“Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.”
- St. John of the Cross
Faith Sharing
“Where have you seen God lately…or, where have you seen love?” Regina asked, opening up the first of our long-delayed Tuesday night faith-sharing gatherings at the White Rose.
“Bah,” I thought, “I don’t want to answer these questions!” All I could think of, actually, was how I have not been attentive to God, how I’ve felt almost resistant to prayer. What do I have to offer this time of spirit-filled sharing that is genuine? Nothing!
“But,” I reasoned with myself, “I am here. And what good is it to be here in body with mind and spirit withheld? I will be open.” The answer to the question came in flashes:
- White crystal flakes, vertically clinging to trunks of trees, to my green sleeves,
as I walked, watching, through the park.
- Wild-haired, wide-eyed, effusively-emotive, two-year-old, love-of-my-heart, Seneca…
- Washing dishes hearing Daniel Johnston quaveringly croon, “True love will find you
in the end…” from a mix Ted made.
In all these things I found love, or rather love found me and captured my attention, appreciation and awe.
Blessed Among Women
The day of the snowy walk was densely gray in a series of densely gray days. The heavy white flakes falling beckoned me to come out and appreciate what wonder those dark clouds contained. I had much on my mind when I set out, and an iPod for further distraction if that wasn’t enough. A seemingly incongruent memory slipped in, driving a winding road in Kentucky, flanked with fall trees trembling with embodied mystery of life and death. I was asking of God, “Are you? And if so, who are you?" In response I heard, “look and listen.” So I looked at the trees and the sky and they followed me all the way here to this cement path in a park, in Chicago, in the snow. I looked at how the delicate flakes brazenly bucked gravity, catching hold of limbs and leaves, barely protruding bark; me. How these single, exquisitely unique crystals clung too to one another, forming heaps and drifts, fine lines along fences. How laced together they’d survive far longer than those that drifted apart and disappeared.
It occurred to me that I always new the snow would stir my spirit, but as a child who grew up in Florida, never travelling except to take a family road trip to Illinois (almost always in the summer!), developing a relationship with snow was improbable at best. Yet, here I was getting just what I’d dreamed of, and I almost missed the wonder of that. Another Kentucky memory was called to mind, running through the woods, chasing after my dog, Sheila, suddenly having a sense of déjà vu. Not because this moment was crossing over one that had already happened, but because it was the living of a dream, as so many moments of wandering in the oh-so-accessible woods were in those days. It was something that when I dreamed it, I didn’t really believe it would happen. I didn’t intentionally try to make it happen even, yet here I was.
A desire to practice the art of loving, along with an unshakeable, restless, curiosity has propelled me. Wanting to know and serve Jesus led me to Kentucky. Wanting to know myself and serve others led me to Chicago. Little did I know the things I never dared ask for would be added unto me. All these things...even something as small as a good mix CD. I do so love a good mix, though it’s not something I would ever ask for or expect. Such a small, frivolous thing. Yet, hearing this one touched me at my core. “Even this? I even get this?” Truly a grace. Why am I so fortunate? Why do I ever doubt it? What am I paying attention to instead that I almost (often) miss these small good things?
Beloved, Let Us Love
I remember noticing at a very early stage; perhaps even within the first year of her living, all that it took to keep Seneca on the sunny side of her tempestuous disposition was to give her attention. She shines with it. But even her disappointment, her hurt, her anger, amaze me. There is no veil over her emotions, she feels them loud, forces them out – sometimes to a point of exhaustion, sometimes to fresh new beaming, but always with absolute authenticity. I cannot maintain a dark mood in her presence. The frivolity of things that distract me from basic interacting are quickly dissolved by her boisterous laugh, her spontaneous hugs, her frequent exclamations, “Oh, Mimi!” “I love you ‘Mimi’!”
My experience of Seneca was reflected in Regina’s story of B., this little girl who barely knows her, running into her arms and proclaiming, “I love you so much!” This was a revelation of God. As she told it my mind moved to the phrase, “unassuming love.” But no, I don’t think so; I suspect this love B expressed was given with the assumption it would be received, with the expectation even, that it would be reciprocated. I am not beyond believing this is true too of capital “L” Love, which we might also call, “God’s Love.” Unconditional, perhaps, but not unassuming. Where did I get the idea that I could interchange those words?
Is it defensiveness that leads some to think otherwise? To pretend that people are capable of offering love without at least desiring it be appreciated – it is less frightening to risk giving it if I can imagine not expecting a return or receiving it if I can imagine a return is not desired. Can it be, even, that belief in unremitting Divine Love is needed simple to survive human love’s inadequacy?
In any case, it seems evident that God wanted, demanded even, that love be recognized and responded to. God, like Seneca, wants attention, as all of us little images of God do. It does seem though, that God’s love is able – whether through grace, or mercy, or some other spiritual gift – to love beyond the seemingly inevitable let down. This Divine Love, too, is willing and able to proffer itself without first having been given evidence that it will be received, or that the recipient is deserving. It defies the assumption that trust must be preceded by trustworthiness. So, perhaps that chord of assumption and expectation is superseded by a resonant note of hope, faith. This is the miracle of B’s embrace. This is a challenge to us all.
Oh me of little faith! How often I fall short of that call. Among other things, it was noted in the reflections of others that I have a tendency to be cutting, condescending, pessimistic. I am putting more emphasis on these words than the speakers did because they affirmed my suspicion that as I experience a lack of abundance in my surroundings, I become stingy with my self. In other words, I adhere to a reciprocal model, relating reactively rather drawing from a deeper source that recognizes I am all but drowning in an ocean of abundance if I’d only pay attention.
The critique of the speakers, along with thoughts that began to rise to the surface as I cleared off space by sharing, affirmed my suspicion that I am continually, subconsciously, responding to a fear of becoming “too close.” These defensive reactions – irritability, avoidance, sarcasm, silence, critique, embarrassment, dismissal – develop because I sense my territory is being encroached upon. Can I trust the invaders? Almost in direct opposition to the Divine Love illuminated earlier, that trusts even without evidence, I continue to live out a love that often takes shelter in the shadow of suspicion, even without evidence. The Pygmalion effect comes into play: fearful that intimacy will reveal my inadequacy, I distance myself from those who’ve become “too close” by becoming unlovable, proving myself right; I’m not fit for this.
Here is the crazy catch, in the midst of all my masochistic machinations, I continue to be loved. Beloved. This is the miracle of Love’s embrace. This is a challenge to me. I want to be worthy of this name, Amy, Beloved, that I have been given. Worthy of all those who speak it, and of those who crave to be called by it too. I don’t know if I ever will be. I do know I can practice giving attention; offering and receiving appreciation and affection; allowing others to be who and what they are; hoping always; believing that Love Itself is worth the risk, whatever the results.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Incomplete Thoughts - Fasting Blog Pt. 2
Trust has been a recurring them for me during this trip, trust, and also language. As I begin writing, I am not sure of how these themes are related, only that both seem to intercept and underlie everything happening around me. It struck me, yesterday afternoon as I was drifting through the kitchen in a haze, preparing V8 with cayenne pepper for me, hot water with lemon/honey/cinnamon for Ted, how much we all have to trust each other in this space. Many of us are meeting for the first time, are belongings are in a shared space, as are our beds. We are putting ourselves into vulnerable positions, wearing black hoods and walking outside, inciting enmity or approbation or intentional ignoring from those confronted with our message (“torture is terrorism,” “indefinite detention is unlawful,” “shut down Guantanamo”), weary and at times befuddled from lack of sleep and fasting. Somehow this community creates a space that allows us to exist outside of conventional defenses, as though we are so aware of our mutual reliance that we hardly ever think twice about it. “there is no question that we need each other,” Carmen said during a reflection a few nights ago. It is community that enables us to continue and it is community that compelled me to come.
* * *
Why was I thinking the other day about Hannah’s vision of the web? I was on a Skype call with my older sister, Hannah, recently and she recounted a memory from when she was six years old, standing in the kitchen and seeing a vision – an intricate web of interlaced parts, all things connected – “this means something,” she said to herself. I don’t remember her ever telling me that before, but the same idea, this notion of interconnectedness, has become a kind weltanschauung the vantage from which I view and engage with life.
* * *
This morning’s gospel reading was Mark 1:7-11. Jesus is baptized by John after which the “heavens are torn open” and God’s spirit descends upon Jesus, “like a dove.” Bill S. observed that, in theological studies the assumption is made that this is not something that visibly happened, that people standing around did not see this rending of the heavens, this descending dove, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. “Scripture is calling us to look deeper,” to look toward what is unseen, to see through illusions. Illusion blurs so much of our sense of reality, sometimes created with great intentionality, through manipulation, for the sake of power – sometimes created inadvertently, through carelessness, ignorance – it is our responsibility to call one another to look deeper, to really see. And to know too that what we look to leads us. Chantal closed the morning circle leading us in a song, “woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” A mind stayed on freedom aims toward it, eyes looking for humanity, recognize it, hearts hungering for justice are filled by it.
* * *
Why was I thinking the other day about Hannah’s vision of the web? I was on a Skype call with my older sister, Hannah, recently and she recounted a memory from when she was six years old, standing in the kitchen and seeing a vision – an intricate web of interlaced parts, all things connected – “this means something,” she said to herself. I don’t remember her ever telling me that before, but the same idea, this notion of interconnectedness, has become a kind weltanschauung the vantage from which I view and engage with life.
* * *
This morning’s gospel reading was Mark 1:7-11. Jesus is baptized by John after which the “heavens are torn open” and God’s spirit descends upon Jesus, “like a dove.” Bill S. observed that, in theological studies the assumption is made that this is not something that visibly happened, that people standing around did not see this rending of the heavens, this descending dove, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. “Scripture is calling us to look deeper,” to look toward what is unseen, to see through illusions. Illusion blurs so much of our sense of reality, sometimes created with great intentionality, through manipulation, for the sake of power – sometimes created inadvertently, through carelessness, ignorance – it is our responsibility to call one another to look deeper, to really see. And to know too that what we look to leads us. Chantal closed the morning circle leading us in a song, “woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” A mind stayed on freedom aims toward it, eyes looking for humanity, recognize it, hearts hungering for justice are filled by it.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
How Then Shall We Live? Fasting notes, Day One
See what kind of love God has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know God. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been appeared…
-1 John 3:1-2
We are fasting again, refraining from food and engaging in action to advocate for honoring human dignity. In this frame of mind I heard the above reading as a handful of us rose early to begin the day with the Daily Office. I heard the reading as though it were being spoken by a Guantanamo detainee, “we should be called children of God…” Does the world not name them as such because they do not know God? Or do we not care so much as we imagine whether or not one is the progeny of this Divine Being?
But then, not only do we not name these men as children of God; we seldom even name them as individual persons, as people. “They have no faces.” “You can’t see their faces.” I heard from passersby. They were commenting on a group of us, maybe fifteen or so, wearing jumpsuits that distorted the shapes of our bodies and hoods that veiled our faces. What they said was true as well of those we don this garb to represent. We, as a nation, have hidden their faces. We have, as some mentioned in our morning circle, “disappeared the poets.”
Several friends and I have been preparing for this fast by studying a JustFaith module on torture and reading the autobiography of Sr. Dianna Ortiz who was kidnapped and tortured in Guatemala. What is continually reiterated is that the intent of torture, along with acquiring information, is to obliterate the person. Though friends and family easily recognized Sr. Dianna after her intense experience of torture, she no longer had a sense of her self that she could trust, nor any person outside herself that she could trust to speak the truth. Healthy relationship, even with oneself, is shattered.
Walking from Trinity Lutheran Church to the Superior Court House with my senses blurred by a black hood and an empty belly, I relied on the words of our guide – we’re crossing a street now, there’s an incline here, the path is about to get narrow – and the measured steps of the person before me to which I matched my own pace, I was suddenly aware of how effortlessly I was relying on trust in order to keep moving forward. I was vulnerable and took that trust being honored for granted. I was vulnerable and took the care that was gifted me for granted. What happens when that trust is betrayed? What happens when that care is crushed?
We opened our circle this morning with the following poem by Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost:
They Cannot Help
Those who are charitable
Cannot help but sacrifice for others.
They cannot help but face danger
if they wish to remain true.
When they face injustice, dishonesty, and iniquity,
They cannot help but be under the power of traitors and the notorious.
Consider what might compel a man
To kill himself or another.
Does oppression not demand
Some reaction against the oppressor?
It is natural that a man is driven to invention
And to creation in times of duress.
The evildoer will be punished,
He cannot avoid making amends, and must apologize eventually.
Those who foolishly dispute with Dost the Poet
Cannot help but surrender, or else run away.
Oppression demands response – creative, inventive – the question is, what will that response be and when will the consequences be made manifest? Today, in his opening statement as a defendant in today’s trial*, Carmen Trotta enumerated on the ways that we as Witness Against Torture have tried to confront the injustice of indefinite detention and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and Bagram. The judge kept saying that mentioning Guantanamo, legislation, U.S. policies, even the name Obama in the courtroom was inappropriate. Also trying to start a discussion at the House of Representatives was, apparently, inappropriate (hence the trial for alleged “disorderly and disruptive conduct”). I began to wonder, when every other route to communicate “appropriately” has been tried, when creative alternatives have been rebuffed – what remains? One is pressed toward desperation which so often tends toward despair and despair, I do believe, is the greatest temptation toward violence.
Oppression does demand some reaction, as every action does. Yet somehow, as we went around the circle, folks sharing their feelings, though there was some weariness, some anxiety, there was no rage, no depression, no threats of violent uprising. Amazingly, the most frequently used word was “excitement.” Hope was there and even mysterious joy. Because, because, we continue to believe there is another way. As one woman shared, quoting Camus, “we must be neither victims nor executioners,” we must find that 3rd place. And we find that way with one another.
The Psalm for today was Psalm 98. One that makes the outlandish claim that “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” A psalm that tumults into praise being solicited of all things, calling even the rivers to “clap their hands.” It’s a ridiculous kind of hope, in a way, that such salvation as promised by the prophets and the Christ – prisoners set free, hungry fed, the kiss of justice and peace – is possible, is promised even. Yet, I prefer it to any other way. It is, if one has eyes to see, evidenced in life and it allows me to live. But it is a hope, a joy that requires eyes and arms wide open also to sorrow. Somehow we cannot really live without linking arms with the dying, perhaps because we are all among that number. And so here we are again, fasting, vigiling, mourning, visioning, sharing, loving. Here we are learning again and again how to be among the living.
-1 John 3:1-2
We are fasting again, refraining from food and engaging in action to advocate for honoring human dignity. In this frame of mind I heard the above reading as a handful of us rose early to begin the day with the Daily Office. I heard the reading as though it were being spoken by a Guantanamo detainee, “we should be called children of God…” Does the world not name them as such because they do not know God? Or do we not care so much as we imagine whether or not one is the progeny of this Divine Being?
But then, not only do we not name these men as children of God; we seldom even name them as individual persons, as people. “They have no faces.” “You can’t see their faces.” I heard from passersby. They were commenting on a group of us, maybe fifteen or so, wearing jumpsuits that distorted the shapes of our bodies and hoods that veiled our faces. What they said was true as well of those we don this garb to represent. We, as a nation, have hidden their faces. We have, as some mentioned in our morning circle, “disappeared the poets.”
Several friends and I have been preparing for this fast by studying a JustFaith module on torture and reading the autobiography of Sr. Dianna Ortiz who was kidnapped and tortured in Guatemala. What is continually reiterated is that the intent of torture, along with acquiring information, is to obliterate the person. Though friends and family easily recognized Sr. Dianna after her intense experience of torture, she no longer had a sense of her self that she could trust, nor any person outside herself that she could trust to speak the truth. Healthy relationship, even with oneself, is shattered.
Walking from Trinity Lutheran Church to the Superior Court House with my senses blurred by a black hood and an empty belly, I relied on the words of our guide – we’re crossing a street now, there’s an incline here, the path is about to get narrow – and the measured steps of the person before me to which I matched my own pace, I was suddenly aware of how effortlessly I was relying on trust in order to keep moving forward. I was vulnerable and took that trust being honored for granted. I was vulnerable and took the care that was gifted me for granted. What happens when that trust is betrayed? What happens when that care is crushed?
We opened our circle this morning with the following poem by Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost:
They Cannot Help
Those who are charitable
Cannot help but sacrifice for others.
They cannot help but face danger
if they wish to remain true.
When they face injustice, dishonesty, and iniquity,
They cannot help but be under the power of traitors and the notorious.
Consider what might compel a man
To kill himself or another.
Does oppression not demand
Some reaction against the oppressor?
It is natural that a man is driven to invention
And to creation in times of duress.
The evildoer will be punished,
He cannot avoid making amends, and must apologize eventually.
Those who foolishly dispute with Dost the Poet
Cannot help but surrender, or else run away.
Oppression demands response – creative, inventive – the question is, what will that response be and when will the consequences be made manifest? Today, in his opening statement as a defendant in today’s trial*, Carmen Trotta enumerated on the ways that we as Witness Against Torture have tried to confront the injustice of indefinite detention and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and Bagram. The judge kept saying that mentioning Guantanamo, legislation, U.S. policies, even the name Obama in the courtroom was inappropriate. Also trying to start a discussion at the House of Representatives was, apparently, inappropriate (hence the trial for alleged “disorderly and disruptive conduct”). I began to wonder, when every other route to communicate “appropriately” has been tried, when creative alternatives have been rebuffed – what remains? One is pressed toward desperation which so often tends toward despair and despair, I do believe, is the greatest temptation toward violence.
Oppression does demand some reaction, as every action does. Yet somehow, as we went around the circle, folks sharing their feelings, though there was some weariness, some anxiety, there was no rage, no depression, no threats of violent uprising. Amazingly, the most frequently used word was “excitement.” Hope was there and even mysterious joy. Because, because, we continue to believe there is another way. As one woman shared, quoting Camus, “we must be neither victims nor executioners,” we must find that 3rd place. And we find that way with one another.
The Psalm for today was Psalm 98. One that makes the outlandish claim that “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” A psalm that tumults into praise being solicited of all things, calling even the rivers to “clap their hands.” It’s a ridiculous kind of hope, in a way, that such salvation as promised by the prophets and the Christ – prisoners set free, hungry fed, the kiss of justice and peace – is possible, is promised even. Yet, I prefer it to any other way. It is, if one has eyes to see, evidenced in life and it allows me to live. But it is a hope, a joy that requires eyes and arms wide open also to sorrow. Somehow we cannot really live without linking arms with the dying, perhaps because we are all among that number. And so here we are again, fasting, vigiling, mourning, visioning, sharing, loving. Here we are learning again and again how to be among the living.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Love Itself
August 17, 2011
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Enough that my usual absent-mindedness has become amplified to an almost unmanageable degree. I forgot to turn off the crockpot of tomato sauce before leaving for a day of babysitting; forgot to bring my phone to the first place; forgot to bring my planner back from it; forgot to bring my bike key to my next babysitting gig—despite riding my bike there, and locking it in the parking lot—and also forgot to bring my wallet or cash or a CTA card, thus stranding myself in Lincoln Park at 10:00pm.
M graciously came to pick me up in spite of being “on house.” The drive was good and gave us time to share in some of what’s been crowding my mind and hers: the chaos of our community, the shabbiness of our hospitality, the divergent projects, the need for lines of separation (are we a house of hospitality? a farm? an activist commune?). Some of these pontifications surface in the haphazard article I’m attempting for the newsletter that shifts from “connecting the dots” to “not seeing the forest for the trees. I pose the question, “what is the forest?” and take a couple of grasping guesses.
While the kids were sleeping tonight I read some of Robert Ellsberg’s Saint’s Guide to Happiness and came across this bit about St. Therese of Lisieux:
“She confessed to feeling a call to every vocation, to be a warrior, a priest, a doctor of the church and a martyr. But ultimately she believed that her vocation was nothing less than to ‘love itself,’ a virtue embracing every calling without exception. ‘My vocation is love!’ she wrote” (94).
How well I can relate to “Little Flower” in her feeling of being called to everything and nothing! the latter being what “everything” tends to become when you try to do it all, except perhaps when instead on nothing one chooses love, which embraces all but is itself. I too have felt that sense of vocation to love, but have seldom had the courage to proclaim it with such conviction. When asked what I am aspiring towards, I only can say, “to love well.” That sounds so feeble in my ears. I’ve tried to bolster it with better answers, sprinkling in bits about “systemic injustice” and “simple living.” Flimsy words coming out of my mouth.
Love looked humble, weak even, and I plastered her with credentials—things I do care about, but things that belong in her, not over her. I began to bury love and have observed myself becoming increasingly less gentle, less kind, more irritable and more uncertain. I care about and believe in most of what I am doing, more often than not I enjoy it too. What I am beginning to wonder though is am I doing these things out of love, or instead of love? When I was reading St. Therese’s exclamation, “My vocation is Love!” the thought occurred to me, “The forest,” (the one we are blinded from because of attentiveness to the many trees) “is love.” And I’m afraid I’ve lost sight of it.
I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. Enough that my usual absent-mindedness has become amplified to an almost unmanageable degree. I forgot to turn off the crockpot of tomato sauce before leaving for a day of babysitting; forgot to bring my phone to the first place; forgot to bring my planner back from it; forgot to bring my bike key to my next babysitting gig—despite riding my bike there, and locking it in the parking lot—and also forgot to bring my wallet or cash or a CTA card, thus stranding myself in Lincoln Park at 10:00pm.
M graciously came to pick me up in spite of being “on house.” The drive was good and gave us time to share in some of what’s been crowding my mind and hers: the chaos of our community, the shabbiness of our hospitality, the divergent projects, the need for lines of separation (are we a house of hospitality? a farm? an activist commune?). Some of these pontifications surface in the haphazard article I’m attempting for the newsletter that shifts from “connecting the dots” to “not seeing the forest for the trees. I pose the question, “what is the forest?” and take a couple of grasping guesses.
While the kids were sleeping tonight I read some of Robert Ellsberg’s Saint’s Guide to Happiness and came across this bit about St. Therese of Lisieux:
“She confessed to feeling a call to every vocation, to be a warrior, a priest, a doctor of the church and a martyr. But ultimately she believed that her vocation was nothing less than to ‘love itself,’ a virtue embracing every calling without exception. ‘My vocation is love!’ she wrote” (94).
How well I can relate to “Little Flower” in her feeling of being called to everything and nothing! the latter being what “everything” tends to become when you try to do it all, except perhaps when instead on nothing one chooses love, which embraces all but is itself. I too have felt that sense of vocation to love, but have seldom had the courage to proclaim it with such conviction. When asked what I am aspiring towards, I only can say, “to love well.” That sounds so feeble in my ears. I’ve tried to bolster it with better answers, sprinkling in bits about “systemic injustice” and “simple living.” Flimsy words coming out of my mouth.
Love looked humble, weak even, and I plastered her with credentials—things I do care about, but things that belong in her, not over her. I began to bury love and have observed myself becoming increasingly less gentle, less kind, more irritable and more uncertain. I care about and believe in most of what I am doing, more often than not I enjoy it too. What I am beginning to wonder though is am I doing these things out of love, or instead of love? When I was reading St. Therese’s exclamation, “My vocation is Love!” the thought occurred to me, “The forest,” (the one we are blinded from because of attentiveness to the many trees) “is love.” And I’m afraid I’ve lost sight of it.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Sea 'n Me
Sun, in her abundance, poured light deep into the apparently endless water, scattered heaping handfuls across the surface, and allowed the leftovers to melt, dripping over the sky and into the sand. This was not Lake Michigan, but the Atlantic Ocean. That’s a lot of light. Heat was heavily present already, at 9 a.m. I mindfully embraced the warmth as affection, barring the perception of oppressive uncomfortability that I normally receive high temperatures with. I stepped through thin slips of water, into soaked yielding sand, around golden clumps of seaweed that my sisters and I had been dodging in the water the day before, tossing it on Rachel so she could have “mermaid hair.” My thoughts were lapping and overlapping, belying a less than disciplined mind, a mind cradled fondly nonetheless.
I thought about the impromptu speech made the night before at the wedding of a dear friend. She is the one that brought me here, that instigated my spending more time in South Florida than I ever have in all my years living in the center of this state. I hadn’t planned to say anything and wasn’t expected to, but how could I not? She has consistently, insistently loved me and allowed me to participate in her struggles and triumphs for nearly two decades. The words I selected weren’t too shabby; they also weren’t enough. I mulled over amendments while moving through dense, salt-infused air, occasionally distracted by refracted light, so sharp, such a contrast to the immensely soft, mammoth clouds that floated by, flat bottomed and erupting from above. Words never can be enough to sum up a life, let alone the melding of two lives and all the interlocking lives influenced by their connection. Words can never be enough, but I am compelled to forever work at crafting them, and risk exposing them.
I thought about the expansive beauty, the majesty really, of the ocean and how in it’s vastness, it envelopes the nuances of the world; sparking wildly during dazzling day, melancholy and absorbing in moonlit night. Tumultuous and roiling, placid and absorbing, expressive and secretive; the sea is everything at all times, yet we receive only a little, one moment at a time. I admire the ocean and appreciate its expansive yet intimate embrace, though I don’t feel a belonging to it as I’ve heard some articulate. Nor do I feel that sense of belonging to a city that winks and sparkles with light generated from more mutable sources. My ego finds her cradle amidst the trees, in earthy depths, mounded into mountains. But there is neither one nor the other that offers completion. All are part of the whole.
My attention was drawn to a shell, bleached white, porous. A shell? No, I think not, but I haven’t the knowledge to identify it confidently. Fossilized coral, perhaps? Honeycomb from the ocean, an abandoned nest of sea-bees. It is astounding, the mirror world that exists below the surface, so alien and yet we belong to one another. I began to watch the sand more than the sea and scooped up a couple more curiosities. Studying the articulate veins of a creamy crimped shell, I arrived back where I had started. Standing on a mound of seaweed, directly in my path was an incongruous couple: a black pigeon and a white seagull. The pigeon’s presence startled me. What are you doing here? I asked. They both just stared. Representatives of my two lives, I surmised. And wouldn’t you know it, just as the thought made itself known, the seagull walked several feet away and then turned to look back at me from the distance. The pigeon remained, unmoving except to blink his blank, orange eyes.
I thought about the impromptu speech made the night before at the wedding of a dear friend. She is the one that brought me here, that instigated my spending more time in South Florida than I ever have in all my years living in the center of this state. I hadn’t planned to say anything and wasn’t expected to, but how could I not? She has consistently, insistently loved me and allowed me to participate in her struggles and triumphs for nearly two decades. The words I selected weren’t too shabby; they also weren’t enough. I mulled over amendments while moving through dense, salt-infused air, occasionally distracted by refracted light, so sharp, such a contrast to the immensely soft, mammoth clouds that floated by, flat bottomed and erupting from above. Words never can be enough to sum up a life, let alone the melding of two lives and all the interlocking lives influenced by their connection. Words can never be enough, but I am compelled to forever work at crafting them, and risk exposing them.
I thought about the expansive beauty, the majesty really, of the ocean and how in it’s vastness, it envelopes the nuances of the world; sparking wildly during dazzling day, melancholy and absorbing in moonlit night. Tumultuous and roiling, placid and absorbing, expressive and secretive; the sea is everything at all times, yet we receive only a little, one moment at a time. I admire the ocean and appreciate its expansive yet intimate embrace, though I don’t feel a belonging to it as I’ve heard some articulate. Nor do I feel that sense of belonging to a city that winks and sparkles with light generated from more mutable sources. My ego finds her cradle amidst the trees, in earthy depths, mounded into mountains. But there is neither one nor the other that offers completion. All are part of the whole.
My attention was drawn to a shell, bleached white, porous. A shell? No, I think not, but I haven’t the knowledge to identify it confidently. Fossilized coral, perhaps? Honeycomb from the ocean, an abandoned nest of sea-bees. It is astounding, the mirror world that exists below the surface, so alien and yet we belong to one another. I began to watch the sand more than the sea and scooped up a couple more curiosities. Studying the articulate veins of a creamy crimped shell, I arrived back where I had started. Standing on a mound of seaweed, directly in my path was an incongruous couple: a black pigeon and a white seagull. The pigeon’s presence startled me. What are you doing here? I asked. They both just stared. Representatives of my two lives, I surmised. And wouldn’t you know it, just as the thought made itself known, the seagull walked several feet away and then turned to look back at me from the distance. The pigeon remained, unmoving except to blink his blank, orange eyes.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Moses the Migrant
Once upon a time, long ago, in a place far from here, a familiar story unfolded. In this place there was a Ruler and this Ruler’s land was inhabited by people of varying ethnicity. There were those who named themselves “the People” and there were those named “the Others.” The Others were a strong-bodied people who worked hard, bore children and established themselves in the land. In fact, they became so abundant, that the People began to fear they would be overrun by the Others. The fear was so great that the Ruler began to look at the Others as invaders, though they had lived amongst the people for generations. They had, in fact, lived amongst the People so long that the Ruler—who was not a diligent student of history—had forgotten, or perhaps never learned that the Others had actually been invited to the land by a ruler from the past. They had helped sustain the land during a time of need. Now, they were not perceived as an asset but a threat.
In one version of this story, the Ruler is called Pharaoh; the People, Egyptians; the Others, Hebrew. Pharaoh responded to the Hebrew threat by summoning their midwives. “When you are preparing to deliver the babies of Hebrew women,” he commanded them, “you must abort them as they are being born.” The women did not argue. They also did not obey. Noticing that Hebrew babies continued to be born, Pharaoh summoned the midwives once again, “how is it that I continue to see my land overrun by newborn Hebrews?” he demanded. The clever women played helpless, “These Hebrew women, they are so hardy and energetic, they give birth before we even arrive in their homes!” Though the midwives civil disobedience delayed deaths, it did not prevent them. In his desperation, Pharaoh ordered that all male children be killed, even after being born.
Perhaps there were many families whose love and ingenuity compelled them to find ways to preserve the lives of their children. Ancient texts direct our attention to one particular family. And isn’t it often the way that our best education about broad truths comes through a narrow focus, from an individual encounter? The family was of the Levite clan. Though she already had two children, the mother of this family was struck by the beauty of her new child, a son, and she could not bear to see him lose his life even if that meant she could not share in that life with him. This child’s mother and father and brother and sister conspired together. They crafted a basket, carefully waterproofed and padded it. They placed within it this child, one of many born in the land but to them a unique marvel and mystery of creation to whom their hearts were bound. Reverently, with prayers and petitions, they placed the baby-filled basket in the river and hoped for salvation. His sister, Miriam, followed the flow of the river from the bank.
Almost of another world, another daughter ventured along the river bank. Pharaoh’s daughter, she shared the same land with Miriam and the other Hebrew daughters and sons, but knew little of their life. She lived life in a bubble of security. Even now, as she ventured to cool herself in the water of the Nile, a band of attendants followed around her; their presence both an irritation and an expectation, for she knew no life but a sheltered one. Immersing herself in the water this daughter heard a cry. She saw the unusual craft and could guess at its cargo—but how could this be? “Go fetch that basket,” she commanded an attendant. And her attendant obeyed. Opening the lid of the basket, Pharaoh’s daughter caught the spell of wonder that had been laid in the basket with this baby. She recognized love in him and wanted to share it. “I’m going to adopt him,” she said. And she named him Moses.
I imagine this encounter affecting the daughter of Pharaoh not only with compassion, but with curiosity. How did it come to be that this child was set afloat? Perhaps she learned more about the policies directed toward the people inhabiting the land she lived within. I noticed that when Moses grew to adulthood, there were still Hebrew people of his generation—they were not destroyed. Can it be that Pharaoh’s commandment was rescinded? I wonder if that had anything to do with his daughter finding her heart captivated by one Hebrew that led her to advocate, if even in only one small way, for the lives of his people. I wonder if the thought of each Hebrew baby’s death tore at her as though it were the murder of her own child?
The timelessness of this story occurred to me in a new way as I revisited it this week. Experience has a way of tinting the lens through which we look at the world. Where I stand in my interior landscape effects the perspective I have of the exterior, even when I am unaware. This time I was aware that I was reading with a mind toward the immigrants that share the land where I live. Aware that whatever people group we come from, we were all sojourners once. “My people” were primarily Dutch and Irish, welcomed when extra hands were needed, rejected when we became too many and were no longer seen as a resource but as burden on resources that were limited. A threat to familiar ways of being and looking and sounding. I thought of the South and Central American migrants who I’d never given much mind to until I encountered their belongings, abandoned during their troubled sojourn in the Sonoran Desert; until I met them, broken on the border.
Now they people my thoughts and influence my reflections. I have been reading Steinbeck’s account of his journey across America with his dog Charley. There I found that his reflection on the Bad Lands stirred in me reflections similar to those that had been awakened by a tale from ancient Egypt. Once upon a time, not long ago, very close to home…Steinbeck’s experience of the Bad Lands brought back my memories of the contradictory nature of the desert in Arizona that divides the United States and Mexico. Such a monster in the day, so majestic in the evenings. Though I tried to describe it, he says it better:
…the late afternoon changed everything. As the sun angled…the cliffs and sculptured hills and ravines lost their burned and dreadful look and glowed with yellow and rich brown and a hundred variations of red and silver gray, all picked out by streaks of coal black…once stopped I was caught, trapped in color and dazzled by the clarity of the light. Against the descending sun the battlements were dark and clean-lined, while to the east, where the uninhibited light poured slantwise, the strange landscape shouted with color. And the night, far from being frightful, was lovely beyond thought, for the stars were close, and although there was no moon the starlight made a silver glow in the sky. The air cut the nostrils with dry frost…this is one of the few place I have ever seen where the night was friendlier than the day (Travels with Charley, pg. 120).
I found it confounding, trying to reconcile the splendor of the evenings with the treacherous conditions of the day. Similarly, I find it confounding trying to reconcile the juxtaposition of beauty and cruelty in people when we choose, sometimes so arbitrarily who will be bequeathed with our favor, and who will be subject to our wrath. Unlike Moses, the rulers of this land don’t directly threaten migrants with death, but with deportation. Though, considering the hundreds of deaths that occur each year in the desert by those restricted, or returning after being sent back—considering how separation of mothers from children and husbands from wives causes life to leak out from rent hearts—the difference between death and deportation becomes blurry at best.
Who will be the fairytale-type princess in this version of the story? Who will be the unlikely one that bridges the gap between the outcast people and the obstinate ruler? “Encounter” seems to me to be the magic word that breaks the spell of blindness. I think of my own life’s experience; I began to care when my senses and feelings were engaged. I cared about the migrants because I walked their trails and heard their stories. I cared about men in Guantanamo who I’d barely given a second thought to because I saw their picture and heard their stories and read their poems. I was touched by our common humanity. Their pain hurt me. If those of us who are sheltered by the rulers of the land could learn the stories of those who are persecuted, if we would take a few steps beyond our comfort zone, perhaps their cries could stir our heart like the cries of a baby in a basket. Perhaps, if we wade in the water, God will trouble us toward compassion and we will learn the abundance of an interwoven life.
In one version of this story, the Ruler is called Pharaoh; the People, Egyptians; the Others, Hebrew. Pharaoh responded to the Hebrew threat by summoning their midwives. “When you are preparing to deliver the babies of Hebrew women,” he commanded them, “you must abort them as they are being born.” The women did not argue. They also did not obey. Noticing that Hebrew babies continued to be born, Pharaoh summoned the midwives once again, “how is it that I continue to see my land overrun by newborn Hebrews?” he demanded. The clever women played helpless, “These Hebrew women, they are so hardy and energetic, they give birth before we even arrive in their homes!” Though the midwives civil disobedience delayed deaths, it did not prevent them. In his desperation, Pharaoh ordered that all male children be killed, even after being born.
Perhaps there were many families whose love and ingenuity compelled them to find ways to preserve the lives of their children. Ancient texts direct our attention to one particular family. And isn’t it often the way that our best education about broad truths comes through a narrow focus, from an individual encounter? The family was of the Levite clan. Though she already had two children, the mother of this family was struck by the beauty of her new child, a son, and she could not bear to see him lose his life even if that meant she could not share in that life with him. This child’s mother and father and brother and sister conspired together. They crafted a basket, carefully waterproofed and padded it. They placed within it this child, one of many born in the land but to them a unique marvel and mystery of creation to whom their hearts were bound. Reverently, with prayers and petitions, they placed the baby-filled basket in the river and hoped for salvation. His sister, Miriam, followed the flow of the river from the bank.
Almost of another world, another daughter ventured along the river bank. Pharaoh’s daughter, she shared the same land with Miriam and the other Hebrew daughters and sons, but knew little of their life. She lived life in a bubble of security. Even now, as she ventured to cool herself in the water of the Nile, a band of attendants followed around her; their presence both an irritation and an expectation, for she knew no life but a sheltered one. Immersing herself in the water this daughter heard a cry. She saw the unusual craft and could guess at its cargo—but how could this be? “Go fetch that basket,” she commanded an attendant. And her attendant obeyed. Opening the lid of the basket, Pharaoh’s daughter caught the spell of wonder that had been laid in the basket with this baby. She recognized love in him and wanted to share it. “I’m going to adopt him,” she said. And she named him Moses.
I imagine this encounter affecting the daughter of Pharaoh not only with compassion, but with curiosity. How did it come to be that this child was set afloat? Perhaps she learned more about the policies directed toward the people inhabiting the land she lived within. I noticed that when Moses grew to adulthood, there were still Hebrew people of his generation—they were not destroyed. Can it be that Pharaoh’s commandment was rescinded? I wonder if that had anything to do with his daughter finding her heart captivated by one Hebrew that led her to advocate, if even in only one small way, for the lives of his people. I wonder if the thought of each Hebrew baby’s death tore at her as though it were the murder of her own child?
The timelessness of this story occurred to me in a new way as I revisited it this week. Experience has a way of tinting the lens through which we look at the world. Where I stand in my interior landscape effects the perspective I have of the exterior, even when I am unaware. This time I was aware that I was reading with a mind toward the immigrants that share the land where I live. Aware that whatever people group we come from, we were all sojourners once. “My people” were primarily Dutch and Irish, welcomed when extra hands were needed, rejected when we became too many and were no longer seen as a resource but as burden on resources that were limited. A threat to familiar ways of being and looking and sounding. I thought of the South and Central American migrants who I’d never given much mind to until I encountered their belongings, abandoned during their troubled sojourn in the Sonoran Desert; until I met them, broken on the border.
Now they people my thoughts and influence my reflections. I have been reading Steinbeck’s account of his journey across America with his dog Charley. There I found that his reflection on the Bad Lands stirred in me reflections similar to those that had been awakened by a tale from ancient Egypt. Once upon a time, not long ago, very close to home…Steinbeck’s experience of the Bad Lands brought back my memories of the contradictory nature of the desert in Arizona that divides the United States and Mexico. Such a monster in the day, so majestic in the evenings. Though I tried to describe it, he says it better:
…the late afternoon changed everything. As the sun angled…the cliffs and sculptured hills and ravines lost their burned and dreadful look and glowed with yellow and rich brown and a hundred variations of red and silver gray, all picked out by streaks of coal black…once stopped I was caught, trapped in color and dazzled by the clarity of the light. Against the descending sun the battlements were dark and clean-lined, while to the east, where the uninhibited light poured slantwise, the strange landscape shouted with color. And the night, far from being frightful, was lovely beyond thought, for the stars were close, and although there was no moon the starlight made a silver glow in the sky. The air cut the nostrils with dry frost…this is one of the few place I have ever seen where the night was friendlier than the day (Travels with Charley, pg. 120).
I found it confounding, trying to reconcile the splendor of the evenings with the treacherous conditions of the day. Similarly, I find it confounding trying to reconcile the juxtaposition of beauty and cruelty in people when we choose, sometimes so arbitrarily who will be bequeathed with our favor, and who will be subject to our wrath. Unlike Moses, the rulers of this land don’t directly threaten migrants with death, but with deportation. Though, considering the hundreds of deaths that occur each year in the desert by those restricted, or returning after being sent back—considering how separation of mothers from children and husbands from wives causes life to leak out from rent hearts—the difference between death and deportation becomes blurry at best.
Who will be the fairytale-type princess in this version of the story? Who will be the unlikely one that bridges the gap between the outcast people and the obstinate ruler? “Encounter” seems to me to be the magic word that breaks the spell of blindness. I think of my own life’s experience; I began to care when my senses and feelings were engaged. I cared about the migrants because I walked their trails and heard their stories. I cared about men in Guantanamo who I’d barely given a second thought to because I saw their picture and heard their stories and read their poems. I was touched by our common humanity. Their pain hurt me. If those of us who are sheltered by the rulers of the land could learn the stories of those who are persecuted, if we would take a few steps beyond our comfort zone, perhaps their cries could stir our heart like the cries of a baby in a basket. Perhaps, if we wade in the water, God will trouble us toward compassion and we will learn the abundance of an interwoven life.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Good Morning
Last night I left the blinds pulled up halfway so that the light of morning would wake me. It worked. I stirred and in my mind it was still dark—where am I? "Sister Julia’s, 'room-sitting' while she’s away." What time is it? "Day break." Do I have anything I need to do today? "Only what you want"—I opened my eyes to find that light had already filled the room. The clock read three minutes to six. The sun was slowly ascending, blazing orange light that melted over the lake and into the city. Immediately I pulled on shorts and a t-shirt and went outside.
I did not examine my good mood, I floated on it. Contradictions surfaced. As I entered the park I saw man sleeping on a bench. He had pulled his white shirt over his head. A sign of surrender, or of defiance? Crossing the bridge over the highway, I saw a crumpled guard-rail, a sure sign of disaster. I inhaled these indications of turmoil soberly, mindfully, but joy remained, unvanquished.
It is common to see the reflection of trees in water. In the park, on a path between a small pond and a row of trees, I discovered an uncommon reversal. Wobbling waves of light, the water's reflection, danced low between the branches. Invisible, except by motion, like wind; only it didn’t rustle or whisper, it laughed.
I made my way to the lakeshore and hopped down a series of giant-sized steps, offering a sun salutation to that great golden orb once I reached the bottom. The lip of the lake curled and I winked back. Sunbeams forged a wide path from the horizon to the waters edge; a few small, bold beams climbing up on my shoulder, warming and glowing. This is how I learned that the sun is a jealous star, protective of her offspring. As I walked, she followed and every time I turned toward the east, there she was, glaring.
Duck! A speckled brown mother and her fuzzy, fresh flock. Choppy water scattered their tiny buoyant bodies, but they always bobbed back together. The water was lively and I wondered at the life within it. The beam on my shoulder began to murmur about the magic of the things we call common and suddenly I remembered the dream I lived before waking. A sweet dream in which affection was shared with someone who does not offer it to me in waking life.
Colors were bold—green against brown against blue intercepted by white—shadows long, wind rallying the leaves, trying to out-sing the sound of on-coming traffic. By the time I had looped back to where I had begun, little more than an hour had passed but already things were different. I lingered by the trees that had held the waters reflection; they were empty. The man on the bench was upright now, scowling. My back was to the lake and the sun and I could feel something shifting, slipping. While waiting at a crosswalk I tried to pour the morning’s images into a bucket to carry with me. All that I had was a sieve. I watched the trickling escape of what was and willed myself to release it, redirecting my gaze to what is. The light changed and I walked forward. It was not until I was unlocking the door to Julia’s room that I realized the blazon little sunbeam had absconded with its warmth, leaving me a cold shoulder, still blushing pink.
I did not examine my good mood, I floated on it. Contradictions surfaced. As I entered the park I saw man sleeping on a bench. He had pulled his white shirt over his head. A sign of surrender, or of defiance? Crossing the bridge over the highway, I saw a crumpled guard-rail, a sure sign of disaster. I inhaled these indications of turmoil soberly, mindfully, but joy remained, unvanquished.
It is common to see the reflection of trees in water. In the park, on a path between a small pond and a row of trees, I discovered an uncommon reversal. Wobbling waves of light, the water's reflection, danced low between the branches. Invisible, except by motion, like wind; only it didn’t rustle or whisper, it laughed.
I made my way to the lakeshore and hopped down a series of giant-sized steps, offering a sun salutation to that great golden orb once I reached the bottom. The lip of the lake curled and I winked back. Sunbeams forged a wide path from the horizon to the waters edge; a few small, bold beams climbing up on my shoulder, warming and glowing. This is how I learned that the sun is a jealous star, protective of her offspring. As I walked, she followed and every time I turned toward the east, there she was, glaring.
Duck! A speckled brown mother and her fuzzy, fresh flock. Choppy water scattered their tiny buoyant bodies, but they always bobbed back together. The water was lively and I wondered at the life within it. The beam on my shoulder began to murmur about the magic of the things we call common and suddenly I remembered the dream I lived before waking. A sweet dream in which affection was shared with someone who does not offer it to me in waking life.
Colors were bold—green against brown against blue intercepted by white—shadows long, wind rallying the leaves, trying to out-sing the sound of on-coming traffic. By the time I had looped back to where I had begun, little more than an hour had passed but already things were different. I lingered by the trees that had held the waters reflection; they were empty. The man on the bench was upright now, scowling. My back was to the lake and the sun and I could feel something shifting, slipping. While waiting at a crosswalk I tried to pour the morning’s images into a bucket to carry with me. All that I had was a sieve. I watched the trickling escape of what was and willed myself to release it, redirecting my gaze to what is. The light changed and I walked forward. It was not until I was unlocking the door to Julia’s room that I realized the blazon little sunbeam had absconded with its warmth, leaving me a cold shoulder, still blushing pink.
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