holiday

2011-04-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

-Mary Oliver

And He said, "Let there be light."

2011-04-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

2011-01-23T21:09:00.000-08:00

With a grimace I close my door and drive to work early. Vehicle after vehicle pull out from their driveways, with turn signals flickering. We merge onto the freeway joining this rapid accumulation, a moving parade; a tired, solemn parade. And then, one by one we are exiled, as we migrate to our exits, our cities, our streets.

All this going is characteristic of us. It is constant, essential, habitual. It is us. We are beings of moving and of moving things. Of work, of doing. Most of the time we love the suggestion, affection, rhythm, and pronunciation of movement, of goings and of comings. Doing is logical. Movement is natural.

Driving home at dusk, the beams of car and city lights very often administer existential meditations. Here we all are, going home. We are tired, maybe even worn. We have no choice, but as a congregating flock of beings to come, and now to go, like this. We cannot even recall, or remember, the day we arrived here, but still we are here. With nothing to do about it, but do as everyone else does, to smile at our friends, to make mashed potatoes and watch a film, and then later, sleep. Awakening in the darkened early morning to do it all again. To go. And then, come home.

Hoping tomorrow kisses us with fulfillment. Hoping perhaps tomorrow will glance at us with a heart of grace.

"And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?" {M. Oliver}

2010-10-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

It was cold yesterday, and now again today. When I take a deep breath and exhale the warm air from my lungs and thermal interior, it slithers out between my lips and turns into a suspended flag of vapor.

I saw the the fog slumbering on the road this morning and on the river, and in between the trees and their branches. And I wondered what breathed those extensive masses of vaporous ensigns into flight and presence, for surely fog is only a larger likeness of my freezing human breath.

On wintry mornings the great wizardly Oak trees must blink their eyes and peel back their bark and yawn; and from them, and from the dark recesses of the quivering ground, must come the sweet breath of the dirt and rocks and roots. Stretching it's arms, bending and winding above the ground and below the power lines, coming to a stop; sleeping among the waters and houses and yellow lined roads.

2010-09-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

And so the juncture of cold comes
like prancing paws
echoing on ice
here again,
gone again,
until it's here to stay
awhile
drowning the particles
of grasses and
ground
in a kind of liquid trinity.
The tide of seasons
rolls in ever
comfortingly
lapping at the weeks
and months
with a familiar-ness
of which we know
so well
we could feel in our sleep
or hear in our dreams;
or catch
blindfolded.
And we begin to think
that it has always been this way,
the way of the seasons;
of ebbing.

Of the way
of rain on the roof,
of clefts in the earth
given us from the
anguished skies;
of the joy of winter,
and the revival of our
souls in the hope
of Spring.

"The question isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." {Ayn Rand}

2010-09-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

{Ayn Rand , Atlas Shrugged}

"Where day never shuts his eye, up in the broad fields of the sky" {Milton}

2010-07-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

In reading C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet last night, I came across the quote below. I wasn't thrilled with the entirety of the book, it was a little dull and uninspiring, and I much prefer L'Engle's metaphysical stories to this one. Maybe my judgment is partly due to the fact that I am not very much a space enthusiast, and pretty much find all Star Trek and Star Wars-esque fantasies silly and tiring. However, there were a few great passages worthy of quoting and I consider the following one of them. Briefly, this quote is of a human who was taken to a wonderful purple and bright world (Mars, if you can believe it!), who came across certain strange creatures, and of his perception of them:

"It was only many days later that Ransom discovered how to deal with these sudden losses of confidence. They arose when the rationality of the hross tempted you to think of it as a man. Then it became abominable-- a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat.

But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have-- glossy coat, liquid eye, sweet breath and whitest teeth-- and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason.

Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view."

. . .

2010-05-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

One of the little five year old twins I nanny, relayed to me that he desperately wanted to dream of Free Willy the other night. "I tried to dream of him, but it didn't work. I didn't dream of anything! I'll try again tonight."

I asked his brother if he dreamed at all the previous night. He replied, "No. I'm just not a dreamer guy all the time." I laughed and tried to encourage him, "Well, maybe you'll become one as you grow older?" He looked at me so seriously, with wise little eyes and said, "No, when I grow up, I won't. 'Cause remember Peter Pan? When you grow up, you can't go to Neverland anymore and all that."

I just looked at him laughed. I attempted to explain the concepts of dreaming and sleep, but even after my explanation, still to his mind his reasoning made the most sense, so I dropped the subject with a smile.

Of a classmate:

2010-05-07T21:58:00.000-07:00

You walk in with a smile
and leave with one and
when your smile says
'hello" it wakes
up mine and my teeth
feel ashamed and
groggily stand at attention.
I wonder, if you had to
dissect a breaking heart
or a decaying soul
if you would smiles still-
probably
in a mournful way,
you would.
I pray the light that issues
from your lips will
never be doused
by unressurectable
sadness or fear,
for your smile heals me
and artlessly teaches
me to capture each
second as it gasps by
with these saluting teeth,
marching,
crusading for laughter
and joy.

5/6/10

2010-03-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

..I keep death on my mind
Like a heavy crown..

Newspaper, newspaper
Can't take no more
You're here every morning
Waiting at my door
I'm just trying to kiss you
And you stab my eyes
Make me blue forever
Like an island sky
And I'm not pretending
That it's all okay
Just let me have my coffee
Before you take away the day

..I keep death at my heels
Like a basset hound..

-Conor Oberst

A few nights ago I was crafting a little crown out of paper for the little girl I nanny- it was just her and I since her twin brothers were at soccer practice. We decorated the crown with stickers and yellow paint and we talked. Out of no where, small Ashlyn with big sky blue eyes asks me, "Holly, what are you 'fraid of?" Just seconds ago we were discussing the splendor of princesses and the finer aspects of fake glittery jewels and how many "pretties" I should put in her hair. I had her repeat what she said. "What are you 'fraid of!?" she asked again. "Oh," I laughed and said, "scary things." She looked at me as if to say, "Lame answer." And so I tried to elaborate: "You know... spiders. I don't like spiders at all." "Yes," she replied, " 'piders are icky! But, what are you 'fraid of?" I was having a problem with the highest pointy part of the crown which kept flopping over because of the weight of the plastic jewels atop it. And I didn't feel like discussing the topic of fear. "Oh... I don't know darling," I think I said. And that topic was dropped and we started another about how fun it would be if Peter Pan's Wendy got to fly and fight against the storm troopers in Star Wars.

A couple nights later, I was making dinner for the kiddos of another family I nanny for. The littlest, Alyssa, with chocolate hair and eyes tugged on my shirt and announced, "I have question." "Yes, darling? Dinner is almost ready!" "No, I have question." "What, honey, what is it?" She smiled as she lisped, "What are you 'fraid of?" I stopped what I was doing and looked down at her, engulfed by a strange feeling of deja vu. "What?" is all I said and thought, where did that come from?! She repeated the question and I was tempted to say "spiders" but I didn't. "I am afraid of a lot of things." I said. "You are?" She asked in her little baby-ish voice full of surprise. Yes, I knew I was afraid of many things, and I realized that ultimately I was afraid to speak them aloud. Things uttered out loud leaves one vulnerable, as if not acknowledging them somehow makes them not really exist. "What are you afraid of?" I asked her. "Heffalumps and... witches," She said resolutely and then with a silly laugh she exclaimed, "But they're not weal!" "No dear, they are not. And you do not need to be afraid of them!" "Nope!" she said with more laughter; and in her merriment and seeming flippancy, she was completely relieved that I affirmed her hypothesis.

I wish all I feared were Heffalumps. But I am fearful of things a little greater than that. Beyond being afraid of admitting my fears: I am afraid of trying and failing, of mediocrity and pain, I am afraid of death and disaster. I am afraid of wasting my time on things that don't matter. I am afraid of never becoming who I was created and meant to be. I am afraid of not doing what I know I should do.

"I think that it's brainless to assume, that making changes to your window's view, will give a new perspective." {Death Cab for Cutie}

2010-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

From where I sit at my desk, looking out the window at the stormy sky and agitated trees, I note a small vase sitting on my window sill. I put it there a while ago- it holds a mess of dried lavender that was freshly cut last summer. But it isn't the lavender or the vase that I'm really interested in, it is the extravagantly tall and monstrous evergreen tree which stands a little ways outside my window. Or rather, the fact that I can't see the extravagantly tall and monstrous evergreen tree, because it is hidden directly behind the small vase with slender stems. Perspective. There is a certain ironic humor found in this example of perspective: the giant eclipsed by a dwarf, the powerful distorted by the delicate. Sitting here observing that rather pathetic analogy, I notice the complex mathematics of the relative mystery of relativity, the physics of space and time and matter which produces that tree cloaked from my view. And yet in the end, all the confusing physics of placement, perspective and of relation just mean: where I'm sitting. If I move, tilt my head, the vase is small again and the tree, towering. Approach the subject from a different angle and a different story or reality is produced. In the end it's akin to, "No, wait. Stand a little further to your right for the picture. Yes, good! When you were standing over there it looked like you had horns growing out of your head!"

I guess I was just musing at how often we distort things because of our perspective, because of how or where we happen, or choose, to be sitting. I wonder at how much we consider, label or believe reprehensibly, because of the slightly skewed angle or tilt of our head, leaving our frame of reference misrepresented. Obviously, "slightly" has enough power to interpret a reality of three-inch tall trees and forty-foot glass vases! Sometimes I wonder if I continually realize how much depends on an honestly clear worldview. For everything depends on it, undeniably.

. . .

2010-01-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

I've wanted to make stars for a long time, but mine have always ended up coming out a little unstar-ish. I can do a bunch of origami, but fold and cut a star? Obviously way out of my league. I was over at my friend Christa's the other day and am very indebted to her for showing me the correct way to make a five-pointed star. Now I've created a galaxy! Half of my room is basically a celestial sphere. A constellation.

Genesis 2: 4-7

2010-01-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

Read it again, the narrative of being,
the explanation of pulsing organs and of the
cadence
of thoughts and sounds.
Acres of newborn earth, that seventh day
rested
bathed in the gauze of
infancy;
see him reach down, far down, and grasp the
purified soil
in his hands, his lips parted as he
breaths
the fire of life into the
face
of the ground.

And we were kindled, then. Awakened, found, born.

Now: becoming.

2009-12-17T12:31:00.000-08:00

Last week I had the privilege of celebrating another birthday.

I remember my mother telling me when I was very young, that every time someone has a birthday, it means that they have twirled and spun around the sun another whole year. I thought it was beautiful mythology at first, a fairytale, something my dear mom made up to make things more special. And then came the day I understood and learned that it really was true. A sphere of dirt and flowers and shoes and snowmen really did dance around a ball of fire and flame. Surely it was too good- too fantastic- to be true? But, it is real and true and I've spun around the sun for 24 years now.

Holly, here's some verses for your new year. Take them to heart, self. And try to walk boldly and simply and live "with a lyrical heart."

...I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

{M. Oliver}

2009-11-26T11:12:00.000-08:00

i thank You God for this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any- lifted from the no
of all nothing- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

{e.e. cummings}

. . .

2009-11-14T13:12:00.000-08:00

All the quick notes
Mozart didn't have time to use
before he entered the cloud-boat

are falling now from the beaks
of the finches
that have gathered from the joyous summer

into the hard winter
and, like Mozart, they speak of nothing
but light and delight,

though it is true, the heavy blades of the world
are still pounding underneath.
And this is what you can do too, maybe,

if you live simply and with a lyrical heart
in the cumbered neighborhoods or even,
as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace,

offering tune after tune,
making some hard-hearted prince
prudent and kind, just by being happy.

{Mary Oliver}

"True simplicity is not the rejection of beauty in our surroundings, but the refusal to allow concern for things to clutter our minds."

2009-11-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

In my quest on how to live loudly but quietly, freely and yet simply in this cluttered world, I've stumbled upon a book that has truly inspired me. In this age of technological astuteness, accumulation of things and material affluence, of status and celebrity and relentless pursuit of personal security, I think-- and I'm just making a wild guess-- that perhaps the majority of us have forgotten to live for life's sake. Maybe? Quite often, at least? And with that I think we've nearly forgotten to find "joy from a sense of being, not on having," as quoted by Damaris Parker-Rhodes, in the book Plain Living, A Quaker Path to Simplicity, by Catherine Whitmire. Simplicity is a "protest [against extravagance] and must... be seen as a testimony against involvement with things which tend to dilute our energies and scatter our thoughts, reducing us to lives of triviality and mediocrity," observes Whitmire.

"We must set light to our possessions lest they come to possess us. Used as sales-talk in our glossy magazines, the phrase 'gracious living' has become a synonym for making a house an end in itself rather than a home to live in. Truly gracious living is a by-product of gracious thinking and doing, and in material things is expressed in 'what is simple and beautiful.' And true simplicity is not the rejection of beauty in our surroundings, but the refusal to allow concern for things to clutter our minds..." (Edgar Castle, 1961)

"Simplicity does not mean drabness or narrowness but is essentially positive, being the capacity for selectivity in one who holds attention on the goal. Thus simplicity is an appreciation of all that is helpful towards living as children of the living God." (Whitmire)

. . .

2009-11-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

The other day my sister and I took a few hours to rummage through some nearby antique stores. I particularly was there on an errand, in search of a darling, blue, men's sailor jacket that my eleven year old brother and I had found a few weeks before. He had tried to convince me that it would fit him perfectly-- and that he'd wear it all the time. "All the time, everyday!" He said. It did fit him reasonably, and after all it was just for dress-up, just to play around in. (I love the fact that at almost twelve he and his brothers can be seen romping outside in their camo or their pioneer clothes or their self-styled ninja outfits almost daily. I love it!) We ended up leaving that day without it and he was very dismayed. But, my sister and I found the jacket, hanging on a rack next to a mink coat and a military jacket and I am sure my brother will be quite excited to unwrap it on Christmas, I am sure.

At that same store, I found a glass bowl filled with crystals or "prisms" that are usually found dangling on lamps. All I could think of was Pollyanna, where she strung them from her walls and windows and they created a mess of live looking, glittering rainbow reflections. "I wonder if I should buy a bunch of these crystals and string them across my bedroom window like in the movie Pollyanna?" I asked of the elderly woman behind the counter. She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, indeed," she said, "isn't that in a movie?" I nodded, "Yes, in the movie Pollyanna," I said. "Yep," she answered as she handed me the receipt for the jacket. I didn't end up buying any prisms. Maybe next time I'll convince myself to.

2009-10-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

"Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning."

{Thirst by Mary Oliver, emphasis added}

And the wind shall say: "Here were decent godless people: their only monument the asphalt road and a thousand lost golf balls."

2009-10-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a lot of the poets lately. Maybe its the stirring of the orange leaves tossed upon the roads, or perhaps its because I recently bought a whole new stack of delicious books of poetry and prose, some famous and some not, from Amazon and they all happened to arrive last week. Perhaps.

Here's a few captivating portions from T.S. Eliot's work, 'The Rock', excerpts from part I & III; published in 1934. The italics signify my favorite lines.

. . .

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

A Cry from the North, from the West and from the south
Whence thousands travel daily to the timekept City;
Where My Word is unspoken,
In the land of lobelias and tennis flannels
The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit,
The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court,
And the wind shall say: 'Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls.'

..A thousand policemen directing the traffic
Cannot tell you why you come or go...

When the stranger says: 'What is the meaning of this city?
Do you huddle close together because you love each other?'
What will you answer? 'We all dwell together
To make money from each other?' or 'This is a community?'
And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the stranger,
Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.

. . .

2009-10-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

To eat, to breathe

to beget
Is this all there is
Chance configuration of atom against atom
........... of god against god
I cannot believe it.
Come, Christian Triune God who lives,
Here am I
Shake the world again.

{Francis Schaeffer}

2009-10-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've noticed something about myself: my friendliness can be quite fair weathered.

I can be friendly and benevolent when I want to and when I feel like it, but usually when I don't- I am not. I do it all rather unconsciously, perhaps that's why I've just started noticing this pattern.

One day my heart is bursting with benevolence for mankind and life is beautiful. And then... there are the days that I saunter through the store, ignoring the well meaning, ill dressed cashier, deliberately rolling my eyes at that noisy, screaming child and it's helpless mother. When I catch myself in the middle of such pretentious absorption- I'm a little mortified and ashamed. How on earth did I go from being Wendy Darling one day to Medusa the next?

I don't want to make a deliberate, forced, un-genuine point of practicing friendliness, but I know real love won't just flourish entirely on its own. So, recently I'm trying to keep self-preoccupied, ugly Medusa at bay. She wastes my time and misrepresents the love I want to show the world and she distorts who I really am. What I've begun to do is to simply just smile; to smile when I don't want to. Yes, its elementary. But, truly, it is a gem of an idea. And more than being a nice idea, it works. There is just something mystical about showing kindness to people, to strangers, to the world. It haunts you with satisfaction, especially if the love you show is reciprocated, then life becomes even more welcome and sacred.

Every time you smile at someone,
it is an action of love, a gift to
that person, a beautiful thing.

{Mother Teresa}

I think God was very kind when he gave us the seasons.

2009-09-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

I wonder just how bored we'd end up being if life was one long summer, a perpetual sunny summer. I know right now my mother is strongly disagreeing with me, as she maintains that life would be so much more delicious without rain and winter, and most likely that if she ever was planted on a tropical island for the rest of her life, she'd be perfectly happy. To some that might sound like a novel idea-- "always summer"-- how lovely. I like summer very much, but I cannot help but realize how blasé it would become to us if the sun was always shining and glaring, the heat always penetrating, and the clouds never hanging above, comfortingly, softly, strongly. I think the reason I adore summer so much is because I appreciate it after the rain subsides and the puddles evaporate. I adore fall just as much because summer has unknowingly nurtured inside me a hope and craving for wind and cold and umbrellas (although I never use one, but the concept is pretty) and mossy things and ferns and windshield wipers and freezing, frosty mornings and evenings. Each year the seasons unfold with a story of its own-- and while each one is similar to the other-- every year the portrayal of the story is still specialized, unique.

Thank you, God, for all our seasons. I am so glad I don't live in a box.

And thank you for the elongated shadows and the animated, cold, apple air of Autumn.

2009-09-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

To speak analogously is to admit that you can't say it directly; you really can't say it at all; it's outside the realm of proven fact. But it is not a coincidence that some of the greatest poetry in the English language is in the form of the sonnet. The haiku is one of the most popular forms of poetry today: what could be more structured?

[Once I was giving a lecture] and the students talked loudly about wanting to be free to dance, to make love, to be themselves. So do I. So we left literature and talked about the body, and I kept asking questions: what is it in you which gives you this freedom? Finally one of the young men, with great reluctance, pulled out the word: skeleton. It is our bones, our structure, which frees us to dance, to make love. Without our structure we would be an imprisoned, amorphous blob of flesh, incapable of response. The amoeba has a minimum of structure, but I doubt if it has much fun.

{L'Engle}

2009-09-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many placed is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.

{C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory}

2009-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

There is a time that comes, sometimes brazenly and loud, but usually softly and unnoticeable, stealing up behind, whispering over one's shoulder. I remember when that time came for my great-grandmother. Dementia and a tired body slowly over took her and so I began to drive over to my grandma's house, whom she lived with, and take care of her several days a week. I remember bathing and feeding her. It was considerably hard at the beginning to intimately take care of someone who you've known forever, someone who had been healthy, physically and mentally, not too long before. Her mind came and went during those days. I still remember the time she panicked while I bathed her, yelling at me, "Get out of here you ugly boy!" I felt such pity for her; what horror there is in not being able to control yourself or your mind! "Nana, it's just me," I'd tell her. But, she didn't recognize me anymore.

A couple days ago she passed away. In her last days she had steadily declined, deteriorating rapidly, having contracted an appalling gum disease, creating abscesses which exuded blood constantly. She was a shadow, an almost literal shell of who she was, or used to be. On heavy medication and in a nebulous state of unconsciousness she seemed to wait, anticipating being released.

And so, finally she was.

From watching her life unwind over the years, and becoming acquainted with the residents at her nursing facility, and just from general observation, I find myself hopelessly disgusted; bitterly disgusted with degeneration. Hateful of entropy. Despising of broken, moth-eaten death.

And still, out of the frost distorted ground, I find pillars of courage standing, solemnly.

My mother spoke with many of the nurses who attended my great-grandmother and she re-counted to me their heroic biographies. One RN related that she grew up with a mother who was a nurse at a nursing home; she said her mother delighted in her work. Thus she grew up wanting to be a nurse and work there as well, because of her mother's example. Another nurse said,

"Some people love to work at birthing centers, with babies. But I prefer to work with the people leaving the world. It is just as much an honor to work with them as with those just entering the world. It is a privilege."

Surrounded by ugliness, that day when my great-grandma died, so much beauty shone around, that one could have been blinded by it. There was such a bright and colored contrast between death and darkness and the insatiable joy of loving another person. Why then is there cause for sadness, when such joy is painted like a infinite mural, teaching us how to really love?

2009-08-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

I was driving home from the store yesterday, listening to the radio. On one of the regular stations there was the most ignobly ridiculous discussion taking place, but I guess since it was evening it was permissible, being after hours. Anyway, whatever. The discussion was about the unconditional right of a woman to have frequent one night stands under the guise of "liberation" and equality with men. Of course, this isn't new, but just listening to that gal trying to defend and advocate habitual-- but not too habitual-- sexual experiences under the pretense of "equality" was rather fascinating. She explained that one of the disadvantages to this freeing concept was the fact that sexual intimacy "bonds individuals emotionally" (duh) and in an effort to avoid that nasty aspect of the one night stand scenario the woman has to be very careful getting in and out of there, quickly. But still she encouraged it saying, "Our culture has changed! No longer is it unacceptable for men and women to go out seeking an occasional sexual experience. No longer is it viewed as risqué or indecent, especially for women." Oh, what a relief. I was thinking our culture was getting a little too moral there for a while.

What I found so riveting was her lack of orientation in her reasoning, she adamantly wanted to demonstrate that all "women are just as much in control of their bodies as men are," yet she wound up floundering around in the sea of sexual wantonness in efforts to back up her allegiance. The discussion oscillated between "yes, go and get 'em tiger" and "but not too often;" she seemed to know there was supposed to be a balance someplace, but didn't quite know where and thus ended up promoting blatant promiscuity. I found that I wasn't just frustrated with her rather loose concept of virtue, but that she phlegmatically dumbed down sex to such a primordial level. She tore down the sacredness, the essence of such intimacy and flung it in the dog's bowl and rang the bell for dinner. As she desperately tried to make her point, she ended up rather illustrating how foolish and unbeautiful the concept of illicit relationships are. Sometimes I can't help but wish we were living back in the Victorian era.

2009-08-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

O God! You ask the deepest darkest things.
You blind with light more frightening than dark.
You tell me: Fly! And then you give no wings.
Your sharp sword pierces as it hits the mark.
You gave me love as human as earth
And earth to earth you've gone as all must go.
So we are torn apart twixt tears and mirth
And where your you has gone I do not know.
Oh, God! your loneliness came into flesh.
You taught us love as you let all love go,
And with your life our lives are deep enmeshed.
We know you as we know we do not know.
Oh, God! you ask us all to be like you,
And what you love will truly be made new.

-Madeleine L'Engle

The Wetlands

2009-08-08T19:54:00.000-07:00

Near twilight I saw the eburnean swans weaving in and out of the rushes. I watched them swim, ducking, heads and feathers wet; nonchalantly glancing at me as they plaited little paths in the still lake. Behind them sat the monarchy of trees, their holy arms outstretched, moving un-anxiously in the small wind. Above us all, suspended on a string, lay the broad, glassy expanse of mist and haze and the breath of the birds.

2009-08-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

A traveler on a dusty road
Strewed acorns on the lea;
And one took root and sprouted up,
And grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade at evening time,
To breathe its early vows;
And Age was pleased, in heights of noon,
To bask beneath its boughs.

(Charles MacKay)

It was Seneca, the Roman statesman, who wrote that wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness. No selfless act is insignificant. I was thinking of this today, in terms of the aged. Sadly, how often I've seen an older person, slow with age and infirmity, looked down upon with disdain by a fresh and young face. Perhaps instead of becoming impatient with the elderly woman attempting to open the door, perhaps, just perhaps, you could graciously open and hold the door for her?

I am reminded of a story by the Brothers Grimm that stirred my little heart when I was a child. The story was about a feeble old woman whose husband died and left her alone, and so she went to live with her son and his wife and their little daughter. Every day her sight dimmed and her hearing grew worse and sometimes at dinner "her hands trembled so badly the peas rolled off her spoon or the soup ran from her cup." Her son and his wife couldn't help but be annoyed, so one day after she knocked over a glass of milk, they decided to do something about it. They ended up setting a small table for her in the corner, next to the broom closet. She sat there alone, "looking with tear-filled eyes across the room at the others." The story goes on to tell that one evening right before dinner the little daughter was on the floor playing with her blocks and her father asked what she was making.

"I'm building a little table for you and mother," she smiled, "so you can eat by yourselves in the corner someday when I get big."

I think this story will become more and more meaningful to us the older we grow. While we ourselves are young, we must teach ourselves and our youth to appreciate and respect the aged. We must not slip out of opportunities to encourage our elders-- we need to show them our love when we can. I wonder what our youth of today will think when they become advanced in age, I wonder how their youth will treat them?

2009-07-23T22:25:00.000-07:00

A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though completely illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as a possession. It isn't something taught in us by our parents; it is something that comes naturally, as though a radioactive kind of tragedy happened, screwing up our souls. Adulterated or policed, the system can grow to something more civilized, but no less dominant as a drive of nature.

Some people get the worst of it, its true. You grow up being told that all people are created equal, but they aren't. Some people are born into better homes than others, and some people look better than others, and some people are smarter and some people run faster.

I get this feeling sometimes that after the world ends, when God destroys all our buildings and our flags, we will wish we had seen everybody as equal, that we had eaten dinner with prostitutes, held them in our arms, opened up spare rooms for them and loved them and learned from them. [When I was young] I didn't know any of these things. I didn't know it didn't matter what a person looked like, how much money they made or whether or not they were cool. I didn't know that cool was a myth and that one person was just as beautiful and meaningful as another. Like I said, it felt important to climb the social ladder, it felt important to defend our identities, it felt as though we were saving our own lives.

[d. miller]

2009-07-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

I could hear them giggling and chattering away, forever. So, I peeked around the tall shelving of the biography section of the bookstore and saw them: two little girls, one with curls and one without, both holding straws and tormenting each other with them, blowing through them, and covering their faces and laughing. Their mother was evidently absorbed in the search of a book and didn't seem to notice them very much, or their indelicate, un-bookstore behavior. I didn't mind though, and so turned back to my side of the shelf and began perusing the titles again, absentmindedly listening to their childish conversation. After a while of loud whispering and giggling, they suddenly rounded the corner talking excitedly and I glanced up. There they stood, beaming with pride, with their straws stuck carefully in their teeth, making the straw hang from their mouths, ridiculously. And the little girl with curls, with a distinct lisp from that piece of plastic dangling from her teeth, said with much dignity and conviction:

"Yeth! I think I will definitely be a dentilist when I grow up."

2009-07-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

I've been considering love, humble love. Such a love is capable of penetrating a cold world, for its strength is incalculable, it is marvelous, beautiful. For in such love we find the clearest and most refined reflection of His love; such servant-hearted devotion. But, it is hard for our human hearts to love in such humility. It is hard for us to love at all, sometimes, and yet to love in a humble way is the hardest of all. I forget to love so often in my everyday exchanges. And if I remember and happen to feel in the mood to love, I do, but then that really isn't love at all, least of all a humble love. "For we must love not only occasionally, for a moment, but forever. Everyone can love occasionally, even the wicked can," wrote the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky. He described such all-embracing humility as "an ocean... flowing and blending; a touch in one place sets up movement at the other end of the earth." In his book, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky recounts a scene wherein a man of society flew in a rage and gave his orderly two bloody blows to his face. After the quieting of his "brutal humor" the story continues,

"I hid my face in my hands, fell on my bed and broke into a storm of tears... That is what a man has been brought to, and that was a man beating a fellow creature! What a crime! It was as if a sharp dagger had pierced me through... And I remembered my brother and what he said on his deathbed to his servants: 'My dear ones, why do you wait on me, why do you love me, am I worth your waiting on me?'"

Oh, why is it so easy to hate and so hard to love? Why is it much easier to speak in pride and harshness, strike out in anger, or brandish violence and yell at that stupid driver who obviously doesn't know how to merge? I am trying to make love a top priority in my daily life. But, its easier to make my well being a priority rather than someone else's. I have enough to worry about, keeping my life together, do I need the added exercise? I admit, I'd much rather focus on my individuality, my security, my peace. But, is peace secured by a silent mouth? By an individualistic, partially loving, nonspeaking heart? It can't be, for peace is attained by the great opposite-- by the opening of one's mouth and heart in all-compassing brotherly love, and by the death of one's personal status and advantage. "Sometimes even if he has to do it alone, and his conduct seems to be crazy, a man must set an example, and so draw men's souls out of their solitude, and spur them to some act of brotherly love, that the great idea may not die" (Dostoevsky).

. . .

"What!" they asked, "are we to make our servants
sit down on the sofa and offer them tea? And I answered them:
"Why not, sometimes at least." Everyone laughed.
Their question was frivolous and my answer was not clear;
but the thought in it was to some extent right."

-The Brothers Karamazov

. . .

2009-07-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

Some natural tears they
dropped, but wiped them
soon;
The world was all before
them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and
Providence their guide,
They, hand in hand, with
wandering steps and slow,
through Eden took their
solitary way.

John Milton (Paradise Lost)

2009-06-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Do you ever glance at the person in the next car while driving? One time I passed a woman who was weeping uncontrollably. One hand held the steering wheel while the other cradled her head. She ended up getting off at the exit for the hospital; I wonder what happened, what news she received. I pray for her still. The other day I passed a man who was smiling, grinning, by himself, alone; just smiling at the road. Perhaps he was listening to the radio. Maybe he was thinking of a funny memory. Or maybe he was simply happy, just because.

2009-06-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found myself in the card isle of my local grocery store. I stood there, with a furrowed brow, opening and closing and opening and closing cards. This Sunday is Father's Day, and while I generally love creating my own cards, I thought perhaps my dad would more likely enjoy a more masculine one, you know a store bought, generic, boring one. And so for far too long, there I was, standing in front of two thousand cards. People came and went next to me; perusing a card or two and then walking off. I, on the other hand, must have opened every single card there, I know I must have. It's not exactly that I'm a card snob (which I am) but with the whole concept of spending 5 dollars for a piece of paper, you know, I want that piece of paper to be at least likable. However, I must have held too high of expectations. Although, some of them were kind of cute, one or two were actually funny and a few were only semi horrible, like: " To my wonderful Father, my hero... whom I never want to see in tights." And so I waded through every dad-burning-something-on-the-barbecue illustration and every "You gave me a horrible upbringing, but I guess I love you a little anyway" quips. I looked through every couch lounging, beer bellied, glazed eyed cartoons and went through all the, "Who is the number one dad, the best dad, ever? YOU!!" greetings. In the end I bought a simple card and refrained from doing what I really wanted to do-- to tell the people who kept shuffling up that, "Um, there really aren't any good cards here. Actually, they are all pretty lame. Here, this one's okay and this one too, but you shouldn't waste your time, really, just go make one." But, I didn't. Because, the people next to me ended up laughing at the card I thought was the most pitiful. So, I just walked away.

I have nothing against cards, really. But I had a terrible feeling that something wasn't right here. There was just something a little off with the way fathers were being presented in most of those cards. Yet, the sad thing is, those cards are a mirror of reality, more so of our recent reality. Now, I know many, many amazing fathers (including mine, love ya Dad!) but I also know, have seen, and have witnessed many sad and terrible excuses of fatherhood, and... it seems that this is becoming rampant. Where have our true, dignified, loving and self-sacrificing men gone?

I doubt if many people would even know how Father's Day was originated. The idea of such a day was proposed by a Mrs. John B. Dodd in 1909. She was trying to find a way to honor her father, William Smart, who was a Civil War veteran. He was widowed when his wife (the mother of Mrs. Dodd) died during the childbirth of their sixth child. Mr. Smart was thus left with five children and a newborn to raise alone. When Mrs. Dodd became an adult she realized the strength and selflessness her father had demonstrated in raising her and her brothers and sisters as a single parent. Now that is a man who deserves honor. Not those Homer Simpson look-alikes I found snoring on the card isle.

2009-06-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

Thomas doubted: seeing, then believed;
Touched the wounded hands, the pierced side,
Knew once for all his Lord and God; received
The Word and taught it. While I, Lord, in my pride
Am shown your light and still trip over doubt,
Seeking in foolishness to understand
The infinite with my finite wit, am out,
Then, of my moral mind; reject your hand
At the same moment that I hold it tight.
Knowing, I know not all things I know;
Hearing, I hear not; seeing, seek the light;
Standing, fly skywards; running, am too slow.

........ Here in captivity where my song is wrung
........ Help me to find again my native tongue.

(L'Engle)

2009-05-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

His was a face ill shaven, with unsuccessfully cut hair, messy looking; but not in the modish-took-hours-to-look-messy-look. His clothing was poorly fitting, his mannerisms negligent of refinement. The young woman next to him I perceived was his girlfriend. Her appearance was similar, her language uncultivated, crass; her pajama pants faded. The couple caught my curiosity, and so I watched them for a few seconds, as the young woman hung on his arm with a happy grin on her face. He whispered and they laughed and he gently embraced her as they walked, side by side. My curiosity led me to harshly wonder: They apparently love each other. But how does she love someone like him? And how could he love her? Look at them. Really. Their love just couldn't be all that resplendent. I doubt they could even spell "resplendent." Such shallow thoughts. Did I really think in those few seconds, that love had the potential to be inferior when embraced by someone that I regarded as unlovely? We all breathe and live. We are all humans. And love is still love. It is love there, it is love here. For love transcends time and space and history. It transcends ignorance, culture, wealth, intelligence. Agape love, Philia love-- all love. Above all, love perfectly transcends beauty-- it exists independent of limits of loveliness, it completely disregards beauty and splendor, ugliness, lowliness.

I needed only to look at the cross again, to have fully learned that.

2009-05-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

. . .

What is it that I love in loving You? You are the light that shines into my soul which no physical place can contain, where time does not snatch away the lovely sound, where no breeze disperses the sweet fragrance, where no eating diminishes the food, and where there is an embrace that can't be torn asunder. This is what I love when I love my God.

What is this God? I asked the earth, and it answered, "I am not He." Everything in the earth made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things, and they replied, "we are not your God; seek above us." I asked the fleeting winds, and the entire air with its inhabitants answered, "I am not God." I asked the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars; and they answered, "Neither are we the God whom you seek."

I replied to all these things that surround me: "You have told me about my God, that you are not He. Tell me something about Him." With a loud voice they all cried out, "He made us." My question had come from observing them, and their reply came from their beauty of order.

Isn't this beauty of form visible to all whose senses are unimpaired? Why, then, does it not say the same things to all? Animals, both great and small, see but are unable to question its meaning. Their senses are not endowed with the reason that would enable them to judge the evidence their senses report.

-St. Augustine

. . .

2009-05-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

My new lovely, big window was recently installed.
And the Plum tree outside is in full bloom. Bliss.

2009-05-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are not only conscious of it, but every one of our senses are aware of it. Of a pervasive unlit-ness; of this present and infiltrating Cimmerian darkness. It is recognized even as we look out our window: at the ugly rotting leaves or the tilting dying Oak, or the graffiti which mars the wall. We hear it on the streets: crude language, horrible patois, the distortion of canon, the misuse of beautiful words-- the misuse of beautiful meaning. It is shockingly visible everywhere, especially promulgated through media: slandering, the absence of Truth, the lack of peace, abortion, death, the abuse of sex and sexuality, war, nihilism, murder, thievery, greed and the obsession of self. This darkness is everything that beauty and light isn't. It is everything that goodness and purity is not. It is an epidemic; a raging flood. It's something we don't like to acknowledge very often. Because it terrifies.

[We are] afraid of the dark-- not afraid to go up the stairs in the physical darkness of night, but afraid of the shadows of another kind of dark, the darkness of nothingness, of hate, of evil.

So we rush around trying to light candles. Some are real: books are candles for me; so is music; so is friendship. Others blow up in our faces, like too much alcohol and too many sleeping pills or pep pills. Or hard drugs. Or sex where there isn't any love.

I think it was Toynbee who said that we are a sick society because we have refused to accept death and infinity. Our funeral practices open themselves up to satire, but they are only symptom. There's an insurance commercial on the radio which says, "if something should happen to you," with the implication that without some unforeseen accident of course you'll never die. (L'Engle)

For me, my candles are books and music as well. But a greater light illuminates this great darkness for me, and my shuddering is less for my security is strong:

"Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15)

Sometimes I still find it desperately, nearly impossible to live with such havoc and distortion of peace and love and ravaging the world. But I know that this darkness creates in us a search for purpose and meaning in the midst of it. I think it was Carl Jung who said, "Death is psychologically as important as birth. Shrinking away from it is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose." Death and dying and darkness and fear-- these shadows prove to us that there really is light.

"The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (Matthew 4:16)

. . .

2009-04-30T20:56:00.000-07:00

On the absurdity of feminist
language:

Her unisex temper would worsen
If as chairman she wasn't 'chairperson':
She required that we ban
Those damned suffixes, 'man'--
So now she's become a woperson.

-S. Vanauken

2009-04-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

One spring one of my students showed me her notebook,
in which she had written, "The only good artist is a dead one.
All artists should be shot after they have finished producing.
If they are allowed to live, they will start commenting on their works,
and I have never heard and artist say anything intelligent
about what he has done...

Beethoven had the right idea: he played one of his sonatas
for someone, and when he had finished, the person said,
'That's very nice, but what does it mean?'
And Beethoven sat down and played the whole thing over."

(A Circle of Quiet)

2009-04-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

Rebirth? It must be a process of growth occurring after a death? Or, at least, a near death. I was thinking of that late last night; the revival of one's soul and health after being stagnant, moribund. My little ceramic pot sitting on my window sill holds a flowery plant. I am a horrible botanist- I have no idea what it is. But its blooms are a lovely shade of pink and it's very pretty. I am also a horrible gardener, but have tried to take care of it properly: I've watered it and talked to it. (The ferns and other things I have growing in various pots next to it are doing fairly well also. Except for the Mint, who is thoroughly dead, which is sad since it smelled delicious. It was supposed to be planted outdoors I was told, but I didn't think it mattered that much.) Because of my poor plant tending skills my little pink plant has had a pretty rough life. And the other day, it looked dreadful; definitely worse than usual. It's smooth stems were painfully drooping over and most of the petals had fallen off or had turned a ghastly ashen color. It looked as if it was gasping for breath-- its last dying breaths. I watered it again; which is my instinctive cure-all for every plant-ish kind of growing thing. But now it looked even worse, it was gasping for breath while melting in a puddle of water. A couple of mornings later I was very surprised to see it was alive. And- not only was it alive- but its stems were gracefully standing upright, with the delicate pink returned to its petals, as it gently bent towards the sun shining through the window. It looked marvelous. Strong. And so, that's what has drawn my mind down the path of contemplating birth, rebirth and regeneration. I wonder if it is true in every case-- if the life one lives after regeneration, is more beautiful than the life one had before?

2009-04-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

"The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wainropes would not bring me back again to that accursed island; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I the surf booming about its coasts, or start upright in bed, with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: 'Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!'"

-Treasure Island

2009-04-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

. . .

I am fond of encircling myself with the young: infants, children, bright faces- mostly ignorant of their existence- aware only of beauty, color, of laughter, of eating candy, of love. Perhaps one reason I do this, is my unconscious attempt to disguise my own terror of death and dying and of coping with it. I don't know. All I know is that- as a childhood quote comes echoing back to me, from the movie Pollyanna- "Death comes unexpectedly." The death of someone I know was felt last week. That reality was ushered in by the words of a friend who informed me, "___ died today." How can a whole life be extinguished in that one sentence- in that one single word- "died"? People pass away often. Yet when that death lands lands nearer home than the others that's when it is felt. And it hurts. "There is always the memento mori, the realization that death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived." (L'engle) This week, this Easter week, I am more conscious than ever that "all flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flowers of the field," that "man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow," but that "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? ... But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

. . .

2009-03-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

I listen to the news and hear of war and rumor of war, of crime and wanton destruction and loss of humanity, and think of Ionesco's brilliant play, Rhinoceros. It starts out in a small French village on a Sunday morning; everything is normal and ordinary; the people in the village are very much like the people we know, like us. Then a rhinoceros strolls through the village square, and this first rhinoceros is like a presage of plague, because the people of the village start, one by one, turning into rhinos; they are willing to give up being their particular selves, to give up being human beings, to become beasts. And one of the character says, 'Oh, why couldn't all this happen in some other country so we could just read about it in the papers?"

Excerpt from A Circle of Quiet

2009-03-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

I must confess- growing up scares me. It's not the solemn responsibility of being a respectable and loving adult: citizen, wife, mother or grandmother. Of course some of that holds its own fear and mystery. But rather, I am terrified of losing my youth, of losing this sense of novelty about life, of which I find here in my youth. I may be impetuous and wide-eyed and may on occasion laugh too much, but, how else am I to feel the world? I am afraid as I grow older, my wonder will dissipate, diminishing immensely, leaving me aloof, severely mature with an air about me which mutters, I've seen it all. Of course I will know more of the world later on- for discovery and experience are found and learned over time. But what I don't want is to become like the majority of people I've observed around me- to become like the solemn faced, grey-haired woman who comes in often and orders a soy chai; she is civil and old, yet nothing more. Perhaps that's it- I don't ever want to become old. We all grow old, naturally, but I don't want to be old. Old as in: joyless, apathetic or I've seen it all. I don't want to be that kind of old. I don't want my perspective of existence or my awe of God to grow stale and cold as I age. Those are two things I don't ever want to "get used to."

"Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel." (Crime and Punishment)

2009-03-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

...The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.

Poole nodded. "Once," he said. "Once I heard it weeping!"

"Weeping? How that?” said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden chill of horror.

"Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said the butler. "I came away with that upon my heart, that I could have wept too."

-Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

2009-02-19T20:53:00.000-08:00

Stygian shadows
admit,
admit,
your defeat.
You are cornered
feral ideas,
darkened songs,
bitter death.
'Round this jungle
the lambent sun
has come
to admit,
to admit its
utter ascendancy.
...

2009-02-16T21:32:00.000-08:00

Scrape away the
mulching leaves
from last year
and the clinging
mud between the
grooves
of your boots;
stomp.

It's a new year.

2009-02-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

I am frustrated with myself. My head echoes with the pulsing of a headache. My schedule is too packed and I am overwhelmed. It seems like I don't even have time for the small important things. My mind is consumed with a whirlwind of thoughts and many of my obligations stand unfulfilled. It's a new year, and yet I don't find too much joy in it.

And... so I take myself back to square one. And I teach myself to pray; simply.

"Thank you, God, for today. Thank you that I can feel anything at all. Thank you for my head. I'm so glad I have one. Thank you for my eyes. The sky is cloudy and the air is cold, but thank you that I can see and feel the beauty of your world. Thank you for sight. Thank you for my dear family and for my job and for all this busy-ness. Thank you that I even have a family. Thank you that I even have a job. Thank you for your breath-taking provision. Thank you for caring for me; I don't deserve it. Thank you for your grace and the courage to do the things I need to do but haven't, the things I should do, and the things I've already done. You are mighty. Thank you for my fingers- so that I can write this. Thank you for my mind- that I can capture these humble thoughts. Thank you for my health. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for my cup of steaming coffee. Thank you, thank you... for my life. "

2009-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

One of my terrible downfalls is my resemblance, in personality and pursuit of life, to that of an overly- eager puppy fascinated by his new red ball. I find myself getting completely distracted by the most ridiculous things- may it be new ideas, concepts, films or shoes. I unwittingly pursue the object of my fascination, chasing after it like a puppy chasing the bright and beautiful red-as-an-apple ball. "Oooh, look! It bounces!" While these things, these distractions, aren't particularly harmful- too much of their influence tend to tediously snag my heart and mind. In my distracted state I often have over-looked the fact that I have run off course a bit. And if the habit is kept up, soon I am surprised to find myself in the swamp, up to my knees in green algae. Swamps are horrible things to climb out of. This year, my main resolution is to take seriously the words of Christ:

"Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." (Ephesians 5:15)

2009-01-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

If our life is ever really as beautiful as a fairytale, we shall have to remember that all the beauty of a fairytale lies in this: that the prince has a wonder which just stops short of being fear. If he is afraid of the giant, there is an end of him; but also if he is not astonished at the giant, there is an end of the fairytale. The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy. So our attitude to the giant of the world must not merely be increasing delicacy or increasing contempt: it must be one particular proportion of the two-- which is exactly right. We must have in us enough reverence for all things outside us to make us tread fearfully on the grass. We must also have enough disdain for all things outside us, to make us, on due occasion, spit at the stars. Yet these two things (if we are to be good and happy) must be combined, not in any combination, but in one particular combination. The perfect happiness of men on the earth (if it ever comes) will not be a flat and solid thing, like the satisfaction of animals. It will be an exact and perilous balance; like that of a desperate romance. Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.

-G.K. Chesterton

2009-01-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

My eyes watched

from the wet ground.

He grabbed a

handful of stars;

rays flashing
from His hands.
Covering my head,
I shuddered at
the light-
such great light
afire.

I sank into the
river, shaking.
Yet, the dark waters
would not hide me,
as the deep
lifted its hands
on high.

Was His wrath
against the rivers?
Or His indignation
against the
innocent seas?

So I sought solace in
the green hills.

Yet I heard His
footsteps
on the trails.
I saw the flash of
His glittering
spear, as the
everlasting hills
sank low.

The sun
and moon
stood still.

His breath
twirled
around me
like smoke.
And I felt the
shock
of His veiled
power.

The nations shook
and the valleys sang.

The
world
hummed
one
song.

God is the Lord.

. . .

[Inspired by Habakkuk 3]

2008-12-23T12:26:00.000-08:00

Oh the purity that hushes the sharp corners
and gracefully bends irregularity;
birthing the transformation of
the ugliest of character.

I see the usual grumbling oak across the way
and the arthritic brown walnut tree,
their arms are now fallen at their sides,
heavy heads bowed low in somber
white reverence to the sky.

12.21

2008-12-12T11:57:00.000-08:00

Without any rhyme
without any reason
my heart lifts to light
in this bleak season.

Believer and wanderer
caught by salvation
stumbler and blunderer
into Creation

In this cold blight
where marrow is frozen
it is God's time
my heart has chosen

In paradox and story
parable and laughter
find I the glory
here in hereafter.

-L 'Engle

2008-12-09T22:49:00.000-08:00

"I mean, what is an un-birthday present?"
"A present given when it isn't your birthday, of course."
Alice considered a little.
"I like birthday presents best," she said at last.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" cried Humpty Dumpty.
"How many days are there in a year?"
"Three hundred and sixty-five," said Alice.
"And how many birthdays have you?"

"One."

[Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]

2008-12-02T11:24:00.000-08:00

The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians- when they are somber and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things, perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy, to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity- and possibly nowhere else.

-Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

2008-11-26T18:44:00.000-08:00

O'er snow swept oceans they climbed; the groaning ship waxing death and water. After days and nights and horrendous creaking months, the sight of land found them prostrate, sobbing. Old Bradford said of it, "...they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven." They were... home. They built and constructed, forging their new lives in the forest. Yet the tangled secrets of this new world left them bewildered.

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them, they knew not. (Bradford)

And so the winter winds blew harshly through the plank doors, snuffing out life after life. Ten were gone. Then twenty. The frozen ground was interrupted from its winter sleep again and again, and still more bodies were laid beneath the innocent snow. When the sun finally stretched out its warming hand, it wept at the sight that uneducated life in the new world had wrought; over half of the small settlement was obliterated, only three families remained intact. And then he came- very much as a surprise, nearly naked, yet speaking their tongue and eager to aid; surely an angel sent by God? He divulged the secrets of the trees and leaves, unlocking the mysteries of the seas and rivers; he performed magic with the ground yielding large harvests. Overcome with gratefulness for the stranger, one spoke of him as "a special instrument sent of God for our good, beyond our expectation." And thus, they learned the ways of the land, planting and reaping, hunting and fishing. They learned to survive the woods and the winds. Summer days came... and went. And by God's grace, they prospered.

Our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie. (Edward Winslow)

2008-11-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

One day... I want to sit cross-legged on the floor of her shop. I will bury my hands in a soft heap of feathers and fish out burnt oranges and melon pinks. My knees will play hide and seek, lost in the flirtatious ribbons, inches and yards of old and new ribbons; and lace too: lace is very flirtatious. And then I will remember the ferns and willow branches arching over the side of the brown basket, alongside the pitchers and little baskets of grasses and twigs and lichens and mosses and skeletal leaves. And then there will be beads, buttons, and pieces of colored glass and ancient sequins and real looking diamonds and rubies, and they will find their destiny sewn on ruched fabric or glued on headdresses and hems. And from under the creaky door, the winter breezes will rush in and prowl around the room; but the warm air whooshing through the rusty heater vents will chase them away. The room will smell of vanilla candles and old things and of greenery and drapes and dust and of my hot rooibos tea sitting there on the window sill; and we will listen silently to the rain pattering on the roof and on the sidewalk. And she, with her weathered grey hair and I with my youthful red, will sit there on the floor. And we will make things.

2008-10-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

I sat in a velvety brown chair and surveyed the scene.

Chalk board-ish signs were decorated, marking the beginning of our holiday season with their advertisements of gingery and eggnogy lattes. It smelled like cinnamon and coffee in the little shop and it was warm and cozy. I sipped my americano. You drink way too much coffee, I told myself, way too much. I opened my book and read.... two words.

I was interrupted by the intelligent looking man next to me who proceeded to start a discussion about the book I held in my hands. I was reading Orthodoxy (again), by Chesterton. He wanted to know my views on Protestantism and Greek and Roman orthodoxy and Christianity: all so similar, yet possessing some tenants so widely different. What a topic. Then he went on to tell me, in his French accent, that he has (supposedly) been a professor at three different acclaimed universities and how he is writing a book on the subject of-- orthodoxy, of all things. After that long interesting conversation, I was able to pick up my book again. These are my favorite, favorite passages taken from chapter five from my reading:

On life and this world:

I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton's Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one.

No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a Christian to die to it?

The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more.

On death by suicide:

Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world.

...[He] insults everything on earth. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront.

Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end... In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe.

. . .

Simply beautiful.

2008-10-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

I disappear into the cavern of my world. Shutting the door behind me; turning the lock on my fears and prejudices and pent up frustrations. They beat upon the door. I hear their ungracious muffled yells: "You can't stay in the there forever!" I ignore them. I breathe freely and take in the quiet. All is silence in here. A drop falls from a stalactite and drowns, noiselessly in a pool. Ripples. All is cool. And calm. It's just me in here. Just me. Alone and unafraid. Alone? You're not alone. I tense at the sound of the haunting voice. Prickles rush down my spine. The voice is familiar. Very familiar. In desperation and horror I start to run- trying to lose the voice in the maze of my world. But, somehow I cannot out run it. It berates me. It startles me around every turn; it echoes through the cavernous halls. Wasn't I the only one here? Hadn't I bolted the door?

But... who can escape one's thoughts?

2008-10-15T11:53:00.001-07:00

"[The poet] Keats, I think, sensed man's need for the timeless. His Grecian urn is a 'foster-child of Silence and slow Time,' and it 'tease[s] us out of thought/As doth eternity.' It is surely the eternal that Keats aches for.

If, indeed, we all have a kind of appetite for eternity, we have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a society that frustrates our longing at every turn. Half our inventions are advertised to save time-- the washing machine, the fast car, the jet flight-- but for what? Never were people more harried by time: by watches, by time clocks, by precise schedules... There is, in fact, some truth in 'the good old days': no other civilization of the past was ever so harried by time.

And yet, why not? Time is our natural environment. We live in time as we live in the air we breathe. And we love the air-- who has not taken deep breathes of pure, fresh country air, just for the pleasure of it? How strange that we cannot love time. It spoils our loveliest moments. Nothing quite comes up to expectations because of it. We alone: animals, so far as we can see, are unaware of time, untroubled. Time is their natural environment. Why do we sense that it is not ours?

...It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations, even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it-- how fast it goes, how slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry has time gone? We aren't adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as a proof, or at least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home."

[Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy]

2008-10-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

My ubiquitous circuit
among the ruins of time
cannot escape them:
roman symbols
towering like giants
six and seven, ten
and twelve.
Glass could live
eternally,
if not shattered.
But, I am a shroud
of sand's seashells.
I will not last long.
And one day,
like a castle of sand
away I will be washed,
into the spectral sea.

2008-09-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity... it is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid... The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility.

-Chesterton, Orthodoxy

2008-09-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Castle-Builder

A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks,
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
And towers that touch imaginary skies.

A fearless rider on his father's knee,
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.

There will be other towers for thee to build;
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listening to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

Longfellow

2008-09-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

a schizophrenic e minor
hits his heads
against the wall
his sister chords spiral
from the strings
in echoes and chants

they fly
reciting rhythms
to the windows
they fly
then shatter
and burn

last i saw the
e minor die

his mouths were
reciting rhythms to
the windows

2008-09-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

I find that in the summer's end, while many things change,

many things stay. I take the taxi to the hill. I scatter dust
as I run down the sloping grass, wondering why --
why the days blink so fast? The season is changing and so is my
mood. My thoughts are flying a million directions; and to my
indignation, some are wanting to lie dormant, wrapped cozily
in a tartan plaid! My summer impulsive wildness is getting sleepy
and swirling smoke and fires and flickering shadows on the
walls sound nice. The warm breeze reminds me of coldness and
scarves. My ideas are starting to turn... turn colors like the
leaves soon will. And my thoughts... oh my thoughts... some are
flying south, but some... some are dreaming of cinnamon and
wool, hungrily dreaming of past summer days as if they were a
custard of pleasant fairy tales. Oh. And taxi! Could you please
stop at the next coffee shop?

I need some warmth from this sudden chilliness.

2008-08-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

I've always loved Chesterton. Before I've wished that Madeleine L'Engle had been my aunt; now I doubly wish G.K. Chesterton had been my grandfather. His simple mirthful innocence and honesty in approaching Christianity never fails to broaden and sharpen my intellect. I am having a delightful time reading Orthodoxy. It's one of those books that I thought I already read years ago, but obviously I realized, never did.

Existence and it's meaning, and life and love-- and trying in vain to discern God's reasoning behind bubbles and bell peppers, have been intensely lurking in my thoughts and under my bed for weeks. This short poem of Chesterton's marched through my mind all day like a somber hymn, strumming the strings of my mind like an ungraceful harpist. It's nothing new. I've read it before.

Here dies another day
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

Meaning. I'm struggling with meaning. Can a Christian be lost? Not lost in the truest sense, because my darkness is illuminated by the light. But lost as in, what is this light? "I felt in my bones, first that this world does not explain itself... Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it." One of my favorite passages so far is when he describes this world as a sort of cosmic shipwreck:

"A person's search for meaning resembles a sailor who awakens from a deep sleep and discovers treasure strewn about, relics from a civilization he can barely remember. One by one he picks up the relics- gold coins, a compass, fine clothing- and tries to discern their meaning. Fallen humanity is in such a state. Good things on earth- the natural world, beauty, love, joy- still bear traces of their original purpose, but amnesia mars the image of God in us."

I was so excited upon reading this that during my break at work, I called an employee over and read it to her. I was so excited. To me-- what a genius way to describe it-- this world, truth and life! Sometimes little things have a way of exploding my overly eager mind to produce dramatic thoughts, and well, this quote did it. It brought me abruptly out of my body and jolted me into the space of time- in my mind I surveyed the world and humanity- and I was overwhelmed with the feeling of God, and of the beauty of this place, of its desecration, of its mystery, and of its mystic magic and pure and holy beginning and hope of redemption. We live in a Narnian world.

My spine just tingled.

2008-08-14T21:16:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I find myself getting into a routine. A life routine. I wake, eat, work, sleep. I eat my toast without philosophizing about the art of chewing. I breathe without realizing it... I forget about life every day. Every other minute I seem to get caught up in the swirl of living that I completely forget what I am doing-- I am living! Isn't this amazing?

I am life. I breathe. I live. I move. I hear. And speak. I love. I weep. I sense. I fear. I believe. I feel. I hope. I...live. This reality- this concept of life, of my life and your life- should never cease to amaze us. Never. The profound mystery of this breathing and pulsing world should grab our hearts and dwell within our souls. It should race within our minds every day and excite us with an amazing love and gratitude for our Creator. It should knock us off our feet! It should blow our minds. It should send shivers down our spines. It should overwhelm us. Convict us. Inspire us.

It should intoxicate us. It should intoxicate us with love for life-- for our beautiful, beautiful lives.

2008-07-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

She had just heard that her friend of 50 years had died. "I didn't even know she had cancer," she told me. She stared through the open door absently and said, "I didn't even know." I put the card back I was looking at and picked up a different one. The birthday greeting inside was exceptionally lame. I put it back. I turned to look at her. I watched her, curiously. Her light, white hair framed her pixie face. Her eyes were vibrant and sparkling. She was very lovely. I felt so young looking at her. Childish. Inexperienced. What wise condolences could I offer her? I prayed for her, silently. "It's very sad when your friends start dying," She said, looking at me. I couldn't say, "I know." Because... I didn't. "When you know someone for so long, it kills you when they leave you. It does, " she said, looking at me thoughtfully. I twirled the card stand, and watched the colorful cards spin. I tried to share in some of her pain by telling her of my friend who had just left that day for Marine boot camp. I think that made it worse and I berated myself for telling her. So, I decided to just listen, silently. Attentively. My heart going out to her, quietly. "I really hate goodbyes, you know." She said. "And... I've learned that, this is what life is; a series of goodbyes." Her soft, wistful voice smote my heart. "I really, really hate goodbyes." I ended up buying a card. I didn't want to leave so quickly, but I was late for an appointment. I tried to say everything encouraging and loving that I could think of. I walked to the door. She smiled, "Thank you for coming, dear," she said. I smiled too, wanting to run back over to her and give her a hug."Goodb--" I started to say. "I hope you have a lovely evening," I quietly said instead. I walked down the cracked sidewalk, clutching my card.

2008-07-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

I stared into the lake of milk I was steaming. The steam swirled around my head and for a moment I must have gotten lost in the dull serenity of it all. I glanced at the thermometer; somewhere near very-very-that's-way-too-hot degrees. I scowled. That was probably a little warmer than the guy in the black shirt wanted. But, I smiled at him and slipped a sleeve on his cup and said, "Careful, it's a little hot." That was white chocolate Mocha with no whip number 7 of the day. A regular came in and sat at the counter. "Your usual?" I said. She nodded and proceeded to lecture me on her views of world traveling and money spending. I nodded, shook my head, smiled, frowned, listened, interjected. The door jingled. A man hastily strode in asking for directions. Then he hastily strode out. The door jingled behind him. I caught a whiff of a favorite song floating through the air. "Summer came like cinnamon, so sweet..." My feet were killing me and my neck ached, I had drank a couple Americanos and perhaps a tea or two and my head was buzzing-- but I still felt good. The sun lazily fell through the windows at lovely angles. People talked. I ground more coffee beans. Cars drove by. The door jingled again. What? Another 16oz white chocolate mocha? Oh. With whip?

Of course.

2008-07-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

"Well," I said, "I remember I turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror, looking at myself, frightened because people thought when they were getting ready for bed, and didn't think about me because I wasn't the most important thing in their lives at all. Mother and Father'd always made me feel that I was important, and now all of a sudden I realized I wasn't. How can you be important when nobody knows about you? It's very frightening to realize you aren't important after all."

-L'engle, Camilla

2008-07-15T11:47:00.001-07:00

I run over to the edge of the sky.
"Wait, wait, don't go yet!" I say,
to the melting sun as it waves goodbye,
sliding down through space.
The day cannot be spent yet-
it was too lovely.
I dig my heels in the ground
and push the sun back up an inch.
It slides right back down again.
I sigh. And sink into the soft grass,
in sad reluctance.

But tomorrow dawns another day,
and with it, a new sun.

2008-07-09T20:42:00.000-07:00

I sat in the grey shade, on a patch of almost green grass.

It was torrid and windy. Which, was bearable as long as the breeze blew, but the moment it stopped, the heat would encircle me- and then just as it had captured me- it would thrust me aside as the winds blew again. I felt like a ship being buffeted at sea. I sat there in the dirt, barefoot, watching the crowds of people picnicking or dunking each other in the lake. The trees near me swayed, their branches swirling in the wind; their shadows making random shapes on my arms. Because of the hot temperature, the park was flooded with people. The picnic tables were littered with plastic Winco bags and chips and Sprite. Paper cups or a napkin or two occasionally flew by in the wind. Families of every descent seemed present, each with their 23 children and 65 lawn chairs. The beach was overgrown with towels and sunscreen bottles, soaked diapers and stray flip flops. A child ran past me with a precarious looking sucker jutting from his mouth. I watched a boy and girl toss a pink ball back and forth; the girl never seemed to be able to catch it. The wind grabbed my hair and plastered it on my face, making it ridiculous to see anything. I held my hair away from my eyes as a young boy on the swings caught my attention. He was no older than 12. He sat on the swing with a cigarette in his mouth; pumping up and down, up and down, a puff of smoke trailing behind him. A wailing sound broke into my reverie. A mob of little children were making a mad dash to the sound, towards... towards what? "Ice cream!" I heard someone shout. And there it was, the ice cream...van. Playing very, very loud Christmas music. "Go tell him it's July," I said to the little brown-eyed toddler, staring at me from the baby swing. Something that resembled fried food wafted indelicately through the air. I heard someone laugh. I heard a scream. Someone swore, loudly. A woman with bright green Crocs walked past me. A small boy with a plastic bucket marched past my feet. To the right of me a girl was bothering two little children on the tire swing. They wanted off-- they screamed, cried. She twisted it up and let it go...twisted and let it go. Each time she stepped back, laughing. They fell off, finally, at the end of their third ride; dizzy and sick. They collapsed in two little heaps, sobbing on the bark chips. She pointed, laughing. I turned my head to watch the nearly naked swimmers. Their white pasty legs and sunburned faces clambered in and out of the off-brown water.

There are times in life, when one feels a part of humanity, when you feel one with your fellow bank teller, or the man who waved to you at the intersection. But, then there are times, like these, when one feels completely alienated. As I surveyed everyone, this small part of humanity, I drew conclusions about them all-- the picnickers, swingers and swimmers-- I felt as if I knew who most of them were and how they were pursuing their lives. Sometimes, you can tell things like that from just simply watching people. I felt as if all the evidence I needed was being presented right in front of me. And it made me sad.

I stood up and grabbed my water bottle and keys. I waved to the little dark-eyed toddler still stuck swinging in the baby swing.

My eyes began swimming in a sea of salt water.

Must have been all the wind and dust.

2008-07-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor-- this is Old Age.

Old Age-- Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk down the street together?

Professor (drawing back a little)-- We can talk more quietly, perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he evidently considers you an entire stranger?

Old Age--I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's recognition until I have known him at least five years.

Professor-- Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as that?

Old Age-- I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you.

Professor-- Where?

Old Age-- There, between your eyebrows,--three straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,--"Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign- manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card on you.

Professor-- What message do people generally send back when you first call on them?

Old Age-- Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six,--sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows.

We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again,--Come, let us walk down the street together,--and offered me a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes.--No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone;--got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to think over this whole matter.

[Oliver W. Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858]

2008-06-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for the Max the other day.

I stood still; silently and tired in the heat- watching the tall shadows from the buildings create a tunnel around the driving cars. I wished I had my sunglasses. But they had recently met their sad demise near the blueberry muffins in my local Trader Joe's I remembered, when I had stooped to read the ingredient label and they fell from my head; and I hadn't bought new ones yet. So, I squinted in the sun. A man ambling down the street caught my demented vision and my eyes followed him as he walked my direction. He had an interesting walk; a waltz-like shuffle and hobble at the same time. I heard something. Was he singing? He crossed the street, his glazed, delirious eyes barely noticing the cars randomly passing. He was dirty and hot and looked tired. He resembled most of the other homeless men in downtown Portland. His shoes were mainly flaps held together perhaps by a miracle and his clothing was torn and filthy. I was right, he was singing. His voice was loud and clear, and people looked up from their books and paused their conversations to glance at him. In an off-key solo of haunting proportions he sang: "I'm singing the same old song, I'm singing the same old song, I'm singing the same old song..." Over and over and over and over and he sang those words. I watched his bent shoulders disappear amidst the people on the street- as his empty phrase echoed through the air, ricocheting through the shadowy tunnel of the city buildings.

Oh God, give him a new song to sing.

2008-06-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There'd been no room for the child.

-Madeleine L'Engle, from Weather of the Heart

2008-06-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

2008-06-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

Eve

The heavens weep for me. Their tears trudge this muddied earth.
The forests mourn for me, sighing; their subtle groans send fractures
through the air, gathering in hollow caves, crying.
My young heart is like acidic ink, it drips and spreads within me,
it stains my fingers and my feet, it disgraces my face; it has polluted my name.
I am drowned in my sorrow. And this sorrow- it haunts the corners of the
earth. It drags itself to the side of the seas, throwing itself in, searching for
peace, for concord- but, the oceans spit it out. And so it crawls to the mountains
and hides itself in the crevices of the cliffs, crying.

It lives. It cannot be redeemed by any hand of man or smote by the breath
of any creature. It lives within me, this guilt, this daily bread of blinking death.
I wash it from my hands, but the inky blackness swims through my veins.
I throw it from my body, but it clings to me; it cannot be pried, it cannot be bribed.
I am the typography of self satisfaction and self ruination. I am a painted portrait
of destruction. I wish I could obliterate that portrait, but it hangs for public display
and all eyes see it. Some who stare at it with glazed eyes, smile- yet tears fall down
their faces. They don't understand- yet they mourn. Those eyes should mourn
for themselves and not for me. For my nameless grief has overflown from my body
and seeps into this mortal sand, pervading the pores of the air. My pain is a havoc
to the world. All who breathe this air and walk this sand become like me.

And so the heavens weep for you also. Their tears trudge this muddied earth.
The valleys utter groans and the trees whisper their great sadness. The birds
of the air sing their songs, crying.

2008-06-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

like a ribbon of almost blue
pour the rain into a jar
use a blanket of brightly orange
to wrap it up and toss it far.

for now.

2008-06-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

paint me a pen
with fingers
gripping tight-
the middle
fingers curled
and sleepy,
the pointing one
thoughtful,
the thumb
regal,
the little one
lost and
confused.

2008-06-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

While fresh upon my legs, so long I naught require,
Except this knotty staff. Beside,
What boots it to abridge a pleasant way?
Along the labyrinth of these vales to creep,
Then scale these rocks, whence, in eternal spray,
Adown the cliffs the silvery fountains leap:
Such is the joy that seasons paths like these!
Spring weaves already in the birchen trees;
E’en the late pine-grove feels her quickening powers;
Should she not work within these limbs of ours?

Through the stones and heather springing,
Brook and brooklet haste below;
Hark the rustling! Hark the singing!
Hearken to love’s plaintive lays;
Voices of those heavenly days—
What we hope, and what we love!
Like a tale of olden time,
Echo’s voice prolongs the chime.

-Goethe (1749–1832), Faust: Part I.

2008-06-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

So, I toted home a new book from the library. It actually isn’t very new and happens to smell a little, the pages are muted yellow and are rather stiff to the touch- stiff from a galaxy of germs, most likely. Although, I doubt many people have stormed their local library in search of this book, aching to read it. It was originally published in 1895, but this paper backed copy, the one I hold in my hands- wondering why on earth I ever wanted to read it- is obviously a little newer than that. The only reason I can remember for wanting to read it in the first place is because it is dramatically titled. It's known as, The Altar of the Dead, written by James Henry. It is one of his most famous works, labeled by critics as a “gloriously written” short story. I wonder if those critics ever read the whole thing, because if they did, I know they would have agreed with me that it is a long story, and it’s dull, and boring and confusing and rather, for lack of a more glamorous adjective- weird.

The story is a fable. It explores the protagonist’s treatment of morality and transcendence and love, by examining his unusual remembrance of “his dead,” as his deceased young fiancée and friends are called. And so he lives and breathes their deaths, memorializing their lives, eventually making the pursuit of their memory his sacred purpose and religion. The protagonist dies at the end, prostrate before the altar of his dead, and the story closes with his face showing “the whiteness of death.” He had, in the end, become one of his own dead. It is an empty story. If the secular Mr. Henry had hoped in illustrating deep spirituality and unselfish love, he wrote the wrong words. For in the end, what he successfully and even beautifully illustrated was humanity's degeneration and essential need for life- life that surpasses this tilting world.

2008-05-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

embryonic quietude stills the wanton shores,
shrouding the diseased arches above the cathedral trees.
he slips his arms into his tellurian vest,
as, one by one, each button is seduced by his hand.
until at last all blinking eyes have stopped,
all sun-yellow faces have sunk into the rapture of stillness,
as they slowly swallow their short eternity of rest.

5.11

2008-05-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

II.

And still the mad magnificent herald Spring
assembles beauty from forgetfulness
with the wild trump of April: witchery
of sound and odour drives the wingless
man forth in the bright air, for now the red
leaps in the maple's cheek, and suddenly
by shining hordes in sweet unserious dress
ascends the golden crocus from the dead.

On dappled dawn forth rides the pungent sun
with hooded day preening upon his hand
followed by gay untimid final flowers
(which dressed in various tremulous armor stun
the eyes of ragged earth who sees them pass)
while hunted from his kingdom winter cowers,
seeing green armies steadily expand
hearing the spear-song of the marching grass.>>>

A silver sudden parody of snow
tickles the air to golden tears, and hark!
the flicker's laughing yet, while on the hills
the pines deepen to whispers primeval and throw
backward their foreheads to the barbarous bright
sky, and suddenly from the valley thrills
the unimaginable upward lark
and drowns the earth and passes into light.
>>>>
O still miraculous May! O shining girl
of time untarnished! O small intimate
gently primeval hands, frivolous feet
divine! O singular and breathless pearl!
O indefinable frail ultimate pose!
O visible beatitude sweet sweet
intolerable! silence immaculate
of God's evasive audible great rose!
>>

e. e. cummings

'twas brillig and the slilthy toves...

2008-04-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

One of the more enjoyable aspects of teaching my younger brothers and sisters their rather boring elements of grammar or even sometimes the aspects of finer and beautiful writing and usage of words, is the aspect of reading good classics aloud to them. Last year I tried on many occasions to start a book with them, but somehow, we never finished it. So, this year I knew I had to stick with it and be consistent, or we'd get through one book a year. As with many things in life, I've found that consistency was definitely the key here. Well, as is an understandable and intriguing book; which somehow seems to help, I don't really know why.

A couple of months ago I thought I would search the library for an old book that I remember loving when I was younger called, The Dark Frigate, by Charles Boardman Hawes, a 1924 Newberry Award winner. However, I think I must have been at least thirteen when I read it, but forgetting that dusty fact, I found the book and that evening began to read it aloud to the kids, repeatedly telling them how much I loved it and how they were going to too, "It's about pirates!" I kept saying, my eyes exaggeratively wide. So, I opened it. The book began with a rambling and complex narrative as to the location of the story: the why, when and how and why, and where and why, and what next of why and how and who and because of whom, of such a topic and story plot that the book hadn't even been gracious enough to enlighten us about yet, but seemed fit to describe all the details of. When this happens, generally, we skim to get the meaning, we get the gist of the story and then resume a page or two later; so this I did as well. I skimmed, tried to explain what was happening in the story and then began to read at the top of the next page, "He that will a guid edge win, maun forge thick an' grind thin..."I glanced up over the edge of the book. There were five little children sprawled out on the beds and floor. One was biting his nails absentmindedly, and another one was laying on his stomach, flipping through a Lego catalog, while the littlest was wrapped up in blankets and rolling off his bed, landing with a thump on the floor. My siblings are pretty smart kids, but I had to concede that the book was still a little too much for a handful of six year olds. Maybe we'll try reading it again in a few months.

So far we've read Redwall by Brian Jacques, Stuart Little by E.B. White, The Borrowers by Mary Norton, Roverandom by J.R.R Tolkien and we are nearly finished with, The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, which is also a Newberry Honor award winner. Having rather a wide range of ages to cope with and the different preferences of the boys and girls has been somewhat challenging in trying to find a book that interests all of them. I would have read The Chronicles of Narnia first, but the 4 year old insists that its a little too mature for his standards. I thought of Little Women, but the boys outnumber the girls and have seen the movie and said they couldn't possibly sit through hours of reading about making dresses and of eating limes and of conversations of Professor Bhaer. I think next we will read The Secret Garden, or perhaps go through the Little House series, or maybe we'll try a different pirate story and read another old favorite of mine, Treasure Island.

2008-04-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

I wish I could say that I usually have [nearly] perfect experiences. It would be nice to have at least a few things actually go according to plan, giving me a sense of completion and fulfillment when they are done. Not to broadcast them, but just to file away, to look back upon, to feel secure knowing that I can make it in this world. Truth is, nothing seems to ever, ever get near [nearly] perfect. Everything always tends to be a bit on the... gloppy side. But, there might perhaps be a few others who would say that too. It seems that some people tend to consider themselves unique, as if they are the only ones with [extraordinary] good taste and amazing experiences. And, ironically enough, that's who I think I am as well. If that's who you are too, then, we should form a club or something.

I have an [extraordinary] habit. I dictate my life in my head, very, very often, using that generic movie-voice. It's not that I'm so marvelous and interesting and I have to keep things straight and talk to myself. No, I've found that it must be because I am trying to hype up my everyday simple, common, nondescript experiences. That day Holly woke up, looked at her cell phone to discern the time, then fell out of bed and made a face at her mirror on her way out the door.

The other day I was getting some shopping done, winding my way through the store and trying to remember everything I had to buy. I was having a lovely time in the produce section, chatting with the cucumbers and swapping jokes with the cabbages. I remembered we needed oranges, so I grabbed a bag and began to fill it. I had just picked up the third orange when suddenly the whole entire enormous pyramid began to slide off, like a giant flow of orange lava, plummeting to the floor below. I watched, in slow motion, as orange after orange fell and rolled across the floor-- past the lettuce, past the tomatoes, and past the Odwalla refrigerator. If someone had been filming, I'm sure it would have made a great addition to some music video. The entire mound was depleted in seconds, as dozens and dozens of oranges shot every which way, like crazy bullets; and there I stood in the midst of it all, oranges rolling everywhere, floundering around my feet. People smiled and laughed humorously, and stared politely, and to me [extraordinarily] rudely. I just smiled back, as if, I meant to do that. And I heard the narrator's voice droll through my head, And this is the last day Holly shopped at that store. Perhaps an orange had rolled all the way to the front and sneezed or something, for a split-second later I heard someone announce loudly, "Extra help needed in produce. In the produce section, extra clean up help, please."

I try to just shrug my shoulders when things like that happen. Maybe God has a surprise and maybe its tomorrow that's going to be great. Or maybe... I'm missing the whole big picture. Maybe I wasn't made for tomorrow. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps I was made just for today. I was made for this very minute, typing this out while eating my fruit salad. I was created for every little detail that has burst into my life, whether the detail is nearly perfect and tipsy with munificence or soaked in a mud puddle and run over with the lawn mower. I was made for such a time as this. For every moment. Every heartache I dealt with last week. Every laugh I laughed today. You too. You were made for the very thing you wish you could be avoiding today. And the very thing you loved yesterday. I don't know about tomorrow, or the next week or the next week after that, but I know that everything has it's place and meaning in our lives. Every orange too. For I doubt if I hadn't re-arranged the produce section, I would be writing this at all.

2008-04-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

drop a thought
on your way through the tall city
watch it brightly melt,
like dew, on the thirsty asphalt.

attach a thought
to that green door
or stick a thought on
the complaining sound
of its hinges.

paste a thought
on the billboard
over there to your left
or on that illegible
handwritten sign
sitting in that window.

see that man
striding down the sidewalk?
tie two thoughts on
his apple red shoes.

watch them as they wave goodbye.
smiling.

[4.03.08]

2008-04-02T13:41:00.001-07:00

"The angels glorify; men scrutinize: angels raise their
voices in praise; men in disputation: they conceal their faces
with their wings; but man with a presumptuous gaze
would look into Thine unspeakable Glory."

[John Chrysostom]

2008-03-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

He stretches out the north over the void
and hangs the earth on nothing.
He binds up the waters in his thick clouds,
and the cloud is not split open under them.
He covers the face of the full moon
and spreads over it his cloud.
He has inscribed a circle on the face of
the waters, at the boundary
between light and darkness.
The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the sea.
By his wind the heavens were made fair;
his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power,
who can understand?

Job 26. 7-14

2008-03-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

I have one little window in my room. It’s rather small. I mean, it’s big enough for me to fit through if I stood on my bed and lunged myself through it, so I guess that’s a good thing. In case there was ever a fire, or some sort of invasion or something, I could scrape through and plummet gently two stories to the garden below. I’m supposedly getting a larger one installed sometime… but with a whole house renovation and remodel, my ridiculous little window is the very last of everyone’s worries and agenda. So, why am I describing my window woes? Give me a second and I’ll remember…

Oh. Yes, because it reminded me of my wall; which, reminded me of my bed, which reminded me of coffee which reminded me of my devotions. My bed reminds me of coffee mostly because every morning after I wake up, my addiction leads me stumbling into the kitchen, groping for the coffee grinder and espresso machine. And, after stumbling for my coffee, I stumble right back to my room, where I proceed to get my heart ready for the day.

Sometimes I get distracted. Like yesterday, there was this beetle bug (you know, those annoying “box elderbug” beetle things) and he seemed absolutely convicted within his little being that if he flew fast enough and slammed his body hard enough against the glass of my window, that he would magically get through. It made me wonder if God ever watches us, as we try to work through something that does not seem to work, or when we are trying desperately to make something happen. I can see his quizzical brow and amused smile as He mutters, “Um, it’s not going to work.” As we stupidly try yet again. “Nope. But, go on, slam your head against the glass. But, you’re not going to get through it that way. Believe me. But, hey, if you just wait and trust me for one minute, I’ll open the window and it would save you a ton of headaches.” I know He must be at His wit’s end with us sometimes. I know He’s sovereign and holy, but still. I know He must be with me. I can almost hear his exasperation, “Why did she do that again? Didn’t she learn anything from the 256 times before? Or “What is she doing now?” So, that’s why I desperately need my morning coffee and my “heart bender” time. It gets me on track. It keeps me focused.

This new year one of the books I am going through was given to me by a friend. It’s the Christian History, One Year book and I have really enjoyed it so far. I’ve read numerous stories of martyrs and heroes of the faith before when I was little, but now I have been reading of new people I honestly never knew existed in our Christian history! Today I read about Vibia Perpetua, a twenty-two year old mother of an infant son, who lived during the third century. She was mauled by a heifer in the amphitheater and then finally killed by the sword of the gladiators because she was a Christian. And yesterday I complained because I couldn't find my favorite pair of socks and because the day was overcast.

Oh God-- put my life in perspective!

“For He remembers our frame, he remembers that we are dust. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him." Psalm 103: 14, 17

So, this is my collection of rambling thoughts this fine, cloudy morning. My coffee’s cold now.

on beauty

2008-03-06T11:21:00.000-08:00

"What is beauty? And when shall we call a thing beautiful? These, too, are questions no man has ever answered in such a way that all men have said, "Yes, now we know what beauty is and now we know how to tell the beautiful when we find it." The nearest that men have come to answering the question, "What is beautiful?" has been in their saying the beautiful is the appropriate, that which serves. No hat is a beautiful hat which does not fit you and which the wind can easily blow off your head. A Five-gallon Hat on a cowboy riding a horse on an Arizona ranch is beautiful- but the same hat on a crowded city street car would be out of place, inappropriate. No song is beautiful in a room where persons desire complete quiet. No polite behavior has beauty unless it has thought and consideration for others. The most beautiful room is the one which best serves those who live in it.

The most beautiful skyscrapers are those without extras stuck on after the real structure is finished. Why should a good, honest skyscraper have a dome or a mosque or a cement wedding cake plastered on top of it? Nearly always, what serves, what is appropriate to human use, is beautiful enough- without extras. A farm silo, a concrete grain elevator, a steel barge hauling iron ore on the Great Lakes, or a series of tall coal chutes rising as silhouettes on a moonlight night, may any one of them have as complete a beauty as the Greek Parthenon or a Gothic cathedral. Steichen, the photographer, declares he occasionally meets newspaper photographs which in design and as works of art are superior to many of the proclaimed masterpieces of painting and etching."

C. Sandburg

2008-03-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

"Millions read without asking themselves why they read and whether in all their reading they have learned anything worth spending of their time. It was not for nothing Thoreau said an old newspaper would do him just as well as a new one.

Each of us can sit alone with our conscience for a
while on the proposition of Robert Louis Stevenson,
that the intelligent man can find an Iliad of the
human race in a newspaper.

And any kindly philosopher could write a thick book on why the shrewd, tolerant reader enjoys even a stupid, vain, hypocritical book because the writer of the book is etching his own portrait on every page, stepping forth and talking off lines like one of the fools, clowns or pretenders in a Russian play."

an excerpt from Carly Moon,
by Carl Sandburg

2008-03-03T14:12:00.001-08:00

Now...really.

How is one expected to heartlessly consume
something that looks as sad as this?

2008-02-26T22:16:00.002-08:00

Spherule

He opened the doors to his face.
The hinges creaked.

He peered out.

The greens of things was bright.
Oranges and blues tangled the sky.
Crafty sighs stole across the surface,
Stealing scents and twisting them
Into a daring and reckless collage.

He thought it would be nice
To hang smells on his walls.
Ravishing smells.
He wouldn't mind a bit of the ocean
Or a few avocados mounted above his bed.

He yawned.

He dully watched as a group of triangles
And giggling squares philandered down the street.
Circles lit across the ground and
Weird shapes hiccuped in the air.
An obtuse blade of grass bent in the wind.

He turned around.

His eyes caught his attention.
He curiously peered into them.
They were circles, too.
He wished his eyes were stars.
He wished his breath was an
Elysian comet, leaving in
His wake a trail of glittering dust.

He shivered and scowled.

His brain cringed at the sudden coldness.
He saw that the sun was blocked by a house.
Squares always seemed to ruin things.
His feet were tired from keeping his
Body from toppling over.
All of him seemed bored and tired.

So, he turned around.

He closed the doors to his face,
And went back inside.

2008-02-22T16:32:00.000-08:00

Monet

a thousand and one paintings
blended seamlessly
into oceans and dips and hills
my eyes have never before witnessed.
the gates of the land
proudly lifted their heads
and the voices of the wind and rain
took my breath and sang with it
whispering melodies
my heart has never before heard.

7.15.07

Hair brings one's self-image into focus; it is vanity's proving ground. Hair is terribly personal, a tangle of mysterious prejudices. [S. Alexander]

2008-02-20T15:06:00.000-08:00

Gone: 16 inches.

2008-02-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

She was there.

No matter how slowly her feet had taken her at the end, they had taken her there.

Directly ahead of her was the circular building, its walls glowing with violet flame, its silvery roof pulsing with a light that seemed to Meg to be insane. Again she could feel the light, neither warm nor cold, but reaching out to touch her, pulling her toward IT.

There was a sudden sucking, and she was within.

It was as though the breath had been knocked out of her. She gasped for breath, for breath in her own rhythm, not the permeating pulsing of IT. She could feel the inexorable beat within her body, controlling her heart, her lungs.

But not herself. Not Meg. It did not quite have her.

She blinked her eyes rapidly and against the rhythm until the redness before them cleared and she could see. There was the brain, there was IT, lying pulsing and quivering on the dais, soft and exposed and nauseating. Charles Wallace was crouching beside IT, his eyes still slowly twirling, his jaw still slack, as she had seen him before, with a tic in his forehead reiterating the revolting rhythm of IT.

As she saw him it was again as though she had been punched in the stomach, for she had to realize afresh that she was seeing Charles, and yet it was not Charles at all. Where was Charles Wallace, her own beloved Charles Wallace?

What is it I have that IT hasn't got?

"You have nothing that IT hasn't got," Charles Wallace said coldly. "How nice to have you back, dear sister. We have been waiting for you. We knew that Mrs. Whatsit would send you. She is our friend, you know."

For an appalling moment Meg believed, and in that moment she felt her brain being gathered up into IT. "No!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. "No! You lie!" For a moment she was free from its clutches again.

As long as I stay angry enough IT can't get me.

Is that what I have that IT doesn't have?

"Nonsense," Charles Wallace said. "You have nothing that IT doesn't have." "You're lying," she replied., and she felt only anger toward this boy who was not Charles Wallace at all. No, it was not anger, it was loathing; it was hatred, sheer and unadulterated, and as she became lost in hatred she also began to be lost in IT. The red miasma swam before her eyes; her stomach churned in ITs rhythm. Her body trembled with the strength of her hatred and the strength of IT.

With the last vestige of consciousness she jerked her mind and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn't have. IT knew all about hate.

"You are lying about that, and you were lying about Mrs. Whatsit!" She screamed.

"Mrs. Whatsit hates you," Charles Wallace said.

And that was where IT made ITs final mistake, for as Meg said, automatically, "Mrs. Whatsit loves me; that's what she told me, that she loves me," suddenly she knew.

She knew!

Love.

That was what she had that IT did not have.

She has Mrs. Whatsit's love and her father's, and her mother's, and the real Charles Wallace's love. And she had love for them. But how could she use it? What was she meant to do? If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love. But she, in all her weakness and foolishness and baseness and nothingness, was incapable of loving IT. Perhaps it was not too much to ask of her, but she could not do it.

But she could love Charles Wallace.

She could stand there and love Charles Wallace.

Her own Charles Wallace, the real Charles Wallace, the child for whom she had come back to Camazotz, to IT, the baby who was so much more than she was, and who was yet so utterly vulnerable.

She could love Charles Wallace.

Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always takes care of me. Come back to me Charles Wallace, come away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles. Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them.

Now she was able to look at him, at this animated thing that was not her own Charles Wallace at all. She was able to look and love. I love you, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart. I love you. I love you.

Slowly his mouth closed. Slowly his eyes stopped their twirling. The tic in his forehead ceased its revolting twitch. Slowly he advanced towards her.

"I love you!" she cried. "I love you, Charles! I love you!"

Then suddenly he was running, pelting, he was in her arms, he was shrieking with sobs. "Meg! Meg! Meg!"

And then she felt the earth beneath her, of something in her arms, and she was rolling over on the sweet smelling autumn earth, and Charles Wallace was crying out, "Meg, you saved me! You saved me!" he said over and over.

-A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L' Engle