I wonder if my biggest trouble in seeing God in the poor is because I have a hard time seeing God.
And I wonder if I have a hard time seeing God because I am confused about what he looks like, about who he is.
I have these unspoken, unconscious, deeply felt senses of what is preferable, of what signifies blessing, of who is good.
If someone dresses in a certain way, carries themselves in a certain manner, uses a certain kind of vocabulary, smells a certain way-- there's a hidden, unconcious or barely conscious and never admitted telegraphing that goes on-- "I like that..." "They are good..." "They are well-off..." "They are ...impressive... "
I have this deep sense that those who have certain particulars-- a style, a type of church, a bearing, a giftedness, even a cleanliness and order-- that these people are some how God's blessed ones, God's favorites.
I have this other barely voicable prejudice that God is not so much with those who I feel less comfortable with or less impressed by-- sometimes it is those who have less education, perhaps less social standing, less commonality with me, maybe those who don't go to the churches I think are right on, maybe those who are desperate and in need.
I have realized how much I have a picture of what I think a blessed person looks like--but these pictures are not so much based on the truth of the Bible--on the goodness and graciousness of God-- they are based on my prejudices, on my background, on what the media and my personal history tell me is desirable, comfortable, and good.
James says... "let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low."...
It seems to me when he says this, he's telling us that there is nothing about being rich that signifies blessing and there's nothing about being poor that signifies distance from God.
This is easy to say. But it is a big deal. We live with constant bombardments of messages that say wealth and privilege and the comforts and help they confer on our lives signify our value, our worth. A very rich person is impressive to us. A beautiful person is impressive. A well-educated, well-dressed person seems blessed. A wealthy church seems blessed.
But any simple understanding of the basic message of the Bible reveals that this is not how God sees things. This is simply not truth. And if I don't know truth, then how can I see the one who is Truth?
If I want to see God, I have to examine my eye-sight. I have been using the distorted lenses of my culture and this world's value system for so long, I imagine that is the only way to see.
There are a few remedies I can think of, and every single one of them requires the Grace of our merciful, humble King if they are to be effectual.
-- Be honest about about what I value, prefer and desire. Tell the truth about myself. And by grace, repent.
-- Steep myself in the Bible, in worship and prayer. Seek to know Truth.
--Begin walking with, looking at, and making friends with those whom I once imagined were not the blessed ones. Seek to know Truth with them.
--Unplug in intentional ways from this culture's incessant messages about what is good, beautiful and blessed.
As I think of this-- it looks like Lent... which gives me hope. Maybe I have been in a long, messy, up and down season of Lent for the last six years. If so, Easter lasts longer and cannot be that far away.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
A Children's Book
For the past six years, I've spend most of my reading time in picture books.
My son who loves all action, and regularly asks me to tell him a story that includes him, his best friend Stevie, and light sabers... is content with almost anything I read him. I would say it soothes both of us, and brings us into rest. Maybe we've found our niche, he and I, in the rythyms of my voice, the turn of pages. I suspect that much of the time all this book reading is nothing but any easy conduit for a connection we often feel challenging and difficult. But sometimes for me, and I'm sure for him, there's a magic in these picture books that is as true and beautiful as any poet I could chose to read.
Today we read The King in the Garden, by Leon Garfield and Michael Bragg, a retelling of the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness from the point of view of a little girl who found him in her garden. He had been eating her flowers and gulping water from her fish pond.
"I hate you!" cried Abigail, seizing the king by his hair and pulling with all her might. "Go away back to your home!"
Up came the thirsty king's head, gulping and dripping at the end of Abigail's arm.
"Home?" he mumbled, in a voice that was as rough and ugly as the rest of him. "What's that?"
He turned and stared with huge shadowy eyes that were like rooms with the candles blown out. Where was the king? Was he really inside all this dark?"
I have wanted to write and meditate on seeing God in the poor. I find I have little to say and much brokenness. Maybe it's truer to say I have simply much brokenness and guilt and the confusion that comes with trying to cover those things up.
But I loved that description of the king. The candles blown out. Don't we all see a lot of ill and broken people who have become so unmoored that a self, much less a home, are almost beyond desiring.
And this little girl was able to see the broken, homeless king and minister to him, until he could see himself and remember.
"A king may leave his kingdom, even for seven long years, and nobody need notice that he isn't there; but if God leaves a man, even for a single minute, all the world sees that he's become less than a beast!"
.... "Why are you laughing?" asked Abigail, rubbing her ear. "And why are your eyes shining as if candles have been lighted in them?"
"Because God has come back to me," answered Nebuchadnezzar, "and the darkness has gone."
My son who loves all action, and regularly asks me to tell him a story that includes him, his best friend Stevie, and light sabers... is content with almost anything I read him. I would say it soothes both of us, and brings us into rest. Maybe we've found our niche, he and I, in the rythyms of my voice, the turn of pages. I suspect that much of the time all this book reading is nothing but any easy conduit for a connection we often feel challenging and difficult. But sometimes for me, and I'm sure for him, there's a magic in these picture books that is as true and beautiful as any poet I could chose to read.
Today we read The King in the Garden, by Leon Garfield and Michael Bragg, a retelling of the story of Nebuchadnezzar's madness from the point of view of a little girl who found him in her garden. He had been eating her flowers and gulping water from her fish pond.
"I hate you!" cried Abigail, seizing the king by his hair and pulling with all her might. "Go away back to your home!"
Up came the thirsty king's head, gulping and dripping at the end of Abigail's arm.
"Home?" he mumbled, in a voice that was as rough and ugly as the rest of him. "What's that?"
He turned and stared with huge shadowy eyes that were like rooms with the candles blown out. Where was the king? Was he really inside all this dark?"
I have wanted to write and meditate on seeing God in the poor. I find I have little to say and much brokenness. Maybe it's truer to say I have simply much brokenness and guilt and the confusion that comes with trying to cover those things up.
But I loved that description of the king. The candles blown out. Don't we all see a lot of ill and broken people who have become so unmoored that a self, much less a home, are almost beyond desiring.
And this little girl was able to see the broken, homeless king and minister to him, until he could see himself and remember.
"A king may leave his kingdom, even for seven long years, and nobody need notice that he isn't there; but if God leaves a man, even for a single minute, all the world sees that he's become less than a beast!"
.... "Why are you laughing?" asked Abigail, rubbing her ear. "And why are your eyes shining as if candles have been lighted in them?"
"Because God has come back to me," answered Nebuchadnezzar, "and the darkness has gone."
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
seeing God in the poor
It's one of the more unsettling invitations of the social justice movement, the hospitality movement and the Catholic Workers movement-- this invitation to see God in the poor.
My friend remarked: "I can see the need for God in the poor," she recalled droves of homeless on the streets of San Diego, "but to see God himself in the poor. That's something else."
I've thought a lot about that conversation, about that question. How do we see the Holy One, the Creator of the Universe, the Sinless, Guiltless, All Good, All Sufficient, All Powerful, All Knowing One, in anyone of us?
This question is important to me for two reasons. First, I want to see God. Second, I live among the poor. My community does not have the desperate poverty of third-world countries or even this country's worst neighborhoods, but my neighborhood is full of folks who don't have much in the way of financial resources or power, and that this lack has an obvious affect. I will say more about my beloved community later, but let that stand for now. I want to know how to see God in the poor because I know the poor, and most of all, because I want to see God. If he is to be found in the poor, that's wonderful news for me, and yet, I've found, when it comes to seeing God my eyes are often clouded.
So how do we see God in the poor? I want to take several blog entries to unpack that question. But my first disclaimer is to say that I have seen God over and over in the friend who posed it to me. She has put up with me, and she has loved me, and she has shown me again and again the grace and gentleness and wisdom and love of God. If I answer this question and sound like a know-it-all, I would have to beg her forgiveness and say how grateful I am to her for having the true heart (so characteristic of her) to ask the question, to wonder it out loud, to work at it. I am confident of her depths--they go far beyond mine--if I ever reach a wise thought as I ponder this, I'm sure she has been there before and gone deeper.
Still, she let me start my own exploration, and for this I am grateful.
How do we see God in the poor? How do we see God in any of us, hounded as we are by hungers and loneliness and the stalking of our own death always at our backs... ?
It must be the most beautiful, the truest thing about God-- even if it is a Sunday School answer-- it's the Advent season, and our God actually, literally became the poor--the lonely, the hungry, the tear-stained, death-hounded poor. Mary and Joseph were wandering around Bethlehem desperate for a place to stay; they were in a crisis, about to give birth, and they were turned away again and again until finally they set up camp, struggled through labor and birth, in a stable, in a rude, unlit, dirty cave. Take away the romance and the story book images and you have a couple that was simply and utterly poor--lacking in money, they had no worldy power.
And there with them in a way unparralled in the history of this universe was God-made-flesh.
I count amont my friends and neighbors those who have been desperate for a place to stay, desperate for a place for their children to stay. They have called on family members and landlord after landlord hoping to avoid a shelter. I know friends who have been thankful when they found a shelter, and have ridden the bus back to that cot each night after a day spent looking for work. God decided to become one of them.
I know friends who are refugees, who have travelled across impossible distances and differences in culture and language to be safe... just as Mary and Joseph and Jesus did when they became refugees in Egypt. God was willing to be one of them.
This is simply the truth of Christmas. This is what Mary was crooning about when she sang out to Elizabeth--"He has looked with favor on the humble state of his servant."...
So maybe the bigger question is why do we not see God in the poor? But that is for another night. For this night my friends, be well.
May you and your children rest in comfortable beds this night. May doors swing open to welcome you. But most of all, may you see God in all you meet.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Last Post
Dear reading friends,
I'm going to take my Blog off the air for now. I feel the need to simplify--so I can actually figure out how to get a little writing done, and more importantly, hopefully simplifying might also lead in some fashion to more simplicity in the fabric of my life and days. This seems like one tiny step in that direction--perhaps misguided, but since i write so rarely anyway, it seems very low risk.
With much much thanks for all of you who read, commented and encouraged me.
Jenny
I'm going to take my Blog off the air for now. I feel the need to simplify--so I can actually figure out how to get a little writing done, and more importantly, hopefully simplifying might also lead in some fashion to more simplicity in the fabric of my life and days. This seems like one tiny step in that direction--perhaps misguided, but since i write so rarely anyway, it seems very low risk.
With much much thanks for all of you who read, commented and encouraged me.
Jenny
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Remembering Pete
Around 4 a.m. on this dark rainy morning of December 30, Peter Sobek died.
Not one of you know Pete. I am sure of this. Not many people did. For about 4 years I lived in his neighborhood, where he lived on a little cot in the living room of a tiny condo he shared his grown daughter. He was lonely, sick, isolated, often worried. As far as I could tell in the last couple of years he had no interactions with anyone in this world but his daughter and health care professionals and my family. And yet, whoever knew him loved him and even more--he loved them. He always spoke words of love, of appreciation--to hear him tell it, his daughter, as well every cleaning lady, every physical therapist, every orderly at every convaslescent home was a saint-- "good people"...
He was an ex-drinker, completely estranged from one son and almost estranged from a second. And yet he called my son "Smilely," and gave him candy and played little games with him and showed care for Luke every time we were together--no matter how sick he was feeling.
He was "not a very good Catholic," who had not been to a church in many, many years. And he told me Jesus was with him, and comforted him and answered his prayers. Once I came over and he was reading the Bible--the book of Mark-- he said, "look here Jenny. I thought this was going to be prayers--but it's all this that Jesus did and said. It's just wonderful."
Often at the end of our visits I would say, "Pete, can I pray for you," and he would agree and then start praying the Lord's Prayer. Yesterday, by God's generous goodness to me, I was able to visit him for the last time. He was too weak to do more than open his eyes for a second, but he held my hand for a little while and before I left I prayed --and I sincerely believe he prayed with me--the prayer Jesus gave us.
Once he said to me, in thanks for some extremely small thing I had done for him,
"you are just like a mother to me." It was the kind of extravagent grace he always showed--but to be compared to the mother of a man in his 80s really struck me. I keep thinking about how my own son will some day have to travel this same route--and I likely won't be there as he travels it. I trust that God will bring him friends then. And I think how unspeakably horrible it is to imagine that my son's gloriously beautiful and perfect body will someday wither and fail him and he will gasp for his last breaths and then die.
But this Christmas God has reminded me that he has sent his own Son to take on flesh as weak as ours. He allowed his own son to walk into death, to gasp for breath and not to find it. That is the gift he has given us. He has met us in our unspeakable weakness and he has redeemed it, transformed it....brought out of it resurrection and life.
I was trying, in some small way, to talk about this with Luke. He summarized it beautifully, better than I could ever have said. He said, today, when we were talking about Pete's passing-- "Jesus died before Pete. He went before him. So he can show him the way."
A few years ago, when Pete had his first heart attack, Luke and I went to visit him in the convaslescent home -- and when we returned I wrote this poem. I'll publish it here again (I know I have before as well) with profound gratitude to God for allowing our family to know his friend Peter Sobek.
Returning From Visiting The Convalescent Home
In the dark wind, husks
of seed pods rustle; grasses
leaning, knocking into one another
a soft and brittle chiming.
Tomorrow in the morning, I’ll walk
among the careless, amber weeds
full of their wet, jeweled light.
See how it was--the keening
then the kneeling--
and how they too have flung
their last bruised kernels away.
Not one of you know Pete. I am sure of this. Not many people did. For about 4 years I lived in his neighborhood, where he lived on a little cot in the living room of a tiny condo he shared his grown daughter. He was lonely, sick, isolated, often worried. As far as I could tell in the last couple of years he had no interactions with anyone in this world but his daughter and health care professionals and my family. And yet, whoever knew him loved him and even more--he loved them. He always spoke words of love, of appreciation--to hear him tell it, his daughter, as well every cleaning lady, every physical therapist, every orderly at every convaslescent home was a saint-- "good people"...
He was an ex-drinker, completely estranged from one son and almost estranged from a second. And yet he called my son "Smilely," and gave him candy and played little games with him and showed care for Luke every time we were together--no matter how sick he was feeling.
He was "not a very good Catholic," who had not been to a church in many, many years. And he told me Jesus was with him, and comforted him and answered his prayers. Once I came over and he was reading the Bible--the book of Mark-- he said, "look here Jenny. I thought this was going to be prayers--but it's all this that Jesus did and said. It's just wonderful."
Often at the end of our visits I would say, "Pete, can I pray for you," and he would agree and then start praying the Lord's Prayer. Yesterday, by God's generous goodness to me, I was able to visit him for the last time. He was too weak to do more than open his eyes for a second, but he held my hand for a little while and before I left I prayed --and I sincerely believe he prayed with me--the prayer Jesus gave us.
Once he said to me, in thanks for some extremely small thing I had done for him,
"you are just like a mother to me." It was the kind of extravagent grace he always showed--but to be compared to the mother of a man in his 80s really struck me. I keep thinking about how my own son will some day have to travel this same route--and I likely won't be there as he travels it. I trust that God will bring him friends then. And I think how unspeakably horrible it is to imagine that my son's gloriously beautiful and perfect body will someday wither and fail him and he will gasp for his last breaths and then die.
But this Christmas God has reminded me that he has sent his own Son to take on flesh as weak as ours. He allowed his own son to walk into death, to gasp for breath and not to find it. That is the gift he has given us. He has met us in our unspeakable weakness and he has redeemed it, transformed it....brought out of it resurrection and life.
I was trying, in some small way, to talk about this with Luke. He summarized it beautifully, better than I could ever have said. He said, today, when we were talking about Pete's passing-- "Jesus died before Pete. He went before him. So he can show him the way."
A few years ago, when Pete had his first heart attack, Luke and I went to visit him in the convaslescent home -- and when we returned I wrote this poem. I'll publish it here again (I know I have before as well) with profound gratitude to God for allowing our family to know his friend Peter Sobek.
Returning From Visiting The Convalescent Home
In the dark wind, husks
of seed pods rustle; grasses
leaning, knocking into one another
a soft and brittle chiming.
Tomorrow in the morning, I’ll walk
among the careless, amber weeds
full of their wet, jeweled light.
See how it was--the keening
then the kneeling--
and how they too have flung
their last bruised kernels away.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Supernatural Love
I stumbled on this poem by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (and I sincerely and deeply hope I never am called upon to pronounce this name).
The poem is so PRETTY and such a delight--the word play and meaning and sound just thrilled me and it was so happy. I wanted to pass it on.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177008
The poem is so PRETTY and such a delight--the word play and meaning and sound just thrilled me and it was so happy. I wanted to pass it on.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177008
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Building cathedrals, being a mother and bad (or not very good) poems
A friend's mother sent her this little essay or poem, and she forwarded it to me. Apparently it's from Nicole Johnson's novel, The Invisible Woman. I think that there's a lot of beautiful, loving intention in this, but I personally don't like it. And it's so easy to rant and I don't like it when I do that either.
Read it before you read the rant--
I do know we are called to die to ourselves, to find our lives by losing it. I do know that this is not just some heroic intention, some dramatic call to martyrdom so that we forever find a pathetic way to get sympathy and admiration. This is a real call to love, and it's hard and feels like death and it does sometimes play itself out in making peanut butter sandwhiches, in sleepless nights with children, in giving up pursuits of fashionable clothing or other, in creating a home that is welcoming, loving, nurturing. But this essay feels like it falls a lot further on the side of martyrdom in a way that is not healthy for anyone in the family. As if it is important for mothers to become invisible. I don't believe that creates healthy children. And I don't believe that is "cathedral building."
On the other hand, I am very drawn to the idea of building cathedrals--and of that metaphor as a way to understand being a Christian artist. That is what I want to learn. How can we, as Christian artists, go against a long culture of artists that says the ultimate for the artist is self-expression and instead grow a conception of ourselves as in a community that is building something beautiful and grand and far far beyond ourselves and yet coming from our very selves. I am so grateful to be part of a family and a church--to be in a community where I am not the center of the universe but where I give what is me to what is bigger than me. And still, I am still longing to find myself and other artists creating more within that community.
Read it before you read the rant--
I'm invisible.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.
Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.
I'm invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please."
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.
She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it.
I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe.I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:"To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."
In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
* No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
* These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
* They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
* The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it."
And the workman replied, "Because God sees."
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.
The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want himto want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add,"You're gonna love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.
Inside I'm thinking, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"Obviously not. No one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.
I'm invisible.
Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, "What time is it?" I'm a satellite guide to answer, "What number is the Disney Channel?" I'm a car to order, "Right around 5:30, please."
I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude -but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again.
She's going ... she's going ... she's gone!
One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself as I looked down at my out-of-style dress; it was the only thing I could find that was clean. My unwashed hair was pulled up in a banana clip and I was afraid I could actually smell peanut butter in it.
I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, "I brought you this." It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe.I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription:"To Charlotte, with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees."
In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:
* No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.
* These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.
* They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.
* The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.
A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, "Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it."
And the workman replied, "Because God sees."
I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, "I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become."
At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction. But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.
The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, "My mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table." That would mean I'd built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want himto want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add,"You're gonna love it there."
As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.
I do know we are called to die to ourselves, to find our lives by losing it. I do know that this is not just some heroic intention, some dramatic call to martyrdom so that we forever find a pathetic way to get sympathy and admiration. This is a real call to love, and it's hard and feels like death and it does sometimes play itself out in making peanut butter sandwhiches, in sleepless nights with children, in giving up pursuits of fashionable clothing or other, in creating a home that is welcoming, loving, nurturing. But this essay feels like it falls a lot further on the side of martyrdom in a way that is not healthy for anyone in the family. As if it is important for mothers to become invisible. I don't believe that creates healthy children. And I don't believe that is "cathedral building."
On the other hand, I am very drawn to the idea of building cathedrals--and of that metaphor as a way to understand being a Christian artist. That is what I want to learn. How can we, as Christian artists, go against a long culture of artists that says the ultimate for the artist is self-expression and instead grow a conception of ourselves as in a community that is building something beautiful and grand and far far beyond ourselves and yet coming from our very selves. I am so grateful to be part of a family and a church--to be in a community where I am not the center of the universe but where I give what is me to what is bigger than me. And still, I am still longing to find myself and other artists creating more within that community.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Bright Star
Jane Campion's Bright Star --about the Romantic poet John Keats and his romance with his young neighbor, Fanny Brawne-- surprised me. I expected gorgeous and provocative cineamatography, moody passion and brilliant dialog. I expected the frilly, sensual, temptestuos spirit of the romantic poets to be made palpable, visual, alive. But I didn't expect
to leave the theater truly grieving John Keats, who died so young of tuberculosis. I didn't expect that I would be able to imagine what might have been--the warm homey love he and Fanny could have shared in a small house in the English countryside. I could picture him delighting and doting on their children in between writing sessions. I could picture her entertaining guests and protecting his privacy. I wanted all that for them.
Of course, they never married. He was too poor at first, and then also too sick. Their romance is quite legendary--but for me it had always been something static, like a pretty little figurine, and something emblematic, one more accessory for a Romantic poet to have--the passionate love, the debilitating illness, the unacknowledged brilliance. Through Campion's great work, though, he became a real person to me. As did she.
It was a great, fun movie. It made me think about art and relationships in new ways. Fanny was an incredibly gifted and precocious seamstress--who designed and sewed all her clothes. This was a beautiful visual aspect of the movie and it also set up an interesting opposition between the male, intellectual, serious art of poetry and her own more craftsman, more female, less intellectually respected art. If only she could have used her craft to provide the income for the couple!
I found myself more sympathetic to what it would be like to be in that time period, with the restrictions on women and on relationships that the culture imposed.
There was also an interesting tension between Fanny Brawne and John Keats' best poet friend, Mr Brown. At first I thought their intense hatred of each other was simply funny, something flirty and rather inconsequential. But there was something deeper, more elemental to it-- a truer belief in the lover's part on actual love, versus the older poet's more cynical nature.
I guess I also loved the movie because it showed an incredibly sensual, passionate romance without any sex--gratuitous or otherwise. That took creativity and art to pull off.
I had thought of Keats as being another romantic like Shelley, who left a horrible mess in his wake as they pursued his own agenda in the name of his passions. But in this portrayal Keats seemed driven by ideals and virtues bigger than himself.
The tragedy, especially for Brawne, was that the ideal of romantic love was still not big enough. As she went to wander the heath, dressed all in black after his death, I had another wish--not only that they could have lived out their lives together--but that she could have had a deeper vision to sustain her, a truer hope for her to lodge her amazing spirit.
to leave the theater truly grieving John Keats, who died so young of tuberculosis. I didn't expect that I would be able to imagine what might have been--the warm homey love he and Fanny could have shared in a small house in the English countryside. I could picture him delighting and doting on their children in between writing sessions. I could picture her entertaining guests and protecting his privacy. I wanted all that for them.
Of course, they never married. He was too poor at first, and then also too sick. Their romance is quite legendary--but for me it had always been something static, like a pretty little figurine, and something emblematic, one more accessory for a Romantic poet to have--the passionate love, the debilitating illness, the unacknowledged brilliance. Through Campion's great work, though, he became a real person to me. As did she.
It was a great, fun movie. It made me think about art and relationships in new ways. Fanny was an incredibly gifted and precocious seamstress--who designed and sewed all her clothes. This was a beautiful visual aspect of the movie and it also set up an interesting opposition between the male, intellectual, serious art of poetry and her own more craftsman, more female, less intellectually respected art. If only she could have used her craft to provide the income for the couple!
I found myself more sympathetic to what it would be like to be in that time period, with the restrictions on women and on relationships that the culture imposed.
There was also an interesting tension between Fanny Brawne and John Keats' best poet friend, Mr Brown. At first I thought their intense hatred of each other was simply funny, something flirty and rather inconsequential. But there was something deeper, more elemental to it-- a truer belief in the lover's part on actual love, versus the older poet's more cynical nature.
I guess I also loved the movie because it showed an incredibly sensual, passionate romance without any sex--gratuitous or otherwise. That took creativity and art to pull off.
I had thought of Keats as being another romantic like Shelley, who left a horrible mess in his wake as they pursued his own agenda in the name of his passions. But in this portrayal Keats seemed driven by ideals and virtues bigger than himself.
The tragedy, especially for Brawne, was that the ideal of romantic love was still not big enough. As she went to wander the heath, dressed all in black after his death, I had another wish--not only that they could have lived out their lives together--but that she could have had a deeper vision to sustain her, a truer hope for her to lodge her amazing spirit.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The broken artist
Novelist Jeanette Winterson recently had an essay in the Wall Street Journal titled "In Praise of the Crack-up" where she wrote about the link between mental illness and despair and creative artistic people.
I haven't had the burden of struggling with true mental illness the way so many artists have, (including some friends and members of my own family). Not that I can't do a mood pretty darn well---but I can only blame my moods on my own brattiness--
That said, I know mental illness is a true issue for many people and many artists--and even without the highs and lows of the bipolar brain, many of us artists still seem to find ourselves broken in just the places where we also find our greatest moments of transcendence. In this light, the last few paragraphs were just so resonate for me--they seemed hauntingly true. I wanted to record them here.
"Art isn't a surface activity. It comes from a deep place and it meets the wound we each carry.
Even when our lives are going well, there is something that prowls the borders, unseen, unfelt. The existential depression that is becoming a condition of humankind, experienced as loss of meaning, a kind of empty bafflement....
Longing is painful. Every work of art is an attempt to bring into being the object of loss. The pictures, the music, the peoems and the performances are an intense engagement with loss. While one is in the act of making, one is not in loss, and one has meaning. The fierce crashes that happen to many creative people when a piece of work is done...come out of the sense that however good the work, it has not answered the loss.
The strange thing about creative work is that it can have enormous value for others while its maker is left ravaged. The ancient Greeks understood this as the price of an encounter with a god--the divine forces enter the human and use him or her as an instrument, only to be ultimately destroyed. But I do not believe that creativity is destructive or divine. I believe it is the part of us that gives shape and voice to our innermost reality.
This is frightening. Encounters with the real, in particular, what we really feel, are something we generally try to avoid. Art mediates the encounter, allowing us to get nearer to our longing and our loss, to risk more, to dare more. Yet for the maker, the exposure is not mediated; it is total and terrifying. That is why so many creative people cut themselves off from their own experience, using drugs or drink or sex or shipwreck to avoid absolute exposure to the pain of creativity...."
Earlier in the article, Winterson compares this artistic struggle with the wounding blessing that Jacob received as he wrestled with God.
I believe she is on to something--when we make art we are in the midst of the real-- the real longing and loneliness and loss of every heart, the terrifying wonder of our existence-- and it's pretty terrible at times, isn't it-
and yet, the artist is the person who can't stay away from the real--even if they drug themselves so as to avoid dealing with it--still, all that brokeness must not be the only option for the artist--
I hope we can learn--I hope I can learn --God's redemption in this--and in the meantime, I hope I learn to want to be broken by truth more than live comfortably with falseness. The final story of blessing I hope is not only wounding but a larger story of encounter. Encounter that is not only worth the violence it incurs but also redeems it.
I haven't had the burden of struggling with true mental illness the way so many artists have, (including some friends and members of my own family). Not that I can't do a mood pretty darn well---but I can only blame my moods on my own brattiness--
That said, I know mental illness is a true issue for many people and many artists--and even without the highs and lows of the bipolar brain, many of us artists still seem to find ourselves broken in just the places where we also find our greatest moments of transcendence. In this light, the last few paragraphs were just so resonate for me--they seemed hauntingly true. I wanted to record them here.
"Art isn't a surface activity. It comes from a deep place and it meets the wound we each carry.
Even when our lives are going well, there is something that prowls the borders, unseen, unfelt. The existential depression that is becoming a condition of humankind, experienced as loss of meaning, a kind of empty bafflement....
Longing is painful. Every work of art is an attempt to bring into being the object of loss. The pictures, the music, the peoems and the performances are an intense engagement with loss. While one is in the act of making, one is not in loss, and one has meaning. The fierce crashes that happen to many creative people when a piece of work is done...come out of the sense that however good the work, it has not answered the loss.
The strange thing about creative work is that it can have enormous value for others while its maker is left ravaged. The ancient Greeks understood this as the price of an encounter with a god--the divine forces enter the human and use him or her as an instrument, only to be ultimately destroyed. But I do not believe that creativity is destructive or divine. I believe it is the part of us that gives shape and voice to our innermost reality.
This is frightening. Encounters with the real, in particular, what we really feel, are something we generally try to avoid. Art mediates the encounter, allowing us to get nearer to our longing and our loss, to risk more, to dare more. Yet for the maker, the exposure is not mediated; it is total and terrifying. That is why so many creative people cut themselves off from their own experience, using drugs or drink or sex or shipwreck to avoid absolute exposure to the pain of creativity...."
Earlier in the article, Winterson compares this artistic struggle with the wounding blessing that Jacob received as he wrestled with God.
I believe she is on to something--when we make art we are in the midst of the real-- the real longing and loneliness and loss of every heart, the terrifying wonder of our existence-- and it's pretty terrible at times, isn't it-
and yet, the artist is the person who can't stay away from the real--even if they drug themselves so as to avoid dealing with it--still, all that brokeness must not be the only option for the artist--
I hope we can learn--I hope I can learn --God's redemption in this--and in the meantime, I hope I learn to want to be broken by truth more than live comfortably with falseness. The final story of blessing I hope is not only wounding but a larger story of encounter. Encounter that is not only worth the violence it incurs but also redeems it.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
writing a poem is hard
for me, at least.
It's gotten much harder, not easier, in the last three and a half years that I've been at this. I'm sure my expectations of the results are higher now. And at the same time, though I've learned what makes a better poem, to some small degree, the basic raw material (my knowledge of the language, my life experience and observations) are not really improved. So no wonder it's not any easier.
It may be that I write some better poems now, but I'm not even sure of that.
I've just been noticing, and had this confirmed by the experience and testimony of my poet friends, that most good poems take more than six months to complete. And often more than a year, with many many rewrites and also months of shelving them and then taking them out and working and reworking.
The art form doesn't seem, in my experience, to do well with hurrying.
I guess it surprises me to know that a small one page poem might take me most of a year to write. Thankfully, I can work on a few at a time. And thankfully, as well, it's fun for me and it's good to learn to let go of productivity as way of judging value. And it's also a mercy I don't have to make a living doing this.
It's gotten much harder, not easier, in the last three and a half years that I've been at this. I'm sure my expectations of the results are higher now. And at the same time, though I've learned what makes a better poem, to some small degree, the basic raw material (my knowledge of the language, my life experience and observations) are not really improved. So no wonder it's not any easier.
It may be that I write some better poems now, but I'm not even sure of that.
I've just been noticing, and had this confirmed by the experience and testimony of my poet friends, that most good poems take more than six months to complete. And often more than a year, with many many rewrites and also months of shelving them and then taking them out and working and reworking.
The art form doesn't seem, in my experience, to do well with hurrying.
I guess it surprises me to know that a small one page poem might take me most of a year to write. Thankfully, I can work on a few at a time. And thankfully, as well, it's fun for me and it's good to learn to let go of productivity as way of judging value. And it's also a mercy I don't have to make a living doing this.
Monday, September 14, 2009
the murky waters of our obsessions
Probably one of my biggest roadblocks in my spiritual formation (that I can discern, at least) is this tendency to get bogged down by my small worries (that seem not so small) and just completely absorbed in them. Not that these things have no importance, but it seems to me that I make my worrying about them all important--I let it become my life--as if there is no Creator and Redeemer who is working out his story in all of history, advancing his Good Kingdom into every corner of this sad and glorious planet.
I make my universe about me-- me figuring out whether Luke should stay in preschool, me trying to fix whatever I think is uncomfortable in my marriage, me attempting to get rid of any bad habit I have, me trying to make some kind of grade with my church community-- and I get completely absorbed in this-- and truly have gotten blinded to God's light.
After another early morning of sitting on my couch doing nothing but this kind of obsessing-- I came to the computer and read a little excerpt of some of our recent American history that seemed to me to illustrate very well this human ability to miss what's going on because of where we have decided to fix our gaze and our mind.
The Writer's Almanac (an NPR radio broadcast by Garrison Kellior which also has a daily email version) recounted a bit of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky story. At the end of that synopsis, there was this telling paragraph:
In the months that the Lewinsky scandal was dominating the press, the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed, killing 224 people and injuring more than 4,500, and soon linked to Osama Bin Laden. During this same time period of the Lewinsky scandal, Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela, and Iraq announced that it would shoot down any U.S. or British planes patrolling the country's no-fly zones, the Euro was established, and the Chinese government announced that it was restricting Internet usage.
Regardless of politics, this seemed to me a perfect example of how easy it is to lose our life in small things, to not see what actually is going on that matters.
I must engage fully with the cares of my particular life, but I must remember this is not the entirety of what God is up to in this universe, and it's not even, truly, the entirety of what He wants to do in my life.
Now, how to do this? I really, truly do not know... only, I believe strongly in that the idea of training our minds towards God.
But I'm a numbskull in these areas. Believe me. Still, I liked the illustration and since it was from Writer's Almanac I thought I could get away with posting it here.
Have a great day--
I make my universe about me-- me figuring out whether Luke should stay in preschool, me trying to fix whatever I think is uncomfortable in my marriage, me attempting to get rid of any bad habit I have, me trying to make some kind of grade with my church community-- and I get completely absorbed in this-- and truly have gotten blinded to God's light.
After another early morning of sitting on my couch doing nothing but this kind of obsessing-- I came to the computer and read a little excerpt of some of our recent American history that seemed to me to illustrate very well this human ability to miss what's going on because of where we have decided to fix our gaze and our mind.
The Writer's Almanac (an NPR radio broadcast by Garrison Kellior which also has a daily email version) recounted a bit of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky story. At the end of that synopsis, there was this telling paragraph:
In the months that the Lewinsky scandal was dominating the press, the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed, killing 224 people and injuring more than 4,500, and soon linked to Osama Bin Laden. During this same time period of the Lewinsky scandal, Hugo Chávez was elected president of Venezuela, and Iraq announced that it would shoot down any U.S. or British planes patrolling the country's no-fly zones, the Euro was established, and the Chinese government announced that it was restricting Internet usage.
Regardless of politics, this seemed to me a perfect example of how easy it is to lose our life in small things, to not see what actually is going on that matters.
I must engage fully with the cares of my particular life, but I must remember this is not the entirety of what God is up to in this universe, and it's not even, truly, the entirety of what He wants to do in my life.
Now, how to do this? I really, truly do not know... only, I believe strongly in that the idea of training our minds towards God.
But I'm a numbskull in these areas. Believe me. Still, I liked the illustration and since it was from Writer's Almanac I thought I could get away with posting it here.
Have a great day--
Saturday, September 12, 2009
So E. L. Konigsburg is my new chocolate
not that I gave up the original.
I just read The View from Saturday and I can say she is now in my top twenty list of favorite writers ever. This one had very similar themes and even in some ways a similar plot and characters to Jennifer, Hecate, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth. Very very smart and isolated, lonely young people who form secret bonds that involve a lot of cleverness and intriguing riddles and puzzles. So, I'll have to read more of her to find out if this is her little formula. It sure doesn't feel formulaic. The characters seem very alive and bright and they sing out their stories in a very organic way. I guess Marilynne Robinson's three novels all have some similarities, don't they? So do Charles Dickens' and Jane Austen's and Ha Jin's and Dostevesky's. (more of my top twenty).
Still, Konigsburg is utterly amazing and delightful and the added perk is the that they are written for a kid and so, I can consume and utterly enjoy them completely in a night or two.
Maybe she is the new gin and tonic. I have given them up, de facto.
I just read The View from Saturday and I can say she is now in my top twenty list of favorite writers ever. This one had very similar themes and even in some ways a similar plot and characters to Jennifer, Hecate, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth. Very very smart and isolated, lonely young people who form secret bonds that involve a lot of cleverness and intriguing riddles and puzzles. So, I'll have to read more of her to find out if this is her little formula. It sure doesn't feel formulaic. The characters seem very alive and bright and they sing out their stories in a very organic way. I guess Marilynne Robinson's three novels all have some similarities, don't they? So do Charles Dickens' and Jane Austen's and Ha Jin's and Dostevesky's. (more of my top twenty).
Still, Konigsburg is utterly amazing and delightful and the added perk is the that they are written for a kid and so, I can consume and utterly enjoy them completely in a night or two.
Maybe she is the new gin and tonic. I have given them up, de facto.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Julie and Julia and all of us existentially angsted bloggers
We watched Julie and Julia last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it-- I especially enjoyed watching a movie in a theater with Jack. We hadn't done that in awhile. But the story-line really has me thinking.
We follow two stories-- one is Julia Child, in her 30s or 40s, I'd guess, in late 1940s Paris, where her husband works for the embassy and where she is trying to find something to channel her passion for life, her joy, and her love of food and France. She is indomitable (and Meryl Streep is quintessintially amazing), and she finds away to enter the Cordon Bleu cooking academy and then teams up with two French women to write a cookbook that had not yet existed-- a French cook book in English-- French Cooking for Americans.
The main story of the movie, though is the story of a 30 year old New Yorker in 2002, Julie, who has found herself in a life in Queens that is not the life she thought she should have. She had gone to school to be a writer, but she hadn't finished the book she started, and now she has this rather impotent government job. She finds plenty to be dissatisfied about--her small apartment, her friends, her job and most of all herself. But then she starts this project, cooking through all 500+ recipes of Julia Child's cookbook in one year, while blogging about it. As she undertakes this project, she finds a sense of purpose and accomplishment that she had not yet experienced. She also gets plenty of readers and fans of her blog and at the end of the year, she has acheived some actual fame and a book deal.
Now, it's a fun story. And really, it was hard to compete with Julia Child or Meryl Streep. They are two inimitable women. But I just came away with this impression that what this story really illustrated was the sad, trapped self-absorption of our generation. They acknowledged this within the movie. Julie started to have marriage troubles because she was so obsessed with herself and her little blogging project that this became all encompassing. And after her crisis, she seemed to become more aware of her husband and a little less caught up in her self- drama. But only a little.
The Julie character seemed like a very decent, talented and personable young woman--and also-- quite typical of my generation. What was her big acheivement? To say she had finished a goal she had set for herself. To become "a writer." To acheive some success-- a book deal, a movie deal, fans. But actually, she never did anything very far outside of herself, that wasn't primarily revolving around her.
But contrast this with Julia Childs--and there was such a difference. Certainly she didn't do anything very heroic or self-sacrificial--but still--it wasn't quite so self- absorbed. She wanted to make a cookbook so that Americans could learn how to cook the French food she loved. There was this was in love with the world around her. She and her husband were utterly delighted with each other. She didn't whine and fuss when her husband had to move them out of France, although she loved Paris. She had some bigger world to live out of than herself. And I don't know how she got that...except that it seemed like that was more the norm for her generation. (though she was certainly exceptional in her talents, her spirit and her personality).
And Julie is the norm for our generation, although perhaps exceptional in her talents. But this is the world all of us live in. I've experienced it myself. It isn't attractive to me. I don't want for me or my friends to simply set a goal and acheive it, to write a blog that gets recognized, to do something that makes us look good. I want us to make real good in this world. Real, genunine beauty. Real, true, life-giving good. Does anyone else see the difference? Does that make sense?
We follow two stories-- one is Julia Child, in her 30s or 40s, I'd guess, in late 1940s Paris, where her husband works for the embassy and where she is trying to find something to channel her passion for life, her joy, and her love of food and France. She is indomitable (and Meryl Streep is quintessintially amazing), and she finds away to enter the Cordon Bleu cooking academy and then teams up with two French women to write a cookbook that had not yet existed-- a French cook book in English-- French Cooking for Americans.
The main story of the movie, though is the story of a 30 year old New Yorker in 2002, Julie, who has found herself in a life in Queens that is not the life she thought she should have. She had gone to school to be a writer, but she hadn't finished the book she started, and now she has this rather impotent government job. She finds plenty to be dissatisfied about--her small apartment, her friends, her job and most of all herself. But then she starts this project, cooking through all 500+ recipes of Julia Child's cookbook in one year, while blogging about it. As she undertakes this project, she finds a sense of purpose and accomplishment that she had not yet experienced. She also gets plenty of readers and fans of her blog and at the end of the year, she has acheived some actual fame and a book deal.
Now, it's a fun story. And really, it was hard to compete with Julia Child or Meryl Streep. They are two inimitable women. But I just came away with this impression that what this story really illustrated was the sad, trapped self-absorption of our generation. They acknowledged this within the movie. Julie started to have marriage troubles because she was so obsessed with herself and her little blogging project that this became all encompassing. And after her crisis, she seemed to become more aware of her husband and a little less caught up in her self- drama. But only a little.
The Julie character seemed like a very decent, talented and personable young woman--and also-- quite typical of my generation. What was her big acheivement? To say she had finished a goal she had set for herself. To become "a writer." To acheive some success-- a book deal, a movie deal, fans. But actually, she never did anything very far outside of herself, that wasn't primarily revolving around her.
But contrast this with Julia Childs--and there was such a difference. Certainly she didn't do anything very heroic or self-sacrificial--but still--it wasn't quite so self- absorbed. She wanted to make a cookbook so that Americans could learn how to cook the French food she loved. There was this was in love with the world around her. She and her husband were utterly delighted with each other. She didn't whine and fuss when her husband had to move them out of France, although she loved Paris. She had some bigger world to live out of than herself. And I don't know how she got that...except that it seemed like that was more the norm for her generation. (though she was certainly exceptional in her talents, her spirit and her personality).
And Julie is the norm for our generation, although perhaps exceptional in her talents. But this is the world all of us live in. I've experienced it myself. It isn't attractive to me. I don't want for me or my friends to simply set a goal and acheive it, to write a blog that gets recognized, to do something that makes us look good. I want us to make real good in this world. Real, genunine beauty. Real, true, life-giving good. Does anyone else see the difference? Does that make sense?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Book Recommendation
Who else loves a good young adult novel?? Actually, a lot of people, I guess, considering the popularity of those books about the orphaned wizard from the London suburbs--
I haven't read that much Harry Potter. He'll do in a pinch--I can think of worse flight reading, that's for sure.
But I just recently picked up a book from the library and it was so splendid, so cunning and delightful in this joyous, clever and understated way that I hadn't found in Rowling's work (to my memory and opinion and experience (all which are extraordiarily limited). )
The book was Jennife, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg (it was her first novel, I think). And as the title suggests, it's a charming story about two girls-- the new girl, Elizabeth, and Jennifer, who claims to be a witch and makes Elizabeth her apprentice witch.
This isn't a fantasy book. The girls are witches the way that children usually are, through their cleverness and loneliness and will. And their friendship is tenuous and has ambivalence and longing and much joy and play, the way that friendships typically do.
The writing is skilled and smart and sweet. And... it's always nice that YA novels are easy and quick reads. I appreciate that these days.
Here's a little sample.
"The rest of that week seemed to have a month's worth of days, but Saturday came. It was a golden day full of the smells of autumn. I told my parents that I'd skip going grocery shopping with them. I told them that I had some work to do at the library. No argument. I was usually a nag for them to take to the A & P. I wasn't very popular at the A & P either. Once I had rammed the cart into a big mountain of cracker boxes. Avalanche! I told the manager that I'd pick them all up, and I did. I arranged them very aristically; the aisle was blocked for forty-five minutes. I hadn't been very popular at that A & P since.
When I got to the library reading room I knew Jennifer was already there. Her wagon was parked by the enclyclopedias. She was looking at a big book of maps when I came in. Libraries are for whispering, and I soon discovered that Jennifer whispered beautifully, with many nice sssssssss sounds coming like steam out of a kettle.
I whispered, "Hi."
She whispered back, "Did you bring something to eat?"
"No," I said. "A & P day. The cupboard was bare."
She closed the atlas and looked at mean for what seemed like a very long time. Leaning way over and in such a quiet voice that it was almost zero, she said, "I've decided to make you an apprentice witch."
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
"Answer 'yes' or 'no.'" I must have looked worried. She didn't let me waste time; she came across soft but fast. "If you really want to be a witch, nothing you have to do will seem like too much. If you really don't want to be a witch, everything will seem like too much. Answer ' yes' or 'no'"
I answered, "Yes."
---
I was going to check out more E. L. Konigsburg novels when I was at the library today, but I had reached my 30 book max. Those picture books add up fast. Especially, I have to say, when they are heavy on the dinosaur end of things. Thanks very much, to my dinosaur crazy nephen who hooked Luke. Now I have to try to pronounce all those crazy words. I need witch powers or something.
I haven't read that much Harry Potter. He'll do in a pinch--I can think of worse flight reading, that's for sure.
But I just recently picked up a book from the library and it was so splendid, so cunning and delightful in this joyous, clever and understated way that I hadn't found in Rowling's work (to my memory and opinion and experience (all which are extraordiarily limited). )
The book was Jennife, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg (it was her first novel, I think). And as the title suggests, it's a charming story about two girls-- the new girl, Elizabeth, and Jennifer, who claims to be a witch and makes Elizabeth her apprentice witch.
This isn't a fantasy book. The girls are witches the way that children usually are, through their cleverness and loneliness and will. And their friendship is tenuous and has ambivalence and longing and much joy and play, the way that friendships typically do.
The writing is skilled and smart and sweet. And... it's always nice that YA novels are easy and quick reads. I appreciate that these days.
Here's a little sample.
"The rest of that week seemed to have a month's worth of days, but Saturday came. It was a golden day full of the smells of autumn. I told my parents that I'd skip going grocery shopping with them. I told them that I had some work to do at the library. No argument. I was usually a nag for them to take to the A & P. I wasn't very popular at the A & P either. Once I had rammed the cart into a big mountain of cracker boxes. Avalanche! I told the manager that I'd pick them all up, and I did. I arranged them very aristically; the aisle was blocked for forty-five minutes. I hadn't been very popular at that A & P since.
When I got to the library reading room I knew Jennifer was already there. Her wagon was parked by the enclyclopedias. She was looking at a big book of maps when I came in. Libraries are for whispering, and I soon discovered that Jennifer whispered beautifully, with many nice sssssssss sounds coming like steam out of a kettle.
I whispered, "Hi."
She whispered back, "Did you bring something to eat?"
"No," I said. "A & P day. The cupboard was bare."
She closed the atlas and looked at mean for what seemed like a very long time. Leaning way over and in such a quiet voice that it was almost zero, she said, "I've decided to make you an apprentice witch."
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
"Answer 'yes' or 'no.'" I must have looked worried. She didn't let me waste time; she came across soft but fast. "If you really want to be a witch, nothing you have to do will seem like too much. If you really don't want to be a witch, everything will seem like too much. Answer ' yes' or 'no'"
I answered, "Yes."
---
I was going to check out more E. L. Konigsburg novels when I was at the library today, but I had reached my 30 book max. Those picture books add up fast. Especially, I have to say, when they are heavy on the dinosaur end of things. Thanks very much, to my dinosaur crazy nephen who hooked Luke. Now I have to try to pronounce all those crazy words. I need witch powers or something.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Not about poetry, but hey....
I hate justifying my actions. I really do. Here's a blog post that is purely, inexplicably personal. I guess I'm going with the strong guess that only Valerie and Carrie read my blog!
The time line for waiting for a baby from China is not growing shorte0r, but rather longer.
Now they are saying 28 months for those with Chinese descent and 41 months for non-Chinese descent families.
Two months down. At least 26 to go. Honestly, it stinks.
But also, I sometimes worry that I'll learn not to think about it. That I'll grow so tired of wanting her I'll just give up. Sometimes I wonder, what if we didn't want her after all this wait. I know that won't be true--but the reality is that we have to keep our hearts quickened with a love and desire and preparation for her, and that means we also have to keep our hearts somewhat raw with longing for her. We have to believe God is in on this--even in this extraordinarily long emptiness....
Is this how God loves us sometimes? Does he wait with sorrowful, impatient longing for us to be adopted into his family?
I don't suppose he ever worries he'll give up on his wait, does he?
I am praying that our family experiences God's grace in this and that he prepares us in all kinds of unseen ways for her to become part of our family.
Also, that he cares for her and her mother and father and any siblings in redemptive ways even now.
The time line for waiting for a baby from China is not growing shorte0r, but rather longer.
Now they are saying 28 months for those with Chinese descent and 41 months for non-Chinese descent families.
Two months down. At least 26 to go. Honestly, it stinks.
But also, I sometimes worry that I'll learn not to think about it. That I'll grow so tired of wanting her I'll just give up. Sometimes I wonder, what if we didn't want her after all this wait. I know that won't be true--but the reality is that we have to keep our hearts quickened with a love and desire and preparation for her, and that means we also have to keep our hearts somewhat raw with longing for her. We have to believe God is in on this--even in this extraordinarily long emptiness....
Is this how God loves us sometimes? Does he wait with sorrowful, impatient longing for us to be adopted into his family?
I don't suppose he ever worries he'll give up on his wait, does he?
I am praying that our family experiences God's grace in this and that he prepares us in all kinds of unseen ways for her to become part of our family.
Also, that he cares for her and her mother and father and any siblings in redemptive ways even now.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Hopkin's Amazing Echoes
What is poetry? Poets love to discuss this. Which is telling in and of itself. Are painters or photographers or musicians asking--What is painting? what is a photograph? or what is music? Well, maybe.
But poetry is perhaps particularly tricky as an art form to nail down. For poetry is art made of language. As music is made of ordered sound-- and paintings of "ordered" paint....
I was thinking that three specific qualities of poetry.
First--this art made of language means that the language is to be irreducible, unpharaseable... unlike an essay or even a story that you could in some way retell, though probably losing much of the artistry and joy, you can't really retell a poem--it exists in its words--and cannot be separated from them.
Secondly--very related the first--the language becomes a kind of music--the sound is extremely important.
Third--also related, is that poetry contains in the language the unsayable--the magic of metaphor and image and the music of the language and the exact sensuosness of the imagery all combine to touch on things that are simply beyond "saying." -- Like music and dance and the visual arts.
So--having that as an introduction-- look at this poem in two parts by Gerard Manly Hopkins (my favorite poet). If I were unpoetic, which I usually am to an extreme (this is true), I would try to paraphrase this poem--write a little sermonette on it-- it surely has a profound and beautiful message--
but it also is simply a revel of language in itself--and that exists as art alongside and inseparable, in this case, from its message. I'm amazed at all the internal rhymes and the gorgeous sounds of this poem. It's so much fun--while being so amazingly serious, earnest and sincere. And simply more wonderful because both of these qualities are held together--that's why I love Hopkins and poetry.
36. The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
(Maidens’ song from St. Winefred’s Well)
THE LEADEN ECHO
HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair.
THE GOLDEN ECHO
Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.
But poetry is perhaps particularly tricky as an art form to nail down. For poetry is art made of language. As music is made of ordered sound-- and paintings of "ordered" paint....
I was thinking that three specific qualities of poetry.
First--this art made of language means that the language is to be irreducible, unpharaseable... unlike an essay or even a story that you could in some way retell, though probably losing much of the artistry and joy, you can't really retell a poem--it exists in its words--and cannot be separated from them.
Secondly--very related the first--the language becomes a kind of music--the sound is extremely important.
Third--also related, is that poetry contains in the language the unsayable--the magic of metaphor and image and the music of the language and the exact sensuosness of the imagery all combine to touch on things that are simply beyond "saying." -- Like music and dance and the visual arts.
So--having that as an introduction-- look at this poem in two parts by Gerard Manly Hopkins (my favorite poet). If I were unpoetic, which I usually am to an extreme (this is true), I would try to paraphrase this poem--write a little sermonette on it-- it surely has a profound and beautiful message--
but it also is simply a revel of language in itself--and that exists as art alongside and inseparable, in this case, from its message. I'm amazed at all the internal rhymes and the gorgeous sounds of this poem. It's so much fun--while being so amazingly serious, earnest and sincere. And simply more wonderful because both of these qualities are held together--that's why I love Hopkins and poetry.
36. The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
(Maidens’ song from St. Winefred’s Well)
THE LEADEN ECHO
HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair.
THE GOLDEN ECHO
Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.
Monday, July 20, 2009
cheating
This is blog-cheating, I'm sure. But Jacky directed me to this sweet blog by a poet, photographer and follower of Christ in London--and I enjoyed browsing it and thought others might as well.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
poetry class
I'm taking this poetry class-- and I thought that it would be a wonderful way for me to discipline myself and actually write poetry. I thought I would learn a lot more about writing poetry. I thought --
I think I thought I had a different life than the one I have. I think I thought I could have four or five simultaneous lives--and in one of them I could be the uber-slacker who writes blogs instead of doing her work, in another I could be a superstar poetry student who gets up at the crack of down and writes beautiful verse and in another I could be a half-way decent mother and a home economist/home maker/ cook, maid and candlestick maker...
But-- I am just all three of these things in sort of the same boring way i always was--with a lot of not so great poems being created right now.
Gotta go write one of those.
jenny
I think I thought I had a different life than the one I have. I think I thought I could have four or five simultaneous lives--and in one of them I could be the uber-slacker who writes blogs instead of doing her work, in another I could be a superstar poetry student who gets up at the crack of down and writes beautiful verse and in another I could be a half-way decent mother and a home economist/home maker/ cook, maid and candlestick maker...
But-- I am just all three of these things in sort of the same boring way i always was--with a lot of not so great poems being created right now.
Gotta go write one of those.
jenny
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
A nativity poem
Ok, this is sort of goofy--but I just encountered this poem that I loved-- and it's about the Nativity--when I was wanting to find Easter poems--
still, I loved it so much I wanted to have a record of it here. My word--I keep rereading it and rereading it and loving it more and more right now. I guess that's my prayer-- that the boy I love and that I too (and as many as want this) would have the grace to work and work on this question--"What is the world?"--and maybe to find, little by little... the "answered" experience written here...
(it's probably another illegal post. I don't know if this releases me from any guilt to say this. but i thought I would try).
Nativity
Li-Young Lee
In the dark, a child might ask, What is the world?
just to hear his sister
promise, An unfinished wing of heaven,
just to hear his brother say,
A house inside a house,
but most of all to hear his mother answer,
One more song, then you go to sleep.
How could anyone in that bed guess
the question finds its beginning
in the answer long growing
inside the one who asked, that restless boy,
the night's darling?
Later, a man lying awake,
he might ask it again,
just to hear the silence
charge him, This night
arching over your sleepless wondering,
this night, the near ground
every reaching-out-to overreaches,
just to remind himself
out of what little earth and duration,
out of what immense good-bye,
each must make a safe place of his heart,
before so strange and wild a guest
as God approaches.
still, I loved it so much I wanted to have a record of it here. My word--I keep rereading it and rereading it and loving it more and more right now. I guess that's my prayer-- that the boy I love and that I too (and as many as want this) would have the grace to work and work on this question--"What is the world?"--and maybe to find, little by little... the "answered" experience written here...
(it's probably another illegal post. I don't know if this releases me from any guilt to say this. but i thought I would try).
Nativity
Li-Young Lee
In the dark, a child might ask, What is the world?
just to hear his sister
promise, An unfinished wing of heaven,
just to hear his brother say,
A house inside a house,
but most of all to hear his mother answer,
One more song, then you go to sleep.
How could anyone in that bed guess
the question finds its beginning
in the answer long growing
inside the one who asked, that restless boy,
the night's darling?
Later, a man lying awake,
he might ask it again,
just to hear the silence
charge him, This night
arching over your sleepless wondering,
this night, the near ground
every reaching-out-to overreaches,
just to remind himself
out of what little earth and duration,
out of what immense good-bye,
each must make a safe place of his heart,
before so strange and wild a guest
as God approaches.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The Same Valved Heart
Here's another Easter poem-- this one contemporary--by John Updike. I found it on this website (http://www.edow.org/spirituality/updike.html) which reprinted it by permission. I, however, do not have that same permission. -- no time to comment now, but I found it very helpful at challenging the softened, safe view our culture has tried to make of the resurrection (when the culture doesn't ignore or reject it outright).
Seven Stanzas at Easter
By John Updike
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
Telephone Poles and Other Poems © 1961 by John Updike. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.
Seven Stanzas at Easter
By John Updike
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent; it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
Telephone Poles and Other Poems © 1961 by John Updike. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.
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