Truth vs. Sentiment

"I understand God by His Word. I cannot understand God by impressions or feelings; I cannot get to know God by sentiments. If I am going to know God, I am going to know Him by His Word. I know I shall be in heaven, but I could not build on my feelings that I am going to heaven. I am going to heaven because God's Word says it, and I believe God's Word. And “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Rom. 10;17...If you build yourself on imaginations you will go wrong. You have the Word of God and it is enough...And truly the Word of God changes a man until he becomes an epistle of God. It transforms his mind, changes his character, moves him on from grace to grace, makes him an inheritor of the very nature of God. God comes in, dwells in, walks in, talks through, and sups with him who opens his being to the Word of God and receives the Spirit who inspired it."
-Smith Wiggelsworth

Words to match my inklings...

"Silence guards the inner heat of religious emotions. This inner heat is the life of the Holy Spirit within us. Thus, silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive. Diadochus of Photiki offers us a very concrete image: 'When the door of the steambath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says may be good. Thereafter the intellect, though lacking appropriate ideas, pours out a welter of confused thoughts to anyone it meets, as it no longer has the Holy Spirit to keep its understanding free from fantasy. Ideas of value always shun verbosity, being foreign to confusion and fantasy. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts."

"What needs to be guarded is the life of the Spirit within us. Especially we who want to witness to the presence of God's Spirit in the world need to tend the fire within with utmost care...Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of our doubt than of our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God's Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help him out and, with many words, convince others of his power. But it is precisely this wordy unbelief that quenches the fire."

The Way of the Heart by: Henri Nouwen

Remember to Listen

I love days like this.
Days of silent showers
holding only water, steam and soap.
Of frigid knuckles wrapped
around freshly mugged coffee.
Of unexposed sadness that
gets met with Perfect Love.

And this day He says to you and to me;
Set your face like flint,
Lift your eyes from every woe brought upon you.
This day, see Me most clearly
And with this lifted head invitation
I will sprout my Word in your dry earth.

On days like these,
Where every subtlety weighs heavy with sentiment,
I remember to lean in and strain my weary ear
for Faithful Mercy is gently prodding
every potential opening to Self,
even on this day.

You have nothing to prove to Me.

I'm in love for the first time

and the thought of His gaze softens my insides.
I am found in His heart.
I am found in his His affection.
Forever and ever and ever.
I belong to the Strong and Tender Father.
Never again, Darkness.
Never again.

Beloved Daughter,
You have My ear.

Come away with Me.

Listen, O daughter,

Consider and incline your ear;

Forget your own people also, and

your father's house.

So the King will greatly desire your beauty;

Because He is your Lord,

Worship him.

Psalm 45:10-11

Love Poem

Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;

All Your waves and billows have gone over me.

The LORD will command His love in the daytime,

And in the night His song shall be with me—

A prayer to the God of my life.

Psalm 42:7-8

I don't usually do things like this.

On my flight to California last week I had the following conversation with the young man sitting next to me, who happened to have the last name of Heap:

Me: So where are you from?

Heap: Arizona.

Me: Were you born there?

Heap: No, I was born in London...or somewhere...I'm not really sure.

Me: Oh, ok...cool...(don't really know what to think about that...)

Heap: I'm acutally going to go to London soon to visit my cousin. She does music and so do I so...

Me: What kind of music does she do?

Heap: She has a band and some of her music is on the soundtrack of Shrek 2 and Garden State...

Me: Oh, that's cool. (For some reason I'm just continuing to go along with the conversation without asking anymore about this cousin of his??)

Heap: She's a bitch, I really don't like her...but I really like her lyrics.

Me: Hm. So when are you going?

Heap: I'm not sure...She's going to help me out with music stuff though. Her band's name is Frou Frou?

Me: Wait...WHAT? Frou Frou?!?

Heap: You know them?

Me: (Instantly morphing into the tween of my youth) They are TOTALLY FAMOUS!

Heap: Her name is Imogen Heap.

Me: I KNOW...SHE IS FAMOUS!! My friends and I LOVE her! OMG!

Heap: Hmm, I didn't know she was that famous. Wow, you're like freaking out all of a sudden...

Can you guys believe that?!?! Now that I see her picture, they really look alike...and he was wearing a hat like that too. Crazy!

Totally famous...and totally met her cousin.

My friend got married

in the mountains of El Crucero, Nicaragua. She was the best kind of bride there could be: full of ease, joy and beauty. What a blessing it was to be present there and to capture her on her day...

Shy Feet

Amazed lately
at my self
which contains both willingness
and unwillingness so easily in one single body.

Finding that in necessary times
I am able to trade in my weak knees
for strong legs, in order to
move in the direction of the brave parts of my heart.

All the while,
in one and the same moment,
shyly hanging back
asking those same silly little questions
that haunt almost every little girl I know:
Am I good, am I pleasing, am I enough?

My toe tracing something on the ground
And those fantastic 80s lyrics circle me
round and round;
Love is a battlefield.

Amazed lately that
there is so much more fight in me
than I could have ever possibly realized before now.

goodbye:hello::25:26

Well, today was my birthday.
That's right. The day that Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died, was my birthday.
But that's okay. Life and death...they are all bound to happen, right?

Last night there was a dark, furry moth on the ceiling of our family room. My sister said, "Moths always remind me of death." A foreshadowing of today? Weird.

That's okay. For a little bit I felt heavy about it. About death, accompanying my birthday. Then I remembered that I didn't really like this past year, and that it's okay to lay it down to die. I can actually say, it's over...phew! It's under my belt now. I have all of the richness and wisdom of experience that heartache and grief bring...and yet I don't have to experience it in that same way again. RIP 2-5. I'll wave a big goodbye to you.

Hello 2-6. You feel sunnier to me. And I don't mind being closer to the big 3-0. Because as life is lived it grows and expands our hearts if we let it...so next year has to be better. Simply because...I let my heart be made bigger.

From: Five Flights Up

By: Elizabeth Bishop


...The little black dog runs in his yard.
His owner's voice arises, stern,
"You ought to be ashamed!"
What has he done?
He bounces cheerfully up and down;
he rushes in circles in the fallen leaves.


Obviously, he has no sense of shame.
He and the bird know everything is answered,
all taken care of,
no need to ask again.--
Yesterday brought to today so lightly!
A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.

You have regarded my low estate.

I always avoided hunching myself over

that ground down there.

So lowly, so strangely religious.

Then the fire. It came.

Fires of grief from every direction.

I was burned down to ash

until my face had to meet it.

My face,

it twisted into both defense and release

when it had come forcefully down.

And only when face to face with it

could I see its latent fertility.

My knees and shins laid to rest.

My forehead kissed its surface.

My little ashen body cradled in its earth.

Both life and death in one sweeping motion.

To now find myself newly pruned and planted.

With fresh new skin that covers

a newly attentive posture.

My tongue

scorched by hot coal

cries anew, "You are able!"

Relearning steps.

Walking humbly and keeping eyes to the ground.

Eyes to the ground.

You will lead me.

You will lead.

Dear Summer

First Grade Assignment: Write a letter to Summer

"Dear Summer,
I love you you love me. You are yellow. When you come I will play outside. I will never go inside. Summer can you see me do soccer? Summer look at me I can ride my bike." -Ekjoatroop

"Dear Summer,
You are the best. I really miss you very much. Would you play with my sister when I am sick?" -Jahee

"Dear Summer,
You are cute. You are gold like a flower." -Luisa

"Dear Summer, You are beautiful. I am going to the pool can you come with me?" -Maria

"Dear Summer,
You're too hot. You're yellow like the sun. I'm going to play tag with you. Can you eat? Yes I can eat." -Noe

"Dear Summer,
You fry me like an egg. You are my friend. Do you eat grass?" -Adan

Kids' natural curiosity and playful poetry always surprises me. I loved reading these sweet letters.

There was a day at a camp
in a clearing
in a wood
that has coupled itself so closely
with my heart these days...

The One Who Awakens all Hearts
speaks to all sleepy souls from birth:
Welcome to the light little one,
I am your Helper.
All of my Love is for your good.

And we,
with squinty-eyed distrust
or wide-eyed hopeful trust,
reject or receive these Words
and carry on.

We carry on,
we carry on,
and the world surprises and mistreats us
from all sides.
We carry on,
maybe crawling along or skipping,
laid out or upright.

And we may either say,
This mountain is oh so movable,
for my Father goes before me...or
This mountain will surely be my end
so I will lay down and surrender to its large bark.

And this is how it goes-
He watches as we

become what we believe.

and pass it on and down and all around.

Now I'm taken back to that day of nature learning

in the camp

in the clearing

in the woods.

The leader had said:

Look! I have brought you out into safety.

This clearing has no trap or harm for you.

Now- fly like a bat that does not see with eyes of sight!

Blind-folded and squinty-eyed, I ran.

But picking up speed, I stopped.

Trying again, I ran.

And when fear of a great nothing grew too strong,

I stopped again.

Hadn't I seen the clearing with my own two eyes?

But distrust always hears the bark of the mountain

over the steady flow of Love from the Father.

And fear breeds distrust and distrust will never

lead to flight.

And here I sit today,

unsure with eyes of sight,

but seeing clearly with eyes of spirit

that there is a clear path for my feet.

And if I cling to trust, then I just may

become what I believe.

Sister's Senior Show: Octopi!!

My incredibly talented sister had her BFA showing last night, in Manhattan.
I was there with my new Nikon L100 to capture the action. Check it out!

The Weight of it All

At age 5 or 6,
the witch in my story book,
after hatching some kind of hair-brained plan,
said something like this;

That's so crazy...
it just might work!

And I thought and thought about what a funny thing that was to say. And I thought and thought about the words she chose and

how they matched, but also how they didn't.

And it made me stop,
and file it away,
in tiny wonderment of the
possible playfulness of words.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

May 2006:
I took a trip.
From Kansas City to Osaka, Japan.

Mother tongue abandoned,
I thought that I'd feel free.
With no possibility of being forced into meaningless chit-chat or other-worldly discussions that always seem to knock my feet off of familiar earth-ground,
my anxieties were quieted.

Walking that strange cement the first few days, I was free to be just "she" or "her", and enjoy the sun and the water and the ground.
And then walking that strange cement my last few days the ground seemed to repel me, as I found myself missing the weight of words.

May 2006:
I took a trip.

From Kansas City to Osaka, Japan.

They showed me words like arigato, and kon'nichiwa
and I would speak them, but always with that same repellant feeling in my mouth. That mush-mouthed feeling of, You don't belong here.

And soon I was missing my familiar thank you and hello.
Words that didn't need to sit in my mouth before being pronounced or defined or translated. And these remembrances twisted around in my heart and reminded me of the weight of it all.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was never good at doing active kid things at recess on the playground.
In the classroom I felt like I was more apart of my class, but on the playground
I was more like the strange child on the sidelines.

Separate.

So when Morgan-wavy-haired-cool-girl came along,
I bowed down.
But when she decided to tell Ronnie-blue-eyes-cool-guy
that he made my heart beat so fast and my cheeks go so red,
I flipped out.

I remember my fists
that had clamped onto her shirt so fiercely so that
when she tried to run, the cotton had stretched and pulled.
But I was no match for Morgan-wavy-haired-cool-girl,
and she got her way.

I stood watching her skip carelessly
toward my Ronnie-blue-eyes-cool-guy
for just one second.
I couldn't watch for long, my mingled pride and dread
made me turn my back, ever so casually,
just as if I couldn't care less about what she was about to do.

She returned,
grinning, laughing,
with a report.
What had he said about me?
He had said;
Disgusting!

That word,
the worst news of my 9 year-old life.
That word,
like a punch in the nose
that makes your eyes
water down your red, red cheeks...

That word.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"At a certain point you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing, or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding, or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused not everywhere the same...The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega. It is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blended note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings. You take a step in the right direction to pray to this silence, and even to address the prayer to "World". Distinctions blur. Quit your tents. Pray without ceasing."

"Teaching a Stone to Talk" -Annie Dillard

You hide us well.

But we, O Lord, behold we are Thy little flock;

possess us as Thine, stretch Thy wings over us, and

let us fly under them. Be Thou our glory.

-Saint Augustine

Breaking Spring Open

Nicaragua;
I thank you for those six days in March when

Your light hit us just right,

Your sand opened up for my toes,

Your flowers spilled over edges,

Your dusk broke through that tiny mountain town,

And for one sweet week

You gave me back this one sweet friend.

Child Eyes

When I was a little girl
my eyes held all knowing in their sockets.
If a thing too overwhelming came to be,
I could simply close my tiny eyes
and un-see the unmanageable.

More than once
I lost control of my bicycle on a certain steep, steep hill.
So squeezing shut my eyes,
that hill would come to not exist for one
tiny
instant.

More than once
I was alone
in the Buick's big backseat,
and we were again pulling into that terrifying car wash.
Unfamiliar sounds and movements invaded my senses.
Pulling back my mother's hand,
back to where I sat,
It was my shield from the strange.
Placed and held firmly
from temple to temple,
arching up over my nose.
Familiar skin on mother hands hid me from my nightmare.

And now,
though with longer limbs,
I still struggle between denial and truth
in the daily opening and closing of these eyes.

When what I fear the most enters my vision,
with head ducked under covers,
it becomes the monster that I will always dread.

But
When what I fear the most enters my vision,
and with willing eyes I take it in,
in all of its terrifying possibilities,
it releases from all of my grasping intentions,
and transforms into an offering to the God of the Poor in Spirit.
I am now open to receive His heart.
And certainly, He does not fail to hear the voices of his hurting children.

Do you trust Me? What have you to fear?

In Celebration of Light: Sunday morning.

Excerpts by: Wallace Stevens


1
...The day is like wide water, without sound.
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine...


2
...What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
...Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.


4
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?"...


5
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss."
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires.
...The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness
She makes the willow shiver in the sun...


7
...Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable...

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Decision

cred.

Lenten Centering

Father of light,
in You is found no shadow of change
but only the fullness of life and limitless truth.
Open our hearts to the voice of Your Word
and free us from the original darkness
that shadows our vision.
Restore our sight that we may look upon Your Son
who calls us to repentance and a change of heart,
for he lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL)

photo cred.

Ear Candy

She's a Magazine

Hold that pose. Good enough?

Root Canals and Holy Company

01.29.09
I laid back in my dentist's chair this afternoon and opened my mouth wide.
Needles, drills and files all took their turns destroying and rebuilding a bad tooth. I felt nothing. I took no part in the process.

In fact, I had been given so much anesthesia that I was numb from my jaw bone, all the way up into my ear. On my way out the door, he told me that I wouldn't experience much more pain after it wore off, but he proceeded to write me a prescription for Vicodin, "just in case."

And as my numb self walked out of the building, my mind wandered to a time, back when the full affect of pain would have been felt, accepted, and coped with. Not only dental pains, but birth pains, travel pains, sickness pains, depression pains, surgery pains. We no longer have to feel these things in their fullness. We expect numbing comfort. We do not often have to consider in our spirits how to sit in the discomfort and bear its fullness.

And I have to wonder...
Are we better off for it, or worse?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I have been forgetting to consult the mirror lately.
I didn't even realize until a few days ago.
It's weird how certain life experiences can bring you so inside yourself that you forget that there is a self you wear on the outside, too.
Who knows, I may have looked like this for the past couple of weeks:

But you would tell me if I did...right?
I should've taken a hint when one of my students guessed that I was 61.
"Hmm. Close..."

On top of everything...I have a cold. Just a little baby one. But still, a cold.
I couldn't sleep last night.
Even with the rain outside (usually works like a charm).
My skin was burning and my mind was whirling.
But I'm good today.
Stable for the moment.
The window shows me wet swirling snow outside this morning.
And I am warmly typing away at my indoor desk.
The world shows me unimaginable loss and grief.
And I am contentedly settled in my center.
Not numb, but rather holding up all of the pain in the light of Alpha and Omega.
It was a fight to find my center, and a very counter-intuitive one at that.
My anxiety tends to whisper these ideas in my ear:
Keep busy, keep occupied, keep moving.
If you stay still, you will be crushed by emotions.
When I really stop to think about it,
it's weird how much fear I associate with stillness...and emotion.
Weary of movements that never manifest into much of anything,

I let myself rest.
And find that I am not alone, after all.

Owning and bearing the fullness of my whole heart, I unfold in the company of these words, uttered by a sister long before my time:
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well..." -Julian of Norwich

Heard

Experimenting with Design