Small Signs

The spot
at the base of my thumbs
just above the wrists
the size of about a quarter
the spot
where the sharp edges
of the plastic
zip-tie handcuffs
cut into my skin
into my radial nerves

leaving welts for days
leaving numbness for months
leaving pain for going on now
over two and a half years
since the day

it
still
hurts.

I still hurt.

I carry that pain with me
every day
a basket of bread
a constant reminder
and I wonder if I will ever
be done with it.
The needles find relief
and also
seemingly endless depths
of soreness,
tenderness,
stuckness,
pain. The needles wonder
if I will ever
be done with them.

I don't know.
I wonder if being done
is the wrong question.

I know this, though.
I am mindful to anniversaries.
I know what happened
in the less than merry month of May
two years ago. It has been
in my consciousness.
I even thought about it
this morning, driving
to see the immigrant workers,
remembering my people
sitting with me on the bench,
how I wouldn't let them leave,
how they wouldn't leave,
how they cradled me,
how they blessed me
every time I sneezed.
(I was so so sick.)
A chorus of blessings
behind me around me.
It is May,
and I remember.

But not until this morning
sitting with BlueEyes
and sweet cups of Tension Tamer
having a conversation with her
about "one year ago today..."
what she was doing to get ready to graduate,
which prompted me to think
of two years ago,
what I was doing to get ready to graduate,
And only then did I realize, remember
that today is actually the day
today is the day I testified,
and the day I was found guilty
of stepping out of place.
Today is that day.

And I had forgotten.
Or,
not forgotten, exactly,
I didn't forget.
I just didn't think
to count the days.
Last year I did.
This year...something else.
And realizing this
made us smile.

That I didn't need to remember
didn't even realize to remember
down to the minute, the day
must mean
I hope it means
something is healing.

I am mindful,
but perhaps not as captive.
Even though my body still hurts,
my arms and shoulders and heart
still remember,
but not everything is the same.

Thanks be to God.

A Little White Shirt Goodness

OK, more like white dress, black dress, BRIGHT green scarf. And interestingly placed hands...
Larger version can be seen here.

If you can't read the small type under the photo, this is from the Met's recent production of Lulu, an opera new to me, with a rather disturbing story and a main character who's a real live lesbian (Countess Geschwitz, of the BRIGHT green scarf, above) and pretty much the only decent human being in the story. Well, perhaps Lulu would have been a decent human being if her humanity hadn't been violated so violently by all the men in her life. I listened on the radio. I can't tell if the story is meant to portray critically what misogyny does to women, or is just misogynist, but it did make me think.

Anyway.

Another black dress/green scarf shot of the Countess here, and the Countess in a slightly shabby suit-like get-up here (Anne Sofie still looks great, though). This is the closest to a white shirt as she gets. (Whole set of production stills here).

I'm really just posting this for Anik, who adores Anne Sofie von Otter, and who's been having a rough go.

(And if you're wondering about the White Shirt...read here!)

At Last!

Clips of the Met's Der Rosenkavalier broadcast from January, starring Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, and Christine Schafer, are finally reaching the youtubes, thanks to rosen10kavalier.

Giddy overture and opening scene of Act 1:



Oh my god, I could watch that forever. (I know, don't you just want to yell at Placido to get the heck out of their bedroom? Clearly he's interrupting!)

Also posted are:
The Marschallin's Monologue;
The Presentation of the Rose;
The Final Trio (which makes me forget to breathe);
And the Finale.

Bonus bits are the entr'acte interviews with Renée, Susan (she is 12 feet taller than Placido, wow!), and the Trio. Note in Renée's interview she tries to convince us that it's "believable" that Susan is playing a young man. Uh-huh. Maybe from the 4th balcony, honey, but I'll just keep enjoying the sight of two women enjoying one another in bed, thank you very much!

Edited to add: oh yeah, there are a couple of men in the story. If you ask me, Baron Ochs is, as Hitchcock would say, a MacGuffin. I'll grant Sigmundsson is hilarious in the role, but you don't really see him in these clips...because his character is a MacGuffin!

Enjoy! And thanks again to rosen10kavalier!

Scenes From A Retreat

When despair for the world grows in me … I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry,
from his poem "The Peace of Wild Things"

(photos not in chronological order, which bugs me, but blogger is being stupid)

All hail the camera timer, so one can take photos of oneself in utter solitude. Me, and my hermitage. This is the same one I stayed in last year.



We had some storminess roll through on Monday, although we only got a spot of rain, just enough to wake up the desert and scrub out my lungs with that amazing scent. I climbed up the little hill to take this photo of my hermitage and the sunset. In the larger version I think you can see the candlelight inside the windows.



The chapel and bridge leading to the cloister. Amazing late afternoon light breaking through the stormy clouds, an hour or so before I took the photo just above.

I saw LOTS of bluebirds, every day. Or, I suppose, the same bluebird, a gazillion times a day. Anyway, this little fella was enjoying riding that branch headed facefirst into the wind. I was welcomed on my arrival by a trinity of deer munching shrubbery on the side of the road.

A little revolutionary declaration on the wall inside.

I once heard Bernice Johnson Reagon say, "Wade in the water. If you don't get in trouble, you'll never know who you are." So there you go. I would just like to add that the water in that creek was VERY cold...first snowmelt from the Sangre de Cristos.

Stepping Westward

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

--Denise Levertov

Easter, A Year Later

Today, Easter Sunday, I can't help but think back to Easter Sunday, a year ago, and compare.

Last year, as I mentioned, I essentially refused Easter. Too much sunk in Good Friday. I experienced Easter a week later, while on retreat, pondering Thomas touching Jesus' wounds. Which was entirely appropriate.

This year, I found myself wondering how I would feel about Easter as it drew closer. This has been the struggle with me for months, really, whether there is in fact hope in the face of so much suffering. If in fact anything I do matters. Whether there is in fact any hope for healing.

By the end of Holy Week, I found myself yearning for Sunday's resurrection story. And I woke up this morning excited to go to church and hear that story, and to sing about hope.

We sang a song I learned from a Nicaraguan pastor and liberation theologian. I haven't sung it in years, but I found myself yearning to sing it, to sing it in community. So we did, and I held his smiling face in my mind, and felt my feet tapping under my guitar, and marveled at how my body easily remembered how to play the song after such a long time, and sensed my voice break inside my chest, and heard all the people around me singing, and I believed.

I believe.

El Jubileo

Nuestros ojos abiertos están
viendo muerte, pobreza, y maldad;
Sin embargo, seguimos creyendo
que el futuro está por llegar,
la esperanza provoca el andar
por la fe, la justicia, y la vida.

Mañana, cuando nazca el sol
vendrá la libertad, la fiesta y el perdón,
y descanso para todo aquel que sufre.
Mañana, cuando nazca el sol
la tierra volverá a aquel que la perdió,
y el trigo crecerá y habrá abundancia.


The Jubilee

Our eyes our open,
seeing death, poverty, and evil;
nevertheless, we keep believing
that the future is arriving
hope provokes our journey
for faith, justice, and life.

Tomorrow, when the sun is born
freedom, the fiesta, and forgiveness will come,
and rest for all who suffer.
Tomorrow, when the sun is born
the land will return to the one who lost it,
and the wheat will grow and there will be abundance.

Good Friday

I'm pooped.

This is my first "real" Good Friday as a pastor -- last year our worshiping community was gathering for meals every other week while we looked for space, so we weren't actually worshiping together then. I did preach at HappyChurch for their Good Friday service, but that was it. I didn't even go to church on Easter (I refused, in fact...so not in a good place spiritually this time last year).

Anyway -- I had an acupuncture treatment on Wednesday, after a 2 month hiatus. I woke up yesterday feeling beat up from the inside out, and emotionally shaky. She warned me, my acupuncturist, that the last needle, if we placed it, was likely to release a lot of emotions, and she was right.

No coincidence that that needle was placed right at the base of my right thumb, just under where the handcuff cut and is still painful. When she placed it a huge wave a grief washed over me.

A little Renée Fleming on my mp3 player consoled me.

So today, still felt quite shaky. I said to a friend that it felt like I was white-water rafting on the inside -- just trying to ride out this release, trust that it's going somewhere. And yet, I needed to be present with quite a few folks, in different ways, today. So, for all the drives around town, I brought the "hermitage mix" of music and sang along, and practiced breathing, and tried to see the spring flowers with the delight of the two-year-old I was with.

In the evening, was our Good Friday vigil. We held vigil outside the immigrant detention facility that is only a few miles from where we worship. We read the passion narrative, sang Taizé chants, and offered poetry of hope to those detained and words of challenge to the guards to repent and ask forgiveness for their participation in this violation of God's image. For this we read the words of Oscar Romero.

Well, I read them (my cielo read them in Spanish). And I also challenged them again with the call to repentance as we ended. We could see them, a few were standing outside, and it seemed like they were listening (even if only to scoff later, who knows, but still).

My cielo said she was in awe of me, that I was so bold in what I said. I don't know about that, I barely remember what I said; what I do know is that when I was speaking (my cielo said I was evangelizing...even on Good Friday there is the opportunity to turn away from Empire and chose again to walk God's path of justice and love), for a brief moment who I saw were my own guards, who had jailed me. It got a little messy, inside.

I can feel it in my body -- holding that sacred space on the sidewalk, dealing with the guard who came out to tell us to move (or they'd call the police...we moved to the sidewalk across the street), watching the guards watch us, trying to speak and sing loud enough so the folks detained inside and the guards could hear us, watching the police drive by twice, windows rolled down, observing us (so, the guards had called them anyway). My body is tired, and sore. And my arm, it aches.

So the plan is for some immersion therapy: tonight, sleep. Tomorrow, the fabulous Verdi opera Aida, live from the Met, which will be good for several hours of opera therapy. Errands and a movie in the evening with my cielo (either "Up," or a Kiri Te Kanawa-led Der Rosenkavalier, whatever we're in the mood for. There may or may not be some goat therapy, as well. At any rate, it will be a Holy Saturday of some self-care time, and some cielo time.

And then, we shall see what Sunday shall bring...

Music Of The Day (or the Week)

Holy Week, that is.

I heard Bach's St. Matthew Passion on the radio today on the way to church (this exact recording) and fell in love with this aria (the aria starts at about 2:30, after the recitative). The text is about the burial of Jesus, but the music is so gentle and tender, almost like a lullaby. I can't stop listening to it, and humming it...




I didn't know which part of the piece it was to try to find it again, so thanks to google I found the list of movements on wikipedia and just kept plugging titles of bass arias (altho this version is sung by a baritone, which I like better) into YouTube's search engine until I found it. I was so pleased to find the version I heard on the radio!


P.S. I changed a few things in my sidebar, including adding a link to my new YouTube channel. Find out what I'm listening to and watching! (and hey, would someone let me know that link works?)

Immersion Therapy: Part I

And by immersion therapy, I mean my own, not your immersion in the length of these posts! My! This is Part 1, with more to come...

**************

My parents are both trained classical musicians, my mother with a master's and my father a doctorate. I grew up surrounded by music, classical music: symphonies, operas, orchestral pieces, sacred choral works. Some of my earliest (and favorite) musical memories are playing on the floor next to my mom as she practiced the organ; later I would be her page turner. Another favorite childhood memory is lying in my bed at night while my parents practiced for a piano recital in the next room -- duets, two pianos, four hands. They brought in an extra piano for rehearsing.

I first sang the Fauré Requiem in church choir when I was in 4th or 5th grade, my mom on the organ. I remember every Good Friday Daddy would listen to Parsifal (the whole thing). In 6th grade I was the best in music class at identifying classical pieces, because we had all the records at home and I could practice. This was probably not fair to the other kids in class, but oh well.

I started playing French Horn in 6th grade; then when we moved to Kansas, my dad began conducting the very local regional orchestra, which I joined in I guess 9th grade. There were only two horn players, the 1st chair grown-up, and me. Pretty cool, and I got to play some good music; I always enjoy it when a piece comes on the classical radio and I can say to my cielo, "Hey, I played that!" And of course, I had piano lessons from my mother from age 5 until I graduated from high school. By the end I was playing concerto movements for competitions.

In college I sang in the choral union, which was made up of vocal majors and anyone else who wanted to join. Choral union was required for vocal majors, which meant I was singing next to top-quality singers such as this one. Here I got to sing the Fauré again, as well as the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, Rutter's Gloria (oh my god, that movement is sublime), and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

My folks didn't have much use for popular music -- although I distinctly remember my mom saying she really liked "Yesterday," and they made note of when John Lennon died, so it wasn't completely outside their realm of existence. Nevertheless, we were a classical music household, and it wasn't until I went to college that I really started exploring other genres.

In fact, it was my little brother TBro who introduced me to the Indigo Girls, when I was 21 and heading into my last year of college. He came back from boy scout camp, where he was on the summer staff, and said, "Hey, you should listen to this, it's kinda cool," and popped "Closer to Fine" into the tape deck. It's not an overstatement to say this changed my life. The Girls saved my life, and their music led me to Nanci Griffith (ooh, complete with monologue!), Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, and, eventually, Dar Williams, the Dixie Chicks (I still feel this way, if you're wondering), and Patty Griffin. If you've been around awhile you know this is music that has pulled me through some tough times.

It's not that I got away from classical music, exactly. When we lived in Tucson I sang in the UofA's Community Chorus (Mahler 2 being the highlight) and when we lived in Portland we went to the opera with some regularity (we got in cheap since we had friends who worked there). We have two CD racks, one full of classical, one full of the above singers (as well as some others, and Latin pop/tropical/Nueva Canción, jazz, and Sweet Honey In the Rock). Classical just didn't have the same space anymore; that space was shared by the need to occasionally rock out, or have my heart cracked open by a high lonesome harmony, or to nourish my struggle against injustice.

And then, in January, I rediscovered opera.

Now as I said, I grew up with opera. We often listened to the Met radio broadcasts on Saturdays, and if there were operas on TV we'd watch those, as well. And of course there's was Daddy's Parsifal ritual. Mom would cry listening to "Nessun Dorma."

One of my favorite memories is when my mom took me to Dallas to see the Met on tour in 1979, for my 9th birthday. This was back in the day when the Met actually took their productions on the road. We were originally going to see 3 operas: Don something (I forget now which of all the Dons), with Beverly Sills, who I adored at that tender young age; Tosca; and Tannhauser. The trip was really about seeing Sills, but Don something sold out, which I distinctly remember made me cry. So we had to settle for Tosca and Tannhauser ("Settle," she says...).

Mom and I packed up the Pinto with food and all the opera books we had, and drove from our little town of Monticello, AR, all the way to Dallas. Just the two of us, the brothers stayed home with Dad! I read the stories of the operas from our books out loud to Mom while she drove. She felt it was better to know the stories going in, so you would know what was going on. So I read them, and we talked about them, all the way to Dallas.

We saw Tosca first. You can see pictures of the set here, thanks to the Met's archive. As I mentioned, the production would have traveled, so what was seen at the Met was what I saw in Dallas. I was enthralled. I won't rehearse the story for you, you can read it here, but I remember being on the edge of my seat, from the crashing, threatening opening chords all the way to the end, when Tosca throws herself to her death (what, you're surprised? It's an opera, somebody has to die, and in Tosca, just about everyone does...). It was the music, it was the story, it was the performances (Magda Olivero's swan song*, and Pavarotti** in his prime). It was the strong, powerful woman in charge of her own life. I was HOOKED.

*1960 performance, Act II, part 1, part 2, part 3 (the famous aria, which my dad says is bad theology but my cielo points out is a biblically sound lament. When we saw her in 1979, she did the whole thing on her knees, which, considering she was 69, impressed my mom and me very much.), part 4. Very cool; such presence in her voice. Basic summary of this scene: her boyfriend is being tortured in the next room, and she's trying to convince the bad guy to stop it. Bad guy says he will, if she sleeps with him. Watch and see for yourself how it turns out. And you thought opera was boring.

**Here he is in the Met's 78-79 production, in NY. This is the same production we saw, with him, but with a different soprano obviously. Part 1 and part 2.

The next night we saw Tannhauser. I feel asleep shortly after the Venusberg scene of Act 1 (er, that link is a not entirely traditional production. Maybe I would've stayed awake if we had seen this!). Wagner is pretty heavy for a 9-year old, and it could be that Tosca wore me out! I did wake up with the brass fanfare (traditional production) in the 2nd act, which was pretty cool.

My folks had the 1962 recording of Tosca, with Leontyne Price, Giuseppe di Stefano, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. 2 records, red box, with a nice booklet on how they did the recording. I listened to that album OVER and OVER and OVER when I was a teenager. My parents gave me the piano score for Christmas one year, and I used to play through the WHOLE THING at one sitting (knowing right where the spots were to flip the records). It was my escape, even if to a brutal, all-too-real place (sometime I will write about why I think Tosca may have primed me for my future justice work...). A few years ago, my folks transferred the records onto CDs for me, which I thought was fabulous.

I enjoyed other operas -- the Puccini oeuvre, Verdi, Wagner (I grew into it, and besides, in my household, it could not be escaped), Mozart somewhat -- we were more romantics in my house. I remember adoring the New Year's Eve Met of the comedy Die Fledermaus, which was a riot, and starred Kiri Te Kanawa, who I promptly got a crush on (and oh my, the Met has put that performance online...goody!). And on into adulthood, I kept listening when I could.

But I think during seminary classical music became the background for studying, and less for really listening to. And with opera or longer orchestral works, I hate interruptions (I'm the same way about movies), so when I needed a brief musical pick-me-up, I opted for a few Indigo Girls or Patty Griffin songs.

Which helped. But I had forgotten what it meant to be immersed in music, whatever sort it was.

To be continued...

And thanks to all the youtube-ers for making all the linkage in this post possible!

My Inner Hermit

I was reading the latest post at the Abbey of the Arts, and was struck right off by the phrase "my inner monk." The thought resonated with me as a question: Do I have an inner monk? And I think the answer is: I'm not sure about a monk, but I definitely have an inner hermit.

The photo above was my hermitage when I went on retreat last year at Nada. As you may remember, I was there, by myself, for a week. I'm going back again the week after Easter, and will get to be in this same hermitage again. It's basically one room, and a bathroom. There's a little desk, a little kitchen (well stocked by the good folks at Nada), a bunk, and an easy chair facing that glorious set of windows facing south. There's also a wood stove which I enjoyed tending, although I never quite figured out how keep the temp lower than about 80 at night!

I think I have an inner hermit because sometimes the desire to get away to this hermitage is almost overwhelming. It is not quite the sense of wanting to run away from my problems and life's difficulties. Rather I sense it more as retreating away just to be with God, by myself, and sort things out for a while with no distractions.

Just sit there in that chair, looking south at the broad Sangre de Cristo landscape, soaking up the sun, music helping me to give voice and emotion to stuff that's packed inside. Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine myself there. A brief retreat, accessing the presence of the Divine so palpable in sunlight and solitude.

Thinking of that longing for retreat as "my inner hermit" is helpful because whereas before it simply felt like unrequited longing -- Ah! I want to get away! But I can't! -- now I can think about it as a part of myself that's giving me some information about my state of being and what needs paying attention to.

For instance, I think it's no accident that this "longing" is currently quite constant and feels almost physical -- while at the same time there is some very difficult stuff going in my life/our lives, not just my whole healing work but other mostly unbloggable stuff as well. In the middle of all this, my inner hermit is manifesting in the urge to just. stay. home. and. do. nothing.
It doesn't help (or maybe it does) that there's the Olympics with which to distract myself...

Recognizing my inner hermit helps me to think about way I might tend to her that could be more intentional and helpful rather than simply vegging out on the couch discovering the oddity that is olympic curling.

I know this: My inner hermit needs music. And sunlight (Denver's weather lately is not helping in this respect). And solitude. Learning to create these spaces in what is right now a very busy and challenging life might be a good Lenten practice for me...

Considering my toes in front of those fabulous south windows...

Love Songs From God

I was listening to this today:



Yes, yes, I know, Renée Fleming again. What can I say, I have a mild obsession.

Anyway. This is her cover of a famous Joni Mitchell song, "River," from a really wonderful album of jazz covers (rather than opera). Here's another song, from the same album, I was also listening to today:





So, lately...Oh, you know, I get tired of talking about this sometimes (and sometimes wonder if people are tired of hearing about it, one reason I think I haven't been saying much here lately) ...so suffice to say, healing is still a struggle, with better days and worse days, and mostly a sense that things that have been stuck and stagnant are moving again. I was going to say something about "progress" but that is too linear for a process which to me does not feel particularly linear at all.

Acupuncture has helped. Spiritual direction helps. Love of friends and my cielo helps. And I have to say it, even if you laugh, Renée Fleming helps.

In spiritual direction I learned that immersion in beauty is, for me, one of the best counterbalances to my pretty constant immersion in the muck and pain of life. I've been trying to find ways to do that, and for now it is coming a lot through music. In fact what made me realize it was going to the Met's Live in HD broadcast of Der Rosenkavalier (starring you-know-who). I was swept away. The next week in spiritual direction I realized that I was so swept away that my brain-on-hypercritical-deconstructive-overdrive actual shut its damnself up for four hours and just let me enjoy the wonder and beauty of moments like this one.


I loved it so much I went back and saw the encore showing.

In enjoying one youtube posting after another of Renée (may I call you that? surely by now we are on a first-name basis), I rediscovered her jazz album, Haunted Heart, which I actually had forgotten that we own (silly me). I've been listening to some of the songs over and over and the point I am trying to get to is this:

Renée's voice is like God singing to me.

I don't mean that like, "Oh, she has such a divine voice," although certainly she does. No, what I mean is, in these days when I need to feel God close, She is showing up through this music, this voice, to remind me that I'm loved, and I'm not alone.

And, apparently, She sings me love songs, gorgeous ones, like "My One and Only Love," that I posted above.

So I got to wondering..."River" is a sad song. It's a song about love lost. When Renée sings this lyric:

Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

...I wonder, does God feel that way sometimes? When I am sad and hurting and ticked off at God, does She sing sad, lament-y love songs about Her haunted heart and how She's trying to figure out how to win me back?

I'd like to think so...I think the prophets express this sometimes. And it opens up a whole new way, for me, of thinking about my relationship with the Divine One, one that is not about duty and responsibility, but rather is about longing, and love, and holds room even for pain. And in holding room for pain, there is then the possibility of comfort. And healing.

On a cold, snowy, day, I am thinking about this kind of God...

In the night, though we're apart
There's a ghost of you within my haunted heart
Ghost of you, my lost romance
Lips that laugh, eyes that dance

Haunted heart won't let me be
Dreams repeat a sweet but lonely song to me
Dreams are dust, it's you who must belong to me
And thrill my haunted heart, be still, my haunted heart

Dreams are dust, it's you who must belong to me
And thrill my haunted heart, be still, my haunted heart

Thinking About Trembling

A favorite seminary professor of mine has begun a blog which I'm enjoying. Today she posts a quote she found of Frederick Buechner:

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt
(from The Hungering Dark, 1968)

Her post on interconnections is lovely and thoughtful (and that she mentions our awesome theology class, the high point of my last quarter at Iliff, is a bonus). But the quote has me thinking about my own life, and call, and my struggles to live authentically and boldly in a world which values neither particularly much. The questioning if what I do -- who I touch, and how -- makes any difference whatsoever.

There are days, such as these, when the wondering gets the better of me. When my imagination feels exhausted, when the work to heal and be whole (myself, the world) seems endless.

Or perhaps the sentence should read like this: When my imagination feels exhausted the work to heal and be whole (myself, the world) seems endless.

Days when my best attempts for best touch meet only the immovable.

Or at least that is how it feels to me. Because Buechner is probably right: I have no idea. I have no idea what impact my life has in the world.

Who knows where the trembling stops? I want to think on that, ponder that possibility that in the trembling, there lies the way to hope.

Friday Five: God Comes Near Edition

From the revgals as usual, a nice Friday Five: "Please share five ways that God has come to you (your family or friends, your church or workplace, our world) in the past year, that God is coming to you right now, and/or that you are longing and looking for God to come."

Here are 5 photos that represent how God has come near to me this year (an important part of my journey this year, knowing that God is near...hence the focus is pretty much just on me...)


There was our trip back to Tucson to visit our Abuelitos (our adopted grandma and grandpa). Gorgeous spring in the desert, and a wonderful visit with them.



Now God, She made it blizzard at the beginning of my retreat, so that I could not get away (from Her). Although eventually I was able to get out to take this photo of my precious little hermitage.



The moment we had all been waiting for: I'm ordained! So full of Spirit I could hardly hold myself up during this moment.



This is a two-for-one: My cielo, and the goats. Divine love, and divine humor.

Another two-for-one: Dear friends (without whom I would have been lost this year), and the wonder of the Rocky Mountains.

Poetry Of The Day

After Psalm 137

We're still in Babylon but
We do not weep
Why should we weep?
We have forgotten
How to weep

We've sold our harps
And bought ourselves machines
That do our singing for us
And who remembers now
The songs we sang in Zion?

We have got used to exile
We hardly notice
Our captivity
For some of us
There are such comforts here
Such luxuries

Even a guard
To keep the beggars
From annoying us

Jerusalem
We have forgotten you.

- by Anne Porter, from Living Things: Collected Poems.

the one with the collar, part two

another day with the collar on
another day at court with someone

i can't get over my hatred
of that place
and yesterday afternoon
certainly did not help

greengirl texts me,
soon you will hate
putting on the collar, too

which
gives
me
pause.

is that what i want?
to hate the collar?

i decide:
i'll keep wearing it today
to grab a sandwich and
read my novel in the back booth

to go to the revolutionary meeting

and

to go have a beer
with my favorite revolutionary

i remember advice
from my therapist
after the arrest

do something life-giving
with these same folks
who were dealt death
associate goodness
with their faces
again

so: a beer and chips and salsa
and laughter and plotting
the anti-imperialist softball team

life-giving
associate goodness
with this collar

coming out of the restaurant
we run into a homeless guy
cheerfully staggering down the street
asking for change

for once i actually had some
and dug in my pocket
my favorite revolutionary did the same

he kind of dips his head,
says, "hey! minister!"
grinning
"you got the collar and everything!"

for a split second i think
what?
and then
oh!

"That's right," i say,
"this pastor's been
a busy girl today"

and put my change
in his hand

we head down the street
as he swings his arms wide
and hollers
"God bless everybody!"

"And you too,"
I holler back over my shoulder.

------------
part one is here.

Scabs and Scars

When I was in the second grade, I fell out of our climbing tree in the backyard. I don't remember what happened -- I think I just lost hold -- but I remember falling out of the tree backwards, landing flat on my back and the breath knocked out of me.

On the way down, a broken bit of branch tore a good long scratch in my right upper arm. It was the only wound from that fall.

What I also remember is the scab on that scratch. The scratch was long and thin, on my inner arm. It scabbed over hard and tight. And I remember sitting in class, in second grade, and every time I raised my hand to answer a question, the scab would pop apart a little. And it would hurt. I remember that even more clearly than getting the breath knocked out of me.

I was thinking about that today, driving the short hour home from spiritual direction, being literally knocked about by the windy day after an extended session of being spiritually knocked about -- not by my director, mind you, but by my own pain, and my own desperate struggle to hope.

My life right now is like that scab. Only bigger. That scab covers a two-year old wound and the months of continued wounding afterwards. It's a wound to the body, the soul, the spirit. It's a loss of trust, of belief, of innocence. It's layers of wounds over which is a hard, tight scab which I'm sure served a purpose for a time but is no longer much serving me. Because the only thing left outside is anger. And unbelief.

And I don't talk about it much. At all.

Every time, though, I raise my hand to speak of justice, of hope, of life, that scab pops apart a little. And it's terrifying. You'd think it would be nice, you know, a sign of healing, but it just hurts. What's underneath is tender tender tender and doesn't really want to be hurt again. And I resist that, and it's exhausting.

But on the other hand. When the scab begins to crack, the air can get in. And that tenderness can get out. And I need that. I need that. I am not this anger and unbelief that is left.

Today the scab cracked in a big way. Oh, it hurt. A lot. I'm exhausted. But feel a glimmer of hope (a little goat therapy this afternoon, including head rubs from Arlo, helped).

In second grade, eventually, the scab came off, bit by bit. I still have a scar on my arm from that fall, but the wound healed and stopped hurting. I like to look at that scar and remember that it is proof that in my life I have climbed trees without fear.

This wound will leave a scar as well. I wonder what I will think of it then.