is mostly populated by Asians, which is confusing because that means Indian, South Indian, Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, etc., but also means alot of excellent food for very cheap (as well as a lot of really disgusting fried fast food). What we call Asian (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), British people call Oriental.
The main religions here are Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and it's not rare at all to see women walking down the street wearing burkas, so nothing shows except their eyes. I've also heard stories of men who refuse to shake hands with women because their religion won't allow them to.
What I've seen already about the Christian church here (particularly with the church I am working with--Plaistow Christian Fellowship) is that it seems to have more purpose and is a lot more missional than churches back home, probably because the Christians here know that they're a minority and can see in real ways every day how legalistic and destructive other religions can be. My church in particular is like a little family--they all take care of each other and know everyone's business and have all known each other for years and years. One new and really exciting and beautiful thing that is happening here is that four of the main churches in this area are seeking unity by having joint services every few weeks, and encouraging the people to pool resources in our work towards transforming Newham.
1.12.2011
Well, here I am.
London.
Technically, East Ham.
Some things of note:
It's definitely not as cold as I was expecting. Apparently we're having a bit of a warm streak: 54 degrees today.
Sitting in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the street is WEIRD. From what I remember from my last visit here, it wasn't strange at all in a bus. But navigating these narrow narrow streets in a little car from the other side...so weird.
There are so many beautiful people here, so many different cultures, so few white people. The neighborhood I live in is inhabited mostly by Indians and black people, and walking down the street with my supervisor Jo we definitely stuck out--white and Chinese. So many different kinds of food to try also! Saudi Arabian, Indonesian, Lebanese, the list goes on and on.
Summer 2011: beekeeping! my supervisor has a hive in her backyard. excellent.
My American accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and every time I hear myself speak I cringe and stumble over my words because of how awful I sound. Also, British people sound smarter and have bigger vocabularies in general, and I have heard the words brilliant, jolly good, sorted, and reckon more times in the past 24 hours than I have in my entire life.
Homemade shepherd's pie for dinner last night. Delish.
Spotify: the British version of Pandora/Grooveshark but way better.
My supervisor's sixteen year old son Adam is precious. He talks and talks and talks, even with his slight lisp which is simply endearing. He's absolutely obsessed with Relient K these days, and yesterday was playing some old school songs on guitar I haven't heard since early high school. He and eight other kids in high school (or college as I think they call it here...) are starting a youth church program where the second week of each month they go to one of the four churches in this area and lead the service to promote youth involvement and unity between the churches.
Finally putting my English degree to good use! I'll be writing articles for a website that the crisis pregnancy center is launching later this year.
I haven't gone into the city yet, but tomorrow I have the day to myself: sleep in, explore the neighborhood...it will be lovely.
It's a bit strange to simply step into these people's daily lives like this. This is such a giant change for me, but just a small disturbance in normality for them. I've already been to a prayer meeting and spent seven hours at work today. And here I am, eating dinner at their table, hearing Adam talk about examinations and his mother worrying that's he going to fail Physics. What a strange little slice of life I've been witnessing.
Some things I had forgotten: the loo, radiators, take away, celsius...
Currently reading: Rilke's "The Book of Hours" and Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."
Technically, East Ham.
Some things of note:
It's definitely not as cold as I was expecting. Apparently we're having a bit of a warm streak: 54 degrees today.
Sitting in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the street is WEIRD. From what I remember from my last visit here, it wasn't strange at all in a bus. But navigating these narrow narrow streets in a little car from the other side...so weird.
There are so many beautiful people here, so many different cultures, so few white people. The neighborhood I live in is inhabited mostly by Indians and black people, and walking down the street with my supervisor Jo we definitely stuck out--white and Chinese. So many different kinds of food to try also! Saudi Arabian, Indonesian, Lebanese, the list goes on and on.
Summer 2011: beekeeping! my supervisor has a hive in her backyard. excellent.
My American accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and every time I hear myself speak I cringe and stumble over my words because of how awful I sound. Also, British people sound smarter and have bigger vocabularies in general, and I have heard the words brilliant, jolly good, sorted, and reckon more times in the past 24 hours than I have in my entire life.
Homemade shepherd's pie for dinner last night. Delish.
Spotify: the British version of Pandora/Grooveshark but way better.
My supervisor's sixteen year old son Adam is precious. He talks and talks and talks, even with his slight lisp which is simply endearing. He's absolutely obsessed with Relient K these days, and yesterday was playing some old school songs on guitar I haven't heard since early high school. He and eight other kids in high school (or college as I think they call it here...) are starting a youth church program where the second week of each month they go to one of the four churches in this area and lead the service to promote youth involvement and unity between the churches.
Finally putting my English degree to good use! I'll be writing articles for a website that the crisis pregnancy center is launching later this year.
I haven't gone into the city yet, but tomorrow I have the day to myself: sleep in, explore the neighborhood...it will be lovely.
It's a bit strange to simply step into these people's daily lives like this. This is such a giant change for me, but just a small disturbance in normality for them. I've already been to a prayer meeting and spent seven hours at work today. And here I am, eating dinner at their table, hearing Adam talk about examinations and his mother worrying that's he going to fail Physics. What a strange little slice of life I've been witnessing.
Some things I had forgotten: the loo, radiators, take away, celsius...
Currently reading: Rilke's "The Book of Hours" and Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."
12.13.2010
traveling on
this is my last day in santa barbara.
all my worldly possessions are packed up in my car, ready and waiting for the four hour trip north.
the sun is shining. the sky is radiant deep perfect blue.
aka perfect walk weather.
I have two and a half wide-open hours before I leave.
and I am sitting here writing instead of taking one last look at my dear friends or campus or the ocean or any of the other places I have loved so deeply for so long.
strange.
I am not very sad at all about leaving.
it is time.
yes. very strange.
a week ago I was thinking about sight and the leaving and the living and then the coming back. how your sight changes each time. how no matter how often you revisit a scene and linger there, looking long, breathing deep, committing the curves and angles and colors and faces and laughs to memory, there is always something hidden that emerges from the woodwork and reminds you of how little you actually know of this place and people.
I haven't even left yet but what I miss is not this place or these people but the way we lived, all the promise and the hope. the time when all things were new, before the tired repetition and reenactments of the old things. what fills me with sadness is not the leaving but this feeling I can't shake that I am not leaving much behind.
good thing, at least, that I am traveling to a far distant land where no one knows my name and where I can start all this over.
and yet a friend of mine told me some things: to stop running away before I run out of places to run to, and even though the grass may seem greener on the other side, it's only greener where you water it.
true.
but the grass really is greener is England.
"Nothing Gold..."
Marilyn McEntyre
The road not taken is taken. Beyond the bend
it stretches on in the mind, well-traveled
as the one on which we set our feet.
An untold, imagined story
mingles with memory; actual
and possible paths cross and at each crossing
we pause, not to regret, but to remember
that to choose is to keep choosing.
The after-image of a face beyond a half-open door,
the felt warmth of a room beyond an uncrossed threshold,
the lingering sounds of a conversation that never happened,
leave their record, too, on the heart and in the bones:
fourth dimension of the life we choose and live.
You can lose what you never had--
mourn the unborn child,
the unspoken confession,
the friendship foreshadowed
that drifted away on the next tide.
You can lose what you only imagined having:
evening hours sipping wine over an open book;
walks that wind beyond the routes of responsibility,
the luxury of dailiness: "Oh, it's you again--
I wondered when you'd come."
The good-bye hard upon hello,
the embrace that renounces even as it receives,
the same breath caught in anticipation released
in resignation, confuse the opening heart.
By a strange mercy we are allowed
to practice the final paradox--to love and let go,
learning in each release to listen to the voice
that asks, "Do you see yet?" Do you see
how to love the wave already breaking
because it is a wave?
because it breaks?
all my worldly possessions are packed up in my car, ready and waiting for the four hour trip north.
the sun is shining. the sky is radiant deep perfect blue.
aka perfect walk weather.
I have two and a half wide-open hours before I leave.
and I am sitting here writing instead of taking one last look at my dear friends or campus or the ocean or any of the other places I have loved so deeply for so long.
strange.
I am not very sad at all about leaving.
it is time.
yes. very strange.
a week ago I was thinking about sight and the leaving and the living and then the coming back. how your sight changes each time. how no matter how often you revisit a scene and linger there, looking long, breathing deep, committing the curves and angles and colors and faces and laughs to memory, there is always something hidden that emerges from the woodwork and reminds you of how little you actually know of this place and people.
I haven't even left yet but what I miss is not this place or these people but the way we lived, all the promise and the hope. the time when all things were new, before the tired repetition and reenactments of the old things. what fills me with sadness is not the leaving but this feeling I can't shake that I am not leaving much behind.
good thing, at least, that I am traveling to a far distant land where no one knows my name and where I can start all this over.
and yet a friend of mine told me some things: to stop running away before I run out of places to run to, and even though the grass may seem greener on the other side, it's only greener where you water it.
true.
but the grass really is greener is England.
"Nothing Gold..."
Marilyn McEntyre
The road not taken is taken. Beyond the bend
it stretches on in the mind, well-traveled
as the one on which we set our feet.
An untold, imagined story
mingles with memory; actual
and possible paths cross and at each crossing
we pause, not to regret, but to remember
that to choose is to keep choosing.
The after-image of a face beyond a half-open door,
the felt warmth of a room beyond an uncrossed threshold,
the lingering sounds of a conversation that never happened,
leave their record, too, on the heart and in the bones:
fourth dimension of the life we choose and live.
You can lose what you never had--
mourn the unborn child,
the unspoken confession,
the friendship foreshadowed
that drifted away on the next tide.
You can lose what you only imagined having:
evening hours sipping wine over an open book;
walks that wind beyond the routes of responsibility,
the luxury of dailiness: "Oh, it's you again--
I wondered when you'd come."
The good-bye hard upon hello,
the embrace that renounces even as it receives,
the same breath caught in anticipation released
in resignation, confuse the opening heart.
By a strange mercy we are allowed
to practice the final paradox--to love and let go,
learning in each release to listen to the voice
that asks, "Do you see yet?" Do you see
how to love the wave already breaking
because it is a wave?
because it breaks?
12.10.2010
The Song of No Coming and No Going
Thich Nhat Hanh
When I left home, I was a child.
Now I return an old man.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but my hair and beard are completely white.
The village children see me but don't recognize me.
They look at each other and giggle,
"Where have you come from, old sir?"
Where have you come from, old sir?
"I have come from the same place you have,
yet you don't know there is a link between us."
I stroke my snow-white beard this morning.
The young leaves on the trees are new and green.
They see no link between themselves and the seed
that took root so many years ago on this very land.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but after so many years, the village has become your village.
To your puzzled eyes, I am only a strange, old visitor
arriving from some unknown world.
To come or to go, to depart or return--
who among us is not a wanderer?
Where have you come from, old sir?
You don't see. How could you?
Even if I sing to you the old songs I learned in the village,
I would still be a stranger in your eyes.
When I tell you, "This is my village,"
your eyes dance and you laugh.
And I laugh too, when you say I am just telling a story.
The bamboo trees, the riverbank, the village hall--
everything is still here.
They have changed, yet they haven't.
A new bamboo shoot, a new red-tiled roof,
a new small lane,
a new child--
What is the purpose of my return?
I don't know.
There is a haunting image of the past.
The traveler has no real point of departure
and no point of arrival.
Who is he, this explorer of the triple worlds?
As if to a former life--
the sweet potatoes and turnips, the hay, the cottage--
I come back to my village.
But those with whom I worked and sang
are strangers to those I find today.
Everywhere are the children,
the red-tiled roofs,
the narrow lanes--
The past and the future look at each other,
and the two shores suddenly become one.
The path of return continues the journey.
When I left home, I was a child.
Now I return an old man.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but my hair and beard are completely white.
The village children see me but don't recognize me.
They look at each other and giggle,
"Where have you come from, old sir?"
Where have you come from, old sir?
"I have come from the same place you have,
yet you don't know there is a link between us."
I stroke my snow-white beard this morning.
The young leaves on the trees are new and green.
They see no link between themselves and the seed
that took root so many years ago on this very land.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but after so many years, the village has become your village.
To your puzzled eyes, I am only a strange, old visitor
arriving from some unknown world.
To come or to go, to depart or return--
who among us is not a wanderer?
Where have you come from, old sir?
You don't see. How could you?
Even if I sing to you the old songs I learned in the village,
I would still be a stranger in your eyes.
When I tell you, "This is my village,"
your eyes dance and you laugh.
And I laugh too, when you say I am just telling a story.
The bamboo trees, the riverbank, the village hall--
everything is still here.
They have changed, yet they haven't.
A new bamboo shoot, a new red-tiled roof,
a new small lane,
a new child--
What is the purpose of my return?
I don't know.
There is a haunting image of the past.
The traveler has no real point of departure
and no point of arrival.
Who is he, this explorer of the triple worlds?
As if to a former life--
the sweet potatoes and turnips, the hay, the cottage--
I come back to my village.
But those with whom I worked and sang
are strangers to those I find today.
Everywhere are the children,
the red-tiled roofs,
the narrow lanes--
The past and the future look at each other,
and the two shores suddenly become one.
The path of return continues the journey.
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.
9.09.2010
everybody's doing it...
bucket list:
1. play all of Chopin's Nocturnes and Preludes
2. play jazz
3. live on Prince Edward Island in a house with a wrap-around porch
4. keep some bees
5. write a family history
6. document my grandparents' recipes
7. get on a bike again
8. make collages
9. make as many things as possible from scratch for a month: bread, jam, soap, clothes, paper, etc.
10. sew a quilt, maybe communally?
11. backpack through Europe
12. spend at least a few months in each of the following places: Northern Ireland, Portugal, Greece, the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco, Greenwich Village, my grandparents' village
13. cultivate my own little orchard/vineyard
14. laugh daily
15. sail
16. tattoo
17. purchase books from only local or used bookstores
18. speak Chinese fluently
19. write my own nocturne
20. furnish my home with findings from thrift stores and garage sales
21. drink one full cup of coffee
22. take photos and develop them myself in a darkroom
23. learn the art of book-binding
24. walk everywhere/use public transportation
25. live through the winter
26. wash feet in a Maundy Thursday service
27. attend a Pentecostal church service
28. open a community frozen yogurt coffeeshop
1. play all of Chopin's Nocturnes and Preludes
2. play jazz
3. live on Prince Edward Island in a house with a wrap-around porch
4. keep some bees
5. write a family history
6. document my grandparents' recipes
7. get on a bike again
8. make collages
9. make as many things as possible from scratch for a month: bread, jam, soap, clothes, paper, etc.
10. sew a quilt, maybe communally?
11. backpack through Europe
12. spend at least a few months in each of the following places: Northern Ireland, Portugal, Greece, the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco, Greenwich Village, my grandparents' village
13. cultivate my own little orchard/vineyard
14. laugh daily
15. sail
16. tattoo
17. purchase books from only local or used bookstores
18. speak Chinese fluently
19. write my own nocturne
20. furnish my home with findings from thrift stores and garage sales
21. drink one full cup of coffee
22. take photos and develop them myself in a darkroom
23. learn the art of book-binding
24. walk everywhere/use public transportation
25. live through the winter
26. wash feet in a Maundy Thursday service
27. attend a Pentecostal church service
28. open a community frozen yogurt coffeeshop
9.08.2010
these grey days
Suddenly it’s like winter. And with the turning of the weather comes a shift within me. This is what it feels like: dark grey cloud cover hanging low and ominous, pressing down on my head, releasing no rain; the walk back to Holland House through the long, dimly fluorescent-lit hallways and out into the penetrating cold that carved an aching hole in my center, between my ribs, below my heart; the lights in the trees that revealed the swirl and shine of fog as it rolled back in, draping the branches like wisps of cotton.
I am thinking of my sisters and me sitting on the heater eating breakfast with a blanket over our laps before 7:30 piano lessons, where our songs called up the sun to scatter the darkness. I am thinking of sitting on radiators, thawing out our feet and hearts after getting caught in the rain. I am thinking also of just last year, how our heater was broken more often than not, and how we wrapped ourselves in blankets and stood in front of the oven, mugs of tea in our hands. I am thinking of pumpkin bread, butternut squash soup, roasted sweet potatoes, carrot cake, hot apple cider. And I am thinking of a beautiful, heart-breaking book called the Meadow, which details a history of neighbors living through the lonely winters of Wyoming.
Generally, I like the somberness that comes on me like a veil, uncalled-for and unexpected. But it makes me unproductive. All I want to do is stare at the ceiling, trace patterns with my eyes or count all the cracks. I want to close my eyes, put fallish/winterish songs on repeat: William Fitzsimmons, Rosie Thomas, Gregory Alan Isakov, Damien Rice. Or walk on the shore for hours on end, sit on the edge of the wharf, and stare into the breathing mass of grey mystery until my mind is empty and clear. I want the world to be still enough so we can speak in whispers and all be heard.
For a few days last week, when the sun was shining, I carried a blanket and a pile of books everywhere I went and read with an abandon I haven’t had since I was twelve, losing my name and identity in other worlds. It started me dreaming and daydreaming again, beautiful vivid dreams full of color and laughter and adventure. Now I wake up breathing deeply, trying to catch the last bits of dream-air, full of hope. Then my eyes catch sight of the grey light, and the hope and optimism trickle away.
Yesterday, I pulled R.S. Thomas down from the shelf and found myself suddenly there, with him, in a dark chapel, morning sunlight filtering in weakly, my knees resting on the cold stone floor, the air heavy with presence, my heartbeat my only prayer because the words wouldn’t come.
Kneeling
R.S. Thomas
Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.
I am thinking of my sisters and me sitting on the heater eating breakfast with a blanket over our laps before 7:30 piano lessons, where our songs called up the sun to scatter the darkness. I am thinking of sitting on radiators, thawing out our feet and hearts after getting caught in the rain. I am thinking also of just last year, how our heater was broken more often than not, and how we wrapped ourselves in blankets and stood in front of the oven, mugs of tea in our hands. I am thinking of pumpkin bread, butternut squash soup, roasted sweet potatoes, carrot cake, hot apple cider. And I am thinking of a beautiful, heart-breaking book called the Meadow, which details a history of neighbors living through the lonely winters of Wyoming.
Generally, I like the somberness that comes on me like a veil, uncalled-for and unexpected. But it makes me unproductive. All I want to do is stare at the ceiling, trace patterns with my eyes or count all the cracks. I want to close my eyes, put fallish/winterish songs on repeat: William Fitzsimmons, Rosie Thomas, Gregory Alan Isakov, Damien Rice. Or walk on the shore for hours on end, sit on the edge of the wharf, and stare into the breathing mass of grey mystery until my mind is empty and clear. I want the world to be still enough so we can speak in whispers and all be heard.
For a few days last week, when the sun was shining, I carried a blanket and a pile of books everywhere I went and read with an abandon I haven’t had since I was twelve, losing my name and identity in other worlds. It started me dreaming and daydreaming again, beautiful vivid dreams full of color and laughter and adventure. Now I wake up breathing deeply, trying to catch the last bits of dream-air, full of hope. Then my eyes catch sight of the grey light, and the hope and optimism trickle away.
Yesterday, I pulled R.S. Thomas down from the shelf and found myself suddenly there, with him, in a dark chapel, morning sunlight filtering in weakly, my knees resting on the cold stone floor, the air heavy with presence, my heartbeat my only prayer because the words wouldn’t come.
Kneeling
R.S. Thomas
Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.
8.28.2010
how did it go so fast, we'll say as we are looking back, and then we'll understand we held gold dust in our hands...
Today, I know exactly what it is I want. I spent the day yesterday with almost all the people I love together in beautiful places eating excellent food and laughing until the tears ran down our faces. And even though I have had friends and laughter and good food and perfect landscapes all summer, finally, this time the equation was right.
Yesterday it suddenly became clear to me that the restlessness I have been feeling stemmed from the absence of these people in my life. I only see it and feel it now that I remember what wholeness is, now that I have seen all of us gathered back together again.
We know each other so well—what we love, what we hate, our families, our pasts, our faults, our tics—that when we bring to light the recent messes of our lives, we end up just laughing at ourselves and how absolutely ridiculous and silly and stubborn we all are. All our defenses come down; we have seen each other at our worst and at our best, and yet here we are still.
But what surprised me most about yesterday is how natural and organic it still feels. We didn’t get caught in the rut of catching up; it felt like living, real living. I am reminded of my reasons for staying in Santa Barbara this summer…because this community I have here is rare, and I want to live in the presence of these beautiful and wise women for as long as I can.
I stopped and looked around the room several times, tried to hold on to these fleeting moments, catch snatches of all the conversations going on around me…but they were going so fast, so naturally, without silences, no awkwardness. And for some reason, I started looking at everyone’s hair—the blacks, the reds, the browns, the blondes, the curly and the kinky and the straight and the braids and the frizz…and saw something so beautiful I got a shiver down my spine. How messy and individual and quirky we all are, but so beautiful, more beautiful together in the contrasts than we are separately.
Well, this morning, I woke to see all of my roommate’s belongings in a little corner of our bedroom, stacked neatly in three piles. So many people have been walking out of my life lately, without any promise of seeing them again in the next few years. And every time a wave of sadness washes over me for all the times I’ve been too caught up in my head to see the good that has surrounded me and embraced me so consistently these last four years.
And so I’ll say now what I never said enough: thank you, I love you, and Godspeed, my dears.
may the road rise up to meet you
ay the wind be always at your back
may the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand
Yesterday it suddenly became clear to me that the restlessness I have been feeling stemmed from the absence of these people in my life. I only see it and feel it now that I remember what wholeness is, now that I have seen all of us gathered back together again.
We know each other so well—what we love, what we hate, our families, our pasts, our faults, our tics—that when we bring to light the recent messes of our lives, we end up just laughing at ourselves and how absolutely ridiculous and silly and stubborn we all are. All our defenses come down; we have seen each other at our worst and at our best, and yet here we are still.
But what surprised me most about yesterday is how natural and organic it still feels. We didn’t get caught in the rut of catching up; it felt like living, real living. I am reminded of my reasons for staying in Santa Barbara this summer…because this community I have here is rare, and I want to live in the presence of these beautiful and wise women for as long as I can.
I stopped and looked around the room several times, tried to hold on to these fleeting moments, catch snatches of all the conversations going on around me…but they were going so fast, so naturally, without silences, no awkwardness. And for some reason, I started looking at everyone’s hair—the blacks, the reds, the browns, the blondes, the curly and the kinky and the straight and the braids and the frizz…and saw something so beautiful I got a shiver down my spine. How messy and individual and quirky we all are, but so beautiful, more beautiful together in the contrasts than we are separately.
Well, this morning, I woke to see all of my roommate’s belongings in a little corner of our bedroom, stacked neatly in three piles. So many people have been walking out of my life lately, without any promise of seeing them again in the next few years. And every time a wave of sadness washes over me for all the times I’ve been too caught up in my head to see the good that has surrounded me and embraced me so consistently these last four years.
And so I’ll say now what I never said enough: thank you, I love you, and Godspeed, my dears.
may the road rise up to meet you
ay the wind be always at your back
may the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand
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