Sestina for Afghanistan

Night-time traffic winds through Kabul’s bazaars in a current of electricity.
Cement-colored mountains that cradle the city are stark, austere in their beauty.
Giant cauliflowers, pyramids of melons, pomegranates, spices-- Afghan food.
Like smoke, the call to prayer rises from the mosques filling the air with unquestioned truths.
Suited workers, burqua draped women, school boys-each wants to return home in safety.
After three decades of war, drought, and poverty, the only thing missing is hope.

Youths learning English in internet cafes are the foundation for some small hope.
People want services—safe water, decent roads, consistent electricity.
Who will build houses, factories, or schools unless they can count on their safety?
Talibs slashed many paintings, pulled down their Buddhas, destroyed everything of beauty.
They banned kite-flying, music, dancing, the sound of women’s feet in the street speaking truth
about gathering water, firewood, serving all, being the last to eat food.

Up in Barek Aub we pass out cooking oil, salt, flour, tea, spices for Afghan food.
When I see little girls and boys, the same size as the bags they carry, I hope.
I am hopeful; when young leaders speak of what life is like and they speak the hard truth.
The class stops, and everyone debates passionately-- I feel the electricity.
One says he wants to start an eco-tourism business in Bandi-amir’s beauty.
When ISAF armor patrols the city It feels safe; for a time we dwell in safety.

My wish for Afghans is that they dwell in their homes in quietness, joy, and safety.
That their tablecloths be covered with Kabuli pilau, kebabs, an abundance of food.
Roses of every shade scent the wind, in their well-watered gardens flowing beauty.
In courtyards, behind iron gates, brightly colored finches warble of love and hope.
May they harness the sun and wind, to light mud villages with electricity.
In their homes, workplaces, in the city square-- let the pearl they value, be the Truth.

This is a turning point, the valley of decision, will Afghans choose lies or truth?
If they cede power to poppies, or violent pulpits, there can be no safety.
Trust before investment, peace before aid, stability before electricity.
Land that grows blood— brings down the curse of drought-it can never, ever, grow enough food.
Grow forgiveness instead of Badal; choose trust, weed out prejudices, nurture hope.
Pledge your lives and your sacred honor, to build this nation, and preserve its beauty.

In the snow dusted Pamirs, lakes- are the wide turquoise eyes of the mountains’ beauty.
The eagle screams his need for space, understanding--the hooded falcon’s silent truth.
In the desert sands of the Shomali plains, the smallest of wildflowers hopes.
The bright-eyed Kuchi children scamper under black tents, like goats scattering for safety.
In the high mountain passes, the black panther waits, crouches, trembling for her food.
New year starts, when red tulips thrust through white clouds to jolt blue skies with electricity.

White doves rise from the Blue Mosque, wheel in hope, that the phoenix will rise in beauty
from the blood-red ashes with alacrity, stretch out its golden wings, singing truth
speaking wise words as banners for safety, leaving its egg of myrrh as spirit food.

On Fire proofing a Marriage

It's still strange for me to go to the movies alone. You'd think after a year of widowhood, I'd be used to it. But as awkward as that can be, I want to support efforts that are made to make movies with a Christian Worldview.

"Fireproof" is a great example of a movie that has a message that can transform lives. The theatre I went to was full--mostly of couples--all ages. And the place was still as a mausoleum many times, as the film addressed the pressures on marriages today and acknowledged how much work it takes to work the way it was designed to work. I think the main point is that we can't love anyone else until we truly understand how much God loves us...and that it is only out of that overflow of love that we can love others.

I liked the idea of a book-- "The Marriage Dare" --a 40 day plan to save a marriage, but it is not credible to believe that a marriage so far gone could be saved in such a short time. The models of long term marriages, where there was loyalty even in the face of illness or challenges, were so helpful. Those were models we surely don't see in current Hollywood offerings.

After 32 years of marriage, I have reason to say I know how difficult it can be on some days. But also, how wonderfully rewarding!

The hard part for me is finally, recognizing that the marriage vow reads "till death doth us part"--and my husband kept that vow. and is gone. --

I am still here. how to begin again to look for someone to love like that? I loved the words to one of the songs in the film, "While I wait I will worship, while I wait, I will serve"-- That summarizes what I am doing.

Saudade

"Saudade" is a word I learned in Portuguese that doesn't have an easy translation into English. It is the remembering with longing or imagining with longing. It is wanting but not having. But not a discontent that is bitter or demanding. more like a sweet memory of something that is gone from reality but remains-- in the haunting half-phrase of a tune that arises like a vapor in your mind. It is a fragrance you only vaguely recognize. Its like when the deer pauses in the meadow, bathed in golden light, and flicks its ears, and looks for something, then returns to her grazing. i awaken some mornings, with that sense that there was something I am supposed to remember, something important that eludes my conscious mind, that tugs persistently at the edges of my brain. I can't make out if it is an image, a word, a feeling, ---something. Like Dali's "persistence of memory" it warps out of recognition, hanging from the table beside my bed, behind the netting that veils my bed. It is a stranger I think I know, who attracts me. but no one I know. A face I cannot see.
It is sweet, but not altogether happy. It is sad, but not full of sorrow. It is an empty place, like a missing tooth, that has become familiar. Hollow,hallowed.

Remodeling Project

I was left with a fishing boat, a nice red-and-white Lund, and a boat trailer and no idea how to hook the lights up to the pick-up truck. I gave the Honda Ridgeline to my son. Sold the trailer and boat back to the dealer. Gave away another car, and ended up with a detached garage full of old skis, poles, boots, a weed whacker, a wheel-barrow, bags of lawn fertilizer, old paint, and field mice.

So I decided that it was time I created a real studio for myself, rather than working out of a bedroom. It took about a month to get the proposal through the local architectural review board. Another month to get it cleared out and then the fun of remodeling began.
Studs went in, thick pink blankets of insulation were wrapped around the new bay windows. Replaced the garage door with a set of french doors so that large projects or sculptures can be made and still make it out the door. Sky lights toward the north end shunt the weak northern rays deep into the room. A row of cabinets along the back will hold art supplies--the never ending collections of found things and colorful paints and pastels. There will be a deep sink for cleaning brushes, and a bath. The space that will be my desk has a view of pine trees and blue sky. One wall holds a Walker system to display finished work. There will be a mirror to check the painting in reverse. Laundry lines that pull across like you find in some hotels, will be a place to hang prints or works on paper. The electrician has pulled the wires across from the house and promises me power on Monday. Soon the walls will blush into a warm ivory; and the fanlight will stir the air. Light wooden planks will march across an expanse that was only concrete...The easels will go into place under the skylights. I will load up my brush and start a new work in this new space. I hope to dedicate this space--as I have everything I own, to the LORD who has given me the gift of seeing and the opportunity to learn art. Mainly, I hope to create work here as long as the Lord allows me strength. I hope it will be a place to lodge the weary; to teach young artists and to learn from the experienced; to encourage and display the work of my friends who are artists or photographers; and to be a part of the Jesus House experience. (more about that in another blog.) Now that we are nearly done, this team of craftsmen and workers, I celebrate the wonder that what is old can become new. It makes me smile, to stand in what was a dirty, disordered garage and see such beauty and serenity. Makes me wonder what else needs attention?

How does my garden grow?

Right now, the grass is yellowing and brittle from too little rain. Just as I set out to put sprinklers on the lawn, the drizzle began--most welcome. The day lilies by the front walk are starting to swell, ready to burst. The pink-purple petunias cascade from their baskets, the front ones full of blooms where the afternoon sun catches them. The basket in the back by the swing, is in too much shade and while it has verdant leaves, there are few blossoms. Sun, it needs.
The Burgundy mums, are massed by the white picket fence. Two white mums on either side of the green front door are welcoming I think. I need to change the door wreath from it's cheery, summer Flowers to more fallish selections. Maybe tomorrow if there is time, i will rummage in the basement and replace it.
I peruse the fall garden catalogues...and read a magazine article on "top Fall Projects"--My remodeling project is coming to a conclusion and the new bay windows overlook a rocky ledge, lined with large stones, perfect for a bed of perennials--Daffodils would be an obvious choice because of the flocks of deer who come into my yard nearly daily to graze, steal crab apples from the lower boughs, or to dispense seeds from the bird feeder. Maybe irises --tall, and sculptural, elegant royal blue tissues that unfold like origami into petals.
Then I think of the things it would be fun to incorporate over the next years, if the Lord tarries--a labyrinth for meditation and contemplation? Perhaps a small scaled water feature, adding the sound of water to the cricket's song and to the peepers call. I love the natural sort of rooms that are already emerging. I'm not sure why a garden is so satisfying? Perhaps because there is a Jungian symbol --GARDEN--that is imprinted somehow in our heart/ some information encoded in our DNA and handed down through the centuries--the need to know--even taste the earth. To tend it and from our efforts to receive fruit--colorful, fragrant, or flavorful....Our return to the garden to eat and to fellowship--to be known, to know, to belong--to celebrate--that great feast for which we long--That garden is what keeps us going when the beetles eat the rose petals, or the sun scorches the ornamental grasses, or the wind whips the willow tree. Gardening is a leap of faith, I half think.

Single or celibate or chaste

Am following the debate in Christianity Today about what to use as a term for unmarried people in the evangelical church scene. Recently widowed, I find myself in this strange state. After thirty three years of marriage, I am somehow now not married. Some forms don't even give you a choice of widowed..but I don't think of myself as "Single"--which seems to me to focus to much on the lack of something.--as though I am missing something. Celibate has been suggested as an alternate term, to emphasize the calling of unmarried people to serve God and to serve His beloved church. I like the reasoning, but the term calls up the notion of monastic orders and promises to remain celibate for a life time. Most of us, ungifted with celibacy, may not wish it to be a life-time life-style choice. We may be waiting for some divinely ordained and provided mate some time in the future. In the present we are called to live a chaste life. But chastity should not be confused with celibacy as they come from different roots. "Chastity" is the state of being innocent or chaste, Chastity refers to sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the ethical norms and guidelines of a certain culture, civilization or religion In the western world, the term has become closely associated (and is often used interchangeably) with sexual abstinence, especially before marriage. On the other hand, "Celibacy" is the renunciation of marriage implicitly or explicitly made, for the more perfect observance of chastity, by those who take religious vows. They may look the same in practice, but they have different motivations and values. Either choice is scriptural and should be honored for radical obedience to the Lord in the context of a culture that does everything it can to ridicule or assault the chaste.
Actually, I don't want to be defined by my marital status--any more than I think my race or age or gender should define me. I don't reject it, or these other truths about me, but I don't think any one of these categories is definitive for me And I hate being programed into "singles ministries" or thought of as having special needs because of that aspect of my life.
I prefer to be a person in the pew--who worships, studies the word, and engages in ministry and service with all the other parts of the "body". I'd love to see us cross all kinds of barriers that might be interesting statistically but are irrelevant for who we are and how we live our our evangelical calling.

Writer's revsionary life style

Writers group met today on Kent State's campus. It was one of those lovely, warm, sunny, Fall days when you stop to eat lunch on a picnic table and wish you didn't have to go back to the office.



There is the scurry of heavy traffic, commuter students trying to find parking. It is early in the semester and people are still attending classes. Syllabae are passed out around long conference tables and students text each other when the prof isn't looking. In between classes they talk about what they are dropping and why.



In the Women's Center, all is quiet. We listen to a poet read her work. There is silence. She waits for the group to write comments in the white space around the words. And then, slowly and thoughtfully, there are suggestions about a line break, a possible word choice that will fit the tone better. Someone offers a different title. The last line of one of my sevenling needs some kind of expansion on the idea of "Strange attractors"--from quantum mechanics.



We have worked together this way for nearly five years. I trust them to tell me when a word sticks out like an orange hat in an Amish buggy. I can ask about technical details, or word derivation, or about the usefulness of paring already spare lines. It takes a long time to trust that you will be given the best ideas a person has, because that's what we owe each other. Encouragement is wonderful and always appreciated. But sometimes the best friend is the one who sharpens your prose.



Almost always, what is necessary, is to think more clearly about the idea itself--to go for the pearl of great price. It is always worth the wading into muck, and the digging.



Critique and revision- Like breathing out and breathing in.

When a new poetry class starts at KSU

Now, I remember why it is each Fall I look around for some campus on which to study. Today, in the advanced poetry course, we read our first works to each other. No one was sick enough to run from the room, but it does take courage to read your first versions of new poems to a group of people you hardly know.

They were gloriously brave, colorful, honest, and true. There was music in the lines as they came from our mouths, quietly, then confidently. And the beauty of one poem hung in the air to bathe the next in some luminescent cloud so that the conference room was transformed.

The teacher, wise mid-wife of poems, dispensed with comments until they could all come forth--born into the world. Squealing for attention! Raw and red and angry, in some cases. In others, strangely still.

Now, this is an education...writing and reading, thinking, creating, revising, and speaking from our bony parts, where our flesh is connected, our of our bowels--our howls, our cries, our ecstasy.

Chautauqua vignette

Labor Day at Chautauqua is quiet and wonderful in its emptiness. A week or two earlier, when the Season is still in session, there's a melee of people, milling about. On the Fourth of July, when i was here last, nearly every house had a flag blowing in the breeze from the lake. Little kids from the Children's School dressed up like the statue of liberty or presidents and marched to the Amp for patriotic songs and waved lots of little flags. But today, they are only here in ghostly memories, years, even decades eliding. My grandson, my son, my husband, his mother and aunt and uncle all experienced these celebrations of a nation in this place.

Today the lake has a haze, water being drawn by the sun, up into clouds that are first filmy like the tutus of dancer, and then become cumulus, more like pom-poms. I watch sailboats tacking into the wind, fishing boats, speed boats trailing a ruff of white foam behind them. There is the labored puffing of the old Chautauqua Belle, a steam powered stern wheeled paddle boat. And the squeal of seagulls as they wheel across the blue sky and dip into the silvery tips of waves.

The gingerbread houses are vacant mostly, now, emptying one after another, into the open trunks of SUVs. There are beds of blue hydrangeas going to seed. Around the bend in the road there are vines with bright orange-red octagonal "Japanese Lanterns" and if you wait long enough, the sumac at the end of Hurst turns bright red like a stop sign. The sun is heavy, warm, but not hot. As though weary of the summer's effort and desirous of a break. High in the cedars there are orange and golden boughs, and the maples are red-tipped, some of the branches that have been stressed. There is the steady droning of crickets and locusts as though to reassure us of their presence. But early this morning, I heard a gaggle of Canadian geese forming up for their journey southward. Time for me to leave. To turn my hand to work and other things. I go with a backward glance.

one month to live--a no-regrets life

It has been one of those years lived in the both the rear view mirror and in the crystal ball. Grief does that. Is one moment I am asking, "This time last year, what were we doing or thinking? Did we have any inkling that we would lose my husband?" Or, trying to look into the impenetrable future,
"Should I live here, live this way, go to NGO work, concentrate on art, write more?" These points of discontinuity in my life have caused me to focus on the things I really know to be true. So, it's not surprising that I picked up a book titled, "One month to live: thirty days to a no-regrets life" by Kerry and Chris Shook. Its been like a life-check up. I suppose this is sort of my "Statement of Beliefs":

I am learning that relationships are a priority and so I am having to sort through and throw out some old attitudes. I'm also tearing up my old schedules to allow for time to sit on my front porch swing and to be available for relationships. I believe in the power of prayer, so I am trying to build bigger blocks of time for that, and to record what I am praying and I am taking retreats to strengthen my faith. I believe in the power of God's word, so I am lengthening the time I spend in it, studying it, copying it into calligraphy, so i can slow down enough to let it enter my heart and take root in my mind. I believe in the centrality of worship--so i sing hymns in the morning and through the day to turn my heart toward Jesus and to look in His wonderful face. I believe in the existence of that invisible kingdom, and so am trying to be a good steward of the material gifts I have been given in this one. I believe God has formed Himself in every person who lives, and so I am searching in every face for that part of the Imageo Dei that it bears. I believe that the entire universe was made by Him and through Him and For Him, so that I must seek out His glory and wonder and intelligence in every thing that exists, and that I have a special relationship to this material world, to shape and beautify it and to preserve it. I believe that the peacemakers are happy, so i am trying to work toward all kinds of reconciliation. I believe that every person is given a choice--what will they do with Jesus and His sacrifice--so i want to give them a chance to hear that good news that they are forgiven---what they do with that is up to them. I believe that everything i have or am is a gift from God and I've given it all back to Him for whatever His purposes in and with my life. My car, house, stuff, talents, time--energy--they are all His, to command. I believe I am to obey Him even if it's not convenient or easy, or safe. I believe Jesus resurrected to give us the power to live transformed lives--radically different lives--and I want to be willing to be thought "different, strange". It takes so much reshaping of my thought to conform to a new worldview that I literally have to stop and take every thought captive. I believe that God ordained marriage to be a picture of unity and love within the Trinity itself, and then to be a picture of Christ's sacrificial love for His bride--the church. So I am committed to remaining chaste and being dedicated to serving the church. I haven't taken orders--I'm just a regular person in the pew, who wants to serve and live for Jesus. I don't think I have the gift of celibacy, but I can still live a pure and holy life, rich in relationships within and outside the church. I believe God has set the "solitary"- lonely, in families, and so He has given me mine. These are wonderful, "peculiar (particular) people" given to me to cherish and to nurture. I want to give myself to living out abundant, meaningful life in whatever spheres of influence i may be given--art--poetry--aid or rescue work. I will need all the power of God to live this and to accomplish these things...and "I hope by God's good pleasure---safely to arrive at home."

Talking Mathematics and Quantum Mechanics

He looked more like an artist, tall, slender, long fingers, earnest expression. Most of the "customers" at the M.D. Garage in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park are bikers, wearing pointy hats and neon-colored spandex. He wore jeans and an oxford shirt and spent time in front of nearly every painting. After some conversation we learned that he is a mathematician, working in the field of quantum mechanics. And all of the sudden there was a silence. Because Math is like a special language. All I know about quantum mechanics is summarized in a collection of poems I wrote that really borrow metaphors and a set of vocabulary words that excite me, but which i use in my own personal , idiosyncratic way, and I'm afraid, probably not properly. There is a precision about math that I admire. And there is a fascination I have for the world of quantum mechanics. Such a strange world of quarks, and strange-attractors. I know so little about this world that I can't even arrange an intelligent question. Yet, I have this realization that the whole of the universe I know and love and am a part of is under laid by its principles and states, and actors But if I ask him, he can only tell me numbers. Or at least, numbers would be the most precise way to tell me what he knows, what physicist suspect may be true about the nature of all the possible worlds. And i want pictures and diagrams or failing that, words to describe it and to tell me what it means--what it portends--and what its implications are for my life, for my decisions today and tomorrow. If the very order of the universe has a message I want to hear it for myself--and here I am with a brush, and a pen when I need at the very least, calculus. It seems unlikely that such an important message would be encrypted for only the elite--when all of nature seems to speak to us in every language--every culture. Even art, the language of the human soul, speaks across language barriers as we discovered on a recent trip to Spain and Morocco. We artists created many different kinds of visual art there, and regardless of language, people of many ages and backgrounds could respond to the quality of line and color and to the symbols, to the textures--to the Jungian shapes of dreams and fears --so where is-- the "babel fish" that sits in your ear and explains math--so that you can see its shape and hear its message. I want to understand string theory-and chaos theory and to discover those bits of truth that are held by the mathematicians.

"The Traitor" suggests "start with Salaam"--

Just saw "The Traitor"--a wonderful and thoughtful film. True enough it has action, but the really defining element is the character and development of the protagonist..is he good or is he a terrorist? What I really like was the honest portrayal of the worldviews of the Taliban and the terrorists and the "ordinary Muslims" who get recruited to blow up a bus. While it challenges people of all faiths to act out of compassion and respect for each other, it is not naive either about the extent to which radicalism has taken over true Islam. And to be fair, In a pivotal scene the protagonist quotes Martin Luther King--a challenge to Christians to live for something worth dying for...So I think it has value if it encourages open dialogue and discussion. In an interesting observation, one of the key figures says that in asymmetric warfare, the object is to play to an audience. He goes on to identify the audience as the American people whom he wants to convince that "it is not safe anywhere." He also expresses the sentiment that all Americans everywhere are permissible targets because they are responsible for their government's policies. That is precisely what many of the Fatwas have said, and this is not understood by many of us. I thought it fairly represented the resentments that many Middle Easterners feel about Western presence in the land they hold to be holy. It is such a complicated situation, but this film works hard to try to explain--without being exhaustive. The last line is the greeting--Salaam Aleikum--Start there--start with friendship and a hope for peace. Blessings!

Kenya- Coming alongside

I met the Kenya team for the first time tonight. Mostly guys in the band at my church. Great musicians. The church in Nairobi has sent a representative to help us get oriented and to prepare us for this trip scheduled for next March. He is an earnest young film maker. Son of a pastor. With a heart for his people. He is in the US to study film making. He was part of a team of Kenyan musicians who came to Hudson a year or so ago. He tells us about the inner city of his town. Poverty that takes your heart away in minutes. He sees the horrors his country has been going through and wonders if we know enough to care. He speaks of the way the Christian pastors in Kenya went from town to town together--Kikuyu and Ooloo, and confessed and asked forgiveness for the terrible things that happened --and the reconciliation they were able to bring out of the disasters. I wonder how we can help. I'm just a "roadie" --I may be able to find something to do to just walk alongside my sisters in that center of the city--the girls with HIV/AIDS--the ones that need to learn job skills to support themselves and their children. Maybe we can join hands with our sisters and brothers in the church, struggling to speak the peace of Jesus to their troubled people. Maybe we can lift up their weary hands, like Hur did for Moses. There is a Kenyan sister who has started a foundation to preserve Kenyan art. Maybe as an artist I can listen to her and hear her passion and see her vision. In the next few months we will read everything we can and prepare ourselves. In March we will join hands and voices to worship and to celebrate our Lord and the peace He brings--together- in one, LOUD, wonderful, rockin' NOISE!

Thanks a lot!

Saying "Thanks" is not so simple a gesture. I was thinking about my friend who is teaching her little girls (3 and 5 years old) to be thankful. That's a radical idea in a culture of entitlement. They are learning that what they have comes from outside of themselves, from parents, or ultimately from God. They neither create nor provide for themselves independently of family or community. They are learning to appreciate what they have, and will learn one day to appreciate the effort, thought, or work that went into the provision of material things or in the actions that sustain and support them. Saying thanks acknowledges our mutual dependence on each other in this world, and in the special case of prayer, in our dependence on a being with more power and wisdom than we have to solve our own problems.

Thankfulness is pretty rare when every billboard and most TV ads are aimed at making us dis-satisfied enough with something, or our lack of some essential thing or essence, that we should want to go out immediately and purchase something. Giving thanks is a counter-cultural gesture that affirms joy and contentment with what we have been given. I want to savor each and every gift I am given--juicy, ripe, fuzzy peach or golden cloud. Because part of thankfulness is just recognizing what is a gift. A traffic delay can give you extra moments of silence. An unexpected visitor at the door may become a friend.

The Apostle James said "You have not because you ask not." --I wonder about the times I've missed a hug, or a kiss, or a friendship, because I didn't have the humility to ask someone, eyeball to eyeball, for something I needed or wanted. Thanking my friend, connects us. I acknowledge that she has something I don't have, that I need, that I depend on her to grant. I used to be uncomfortable with the power this gives others in my life. Now I feel like the beggar who greets the day with an empty bowl. I lift it upward and say thanks for what I know by experience, and apprehend by faith, will come into it. Thank you! I thank God, from whom every good and perfect gift comes. And I thank you all, through whom so many spangled gifts have come.

A Poem will come on Thursday

Just the tips of the maple trees are turning orange. It's not a bright orange, more like a russet submerged in sap green, so that you aren't really conscious of its presence. The color hits your eye in the periphery, the way a stray movement catches your attention. Coupled with the cooler nights, there is a growing awareness of the end to summer and the start of something new. For me, the sap rises in the Fall, when I look about me for a campus and some subject to tackle. This Fall, I am taking Poetry II again, at Kent State. I have this thing for poetry. It grabs me, when its good, like Samson's hair, in a headlock.

So I am here again in the small classroom in Satterfield, seated at a conference table, with sixteen other journeymen. We are nervous at first, reluctant to speak our names. Our teacher is quiet, calm, and passionate about books, and poems, and words. She honors bravery and we start to relax. She honors the ordinary life. We sit straighter in our seats. Some of us recognize each other from previous forays into this world and we honor each other for the people we have become in the intervening years. This is an elective. Everyone is serious about writing. When the teacher requests that we begin writing in class, there is not even a pause. Heads go down and pens begin to move, flowing or scratching away at the scabs from recent wounds. One male students bring in the four-letter words he knows dearly and the booze and oral sex. He starts us off in his world. It is no easy thing to open up the door and say--"Here it is. Come and see."

I read to enter other worlds. I think I write for the same reason. I've thought that I might use this blog as a place to write what was once a journal requirement. It is optional to keep a journal, she says. (She can't imagine not keeping one.) And I journal every day, but it IS too personal to share. This is a step toward sharing, my life, my world.

Even as I write these words I wonder if anyone would really want to see, my world; would care to have a window into my life. If you are reading, you must have your reasons. They interest me.

Guess who came to supper?

A month ago I sent out a formal handwritten, invitation to a dinner party at my house. I do this once or twice a month because I love getting to know people better and I love introducing people to each other. I'm as busy as most other people, but setting a lovely table, planning a special meal, selecting music, and choosing people I think will have something in common are all preparations I delight in making. It always surprises me when people respond with a "RSVP" to let me know they are saving the date. Because all too often, I need to follow up a week or so out by email to check. Tonight I was planning a Spanish paella, a Mediterranean salad, fresh rustic loaf, lemon meringue pie or lemon sorbet. I usually set the table the night before-had the centerpiece, fresh lilies and roses---and then, one by one, people started backing out. One had a birthday party for an in law to attend; another had a fiancee who was coming into town with a special festival in mind; one had a conflicting meeting. Even last minute calls couldn't raise another substitute guest, and sorry I couldn't entertain one married gentleman without the company of chaperons (I am old fashioned), I found myself having to cancel him. Now I have a refrigerator full of food and no one to cook for. And I had so looked forward to the kinds of conversations that usually rise around the table.

Then, I remembered that one of the gospels has a parable about a great supper. Many were invited by this man. When the feast was all prepared, he sent his servants around to say to those who were invited, "Come for all things are now ready." By they all began to make excuses: real estate deal; test drive some oxen; newly wed. When the servants returned without any guests, the master is angry..."Go out into the streets and bring in the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind." The servant says, "Master, we have done that already, and still there are empty tables." "Go, then and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

I guess I know now how God feels when He has invited so many to His table, to enjoy His fellowship and company, and we all start to make excuses. And He has made provision for us to have a magnificent time--and we miss the boat! I know I have chosen to do other less rewarding things than "sup with Him".

In another of looking at the story, I am also the servant, inviting people to join the celebration of the Good news of the Kingdom. I wonder if I have given the invitees sufficient enough reason, compelling enough witness of the glories of the great supper, to make them change their minds and come?

live for nothing or die for something

John Rambo makes that challenge, "Live for nothing or die for something!" in the recent film. It was a film awash in blood, as usual for a Stallone film, but I was taken by the story line. Maybe because that could be me--the female aid worker. And because it could be many of my friends who put their lives on the line for something they DO believe in. I've never been to Burma. But I have been to other "limited access" places. The reason we go to places like that is because we want to come along side our suffering brothers and sisters in places where Christians are persecuted. If we can encourage them and bless them with medical supplies or food, or material provisions that is good. Most often they offer us spiritual strength...they radiate a confidence in the love of God that comes through their suffering and our faith is increased.

Sometimes we go just to be the arms and hands of Jesus who healed and touched and loved all maner of hurting people. In places like Darfur or Kenya, Christians come and feed refugees or treat those wounded in the genocide taking place there. It would be easier and safer to stay home and watch the Super Bowl. In the earliest scene, John Rambo tells the aid worker to "Stay home". But if everyone stays home, no one stands up to evil. The African Union just sends "Observers". The UN mission is nearly non-existant. and the rest of the world cares little--"Not significant national interest". And by the way, where are the atheists? They have no reason to stand up for the poor or risk anything for the least. But it is precisely because Jesus values every life that we feel called to go and to try to stop this, or help those endangered by it.

John Rambo thinks "the only thing that will change things there, are more guns". Clearly that only seems to increase the spilling of blood. Only one thing can transform a person or a place--and that is the presence of Jesus as savior. And that good news of forgiveness and that breaking of the bondage to hate and evil, is the power to change a heart. and in turn to change a place, and then a nation, and then the world. So when evil people take an aid worker, like the ones who took an aid worker and her driver at gun-point from her aid work in a dangerous place two weeks ago, they may not know that they have taken a powerful-brand of fire into their bosom. Because she brings with her the very presence of Christ Himself. And He has the power to change things--to make men brand new--and that is a dangerous thing.

If you read the New Yorker the overwhelming attitude is "anomie" --people living empty meaningless lives; desparate for some relationship that will last longer than a drink; trying to invent an ethos to live by, seeking to discover some pleasure or reason for living even one more day.

Post-modernist angst is what you get when you choose to "live for nothing." Our brothers and sisters whose faces radiate joy, and peace, may suffer inprisonment, torture, or worse, for their faith. They have decided " to die for something."

a green leaf

Hold up a leaf to the sunlight and you see the chartruese yellow-green of Spring. It's the color of life. Inside the cells chlorophyll performs its alchemy--light into food; food into growth. The process is free and ubiquitous--except for these grey climes where we survive during the cold months on the memory of leaves, --on the hope of them.

I aspire to be the person who is "Like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaves do not wither..." The key seems to be in the rootedness. If the roots snake into the cool ever life-bringing streams, a tree can grow strong and true for over a hundred years in some species.

Fruit is the final measure of a life. What do we leave behind that we have produced; but more importantly, how have we modeled a human life for those who watch us? The recent film, "Bucket List" shows the different fruits from a life consumed with materialism and ego-centric achievement, on one hand, contrasted with the fruit of a life that has faith, commitment and love for others, and is communal in outlook. The greatest answer to Dawkins' argument is a life, fully human--a life energized by God's spirit, unfolding in fruit-love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

"Always having a green leaf", speaks to the way the tree, or the person, thrives, nurtured by thehidden springs of living water. The world is thirsty for such people. They bring us shelter in stormy times and unexpected shade in the everyday journey.

Be such a person.

This is the first of who knows how many blogs about loving God, loving His world, and loving people. 2/3/2008

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receiving criticism

After a few minutes, working together on reading and responding to some poems, our writers' group exploded into laughter at a humerous gem-like haiku. A new member remarked about how much more fun it is to "Edit in a group." She's right! So many working on the same piece can come up with a variety of approaches. Many times we solve problems on the spot with grammar checks, reversing the order of lines, or suggesting a better word coide. But the fun comes from seeing a polished piece emerge. The poet or writer is ultimatley the one to deicde which suggestions to take, but we all have the fun of playing with the words. I feel that I learn something every time we meet and I hope my work shows the growth I feel. I am often struck by how similar the process of critque is for visual artists as well. For both writers and painters putting your stuff out there for others to see is pretty scary at first,so it always takes courage. Gradually, with safe people, we learn to make distinctions between ourselves and our works. Then we have the distance we need to make changes to the work without feeling personally rejected. Once in awhile a student artist or writer is not able to receive the feedback. The result is that an artist has to work twice as hard to learn and grow independent of that feedback. Of course, there are people whose criticism is way too personal and too hard to bear. This kind of critique destroys the heart of the artist; takes away their joy; leads to dispair or to dryness. The right kind of encouragement and feedback concentrates on what is good, or excellent; and speaks to what can be done to reach that standard, or that points to a good model for the student to emmulate. "Whatever is true, nobel, right, pure, lovely, admirable,.." Ultimately, having a teachable spirit, accepting input humbly, allows us to grow as artists and as people...stretching our souls. Strange how hard it is to have that learning spirit. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God,... humbled Himself.." Philippians 2: 5-8