Watching and Waiting: Fog

I wrote words for these photos yesterday and somehow lost them.

I was crestfallen, but then today found more words that fit with what I was thinking,

so perhaps it was best this way.

These images come from my walk in the park yesterday morning. The fog was amazing.

I tend to love fog, so I found it beautiful.

But I was also thinking how it might be for someone not used to fog and not familiar with the place.

It could be disorienting, even frightening.

If you'd never experienced fog before, you might wonder how long it would last,

or even if your whole world had somehow changed.

I thought about people I know, mostly younger than me, going through hard things,

disorienting experiences, confusing transitions, strong emotions,

which tend often to make it very hard, if not impossible, to see clearly.

The fog yesterday was so thick, it condensed on branches like this. Beautiful to me, but not so beautiful if you were wondering whether your feet would ever be on dry ground again! 

In the fog, our eyes can play tricks on us. You have to lean on your knowledge of what you knew was there before, and trust that memory, that knowledge.

This is beautiful as an image of reflections on water, but when life situations feel this unstable and distorted, even the light coming to us can seem painful sometimes.

I found myself yesterday thinking of these people, thinking these things, and wanting to say, "Watch carefully and wait. Don't give up. Refrain from making rash decisions about which path to take."

As a friend once told me in a tough time, "Don't doubt in the dark what you've seen in the light."

Those are good words.

And then today I read these words of John Donne, from the blog of a friend of a friend:

But today if you will hear His voice,

Today He will hear you.

He brought light out of darkness,

Not out of a lesser light;

He can bring thy summer out of winter

Tho' thou have no spring,

Though in the ways of fortune or understanding or conscience

Thou have been benighted til now,

Wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed,

Damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied til now, 

Now God comes to thee,

Not as in the dawning of the day,

Not as in the bud of the spring

But as the sun at noon,

As the sheaves in harvest.

It wasn't quite noon, but this last picture was taken less than an hour after the first one. The sun's rising to a certain point completely cleared away the fog, and it felt like a different world.

This Advent I'm thinking those words of John Donne might make a good Christmas gift to lots of people living in the foggy confusion of our world these days.

"Now God comes to thee." Emmanuel!

Hopkins Still Hovers

I've just come across in my inbox a long, lovely article about Gerard Manley Hopkins, his life, his faith, and his poetry. I haven't even had to time to do more than skim it, but I'm putting the link here in case you want to read it and so that I can come back and read it with no chance of losing the link.

"....Hopkins’s genius is to make a poetic virtue out of the contradiction between dogma and experience. The designs of providence, running athwart appearances (and our wishes), require the orthodox to look again at the world, to see it in new and original ways. When dogma and experience are read into and against each other, they license—they do not foreclose—an idiosyncratic and creative vision."

(I did not take the photo. It came from here, where there are several others, and they are wonderful.)

Poetry in Unexpected Places

We went to the Spring Art Walk on Broad Avenue last night. I used to work on Broad Avenue, and at that time my friends would say on hearing about my new counseling job, "Are you sure you want to work there? Aren't you scared? Are you sure it's safe?"

After a horribly tragic shooting that killed several members of a family not far from our building, my boss forbade my usual habit of walking the two blocks down the street between our place and the clinic we were associated with. If I had to go, I had to drive. Just to be safe.

That was over five years ago. In the meantime, a lot has been happening in that part of town. Good stuff happening. Good people making things happen. Things are changing.

Last night we went with friends to that very same Broad Avenue, a little further down the street. We visited art galleries, a just-opening bakery, a paint-your-own-furniture store. We talked with artists, ministers, a man who helps folks in the city learn how to keep their chickens to have fresh eggs. We heard live music. We saw smiles and heard laughter. Nothing felt unsafe.

A young man was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk with a typewriter in his lap. A sign held up by a friend said, "Personal Poem Written Just for You." It intrigued me, so we stopped and asked. He said, You tell me about yourself, and I write a poem. I asked about the cost. He said, Whatever you decide. After you read it, you can pay me what you want.

So we gave him about two minutes' worth of information (or less) about us, and in a few minutes, here is what he gave us. It fits so well with this that I have to share it:

We stood there and read it in the streetlight. I was impressed. We paid him.

I asked what kind of typerwriter he had. An Underwood! I said, "I'm an Underwood myself!" (It's my maiden name.)

I asked him about himself. You can learn some of what he told us here. I said I might have to write a poem about him.

He asked if we'd be willing to take a picture of the poem later and email it to him. He's working on a book. I said we would.

I said to my man, as we walked down the street as the sun began to set, "I never thought I'd be walking down this street for fun."

And I'm saying to myself right now, "I never thought I'd find poetry on Broad Street."

And then I'm thinking of all the people who sat on the couch in my office, and I said, "Tell me about yourself." And they did. I heard stories I could not hear anywhere else. Hard stories, stories of suffering and pain and courage and endurance. Stories I can never publish but never forget.

They would ask about the cost, and within a certain range I was able to say, "You pay what you can." And we didn't write poetry, though I did take notes. And I heard stories and met people and learned about lives that could make a book. I learned about the battlefields of many lives, and I give thanks for all those days, and all those years. They left a living poetry in my heart.

And I'm happy to see light and joy on Broad Avenue.

Thank you, Adam, for the poetry.

Lent, Day Twenty-Seven: Confluence

Over the weekend, while driving here and there running errands in my car, I listened to an interview by Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio with Gerald McDermott on a recent book he cowrote on The Theology of Jonathan Edwards.  One theme that McDermott emphasized in Edwards' work is the beauty of God. Because most people's familiarity with Edwards is limited to one less-than-beautiful sermon, Edwards is not generally thought of someone who was deeply in love with God and considered God's beauty to be the primary quality of God that draws people to belief.

At one point, either McDermott or Myers said something like, "So for him, it wasn't about being driven by duty, but drawn by beauty." Which easily sticks in the mind. And it did.

Separately, yesterday at some point the thought came to me, "You can't reason people out of something they weren't reasoned into." (Turns out that comes from Jonathan Swift, but I don't know where I heard it. Probably by way of my high school English teacher, as it seems like the sort of quotation he would have on his chalkboard.)

And I was thinking about how hard it is to reason oneself out of behaviors or even ideas that did not come about primarily through reason but through "the affections," as Jonathan Edwards referred to the deeper part of the human being, what the Hebrew scriptures refer to as "the heart," though it is much more than what Americans usually mean by "heart," which they separate completely from reason. If I understood correctly about Edwards, he wasn't separating feeling and thinking and calling "the affections" the emotional part of a person. Instead, he meant the deep part of a person that influences both their thinking and their feeling. It has to do with the heart's desire for meaning and beauty and love.

And so if the heart's desire for meaning, beauty, and/or love has led someone to a particular belief, or practice, or relationship, or whatever, even if that belief, practice, or relationship turns out not to be a true or sufficient object of desire, purely reasoning about it is not likely to help a person see that or change their ways. We see this all the time with the obvious addictions. People really and truly want and need love, or peace, or happiness, and they find something that temporarily gives some semblance of that in a substance or relationship. But the drug, or drink, or relationship ends up causing more trouble than the seeming good it brings. Simply pointing this out and reasoning doesn't generally help people, even when they want to make changes. They usually have to have something greater to motivate them. Something that offers greater love, peace, or happiness.

And we can all relate to this, I think, when it comes to something as simple as food. We need food to live. It's normal to enjoy good food. Good food is a great blessing. And yet we can overeat and make ourselves unhealthy in all kinds of ways by it. But I don't know many people who succeed in changing their eating habits simply by reasoning themselves away from that luscious piece of chocolate cake on the table before them. We need a better motivation than "that just isn't logical."

So, with these things going on in my mind the past couple of days, I sat down this morning and saw on my "Ordo Kalendar" that today is the day of John Donne. One of my favorites. I decided I should read something by him to honor the day and got out our "Top 500 Poems" anthology. The first poem they had in the 25 pages on Donne was one I remember learning from my high school English teacher, who was a gifted actor and excellent reader-aloud of poetry:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town to another due,

Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

"Reason . . . proves weak  or untrue." Being driven by duty just isn't enough. But being drawn by beauty/love has great power, even the power to cause Donne to wish to be enthralled (which can mean both to be enchanted or captivated, and also to be enslaved) by God.

This is a rather rambling post, but I was fascinated this morning to find this poem before me and to see how it fit with the things I had been thinking about.

Oh, yes, and also that the psalm for today was Psalm 89, which begins, "I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord, for ever," and has several themes that connect with Edwards' themes.

And it all relates to Lent, at least in my mind (which I think can find connections between anything and anything else sometimes), because it has do with fasting and discipline in general, and with the beauty of Easter/resurrection that is the very reason for Lent in the first place.

But more on that later. And perhaps it will be less rambling. But only perhaps.

A few days later, April 8, I just found this article on "John Donne in Lent." I had no idea just how appropriate it was that these thoughts came together when they did. And I don't believe I have ever written such a hyperlinked blog post....

Lent, Day Fifteen: Dust in the Wind

Holy and  good and generous God,

     It is the day of the ashes,

     and I am reminded that my life

     on earth will end,

     and could end at any moment.

But I am alive, made of dust,

     breathing the air you give me.

Thank you for the dust that is me

     and the air that sustains me.

May I more and more

     be sustained by your Spirit

     and less by the things of the earth.

It is interesting to me to see what I wrote on Ash Wednesday over a decade ago, when I had just begun to realize and understand what Ash Wednesday and Lent were and what they meant.

I did not know that that same year would usher in the period of five deaths in less than six months of people I loved. I could not know how deeply I would experience the sense of transience that I expressed in the poem.

"All we are is dust in the wind." The song by Kansas, much as I enjoy hearing its music and the expressiveness of the lyrics, is a pretty sad, hopeless song. It leaves you with the feeling that it's better to just not think about the fact that life will end, because it's all pointless.

"Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky." I guess you could say here is where I take a different turn from the song. Because I believe a lot lasts forever besides the earth and sky. . . like God, and love, and joy, and souls, and memories, and meaning, and relationships between formed-from-dust people formed here on this planet of dust and water. And if these things last, they are certainly worth hanging on to, in fact, worth pursuing, even though the song says, "Now don't hang on...."

The word for spirit and wind is the same (well, I should say the words are the same, since it holds true in both Hebrew and Greek) in the ancient languages of scripture. And if I think of the Holy Spirit as the wind, then I cannot think of anything more meaningful and desirable than to be "dust in the wind."

(The photo above came via this website. http://peterlachnewinsky.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/dust-ode/ 
I found plenty of photos of dust in the wind in various forms searching the Internet, but was most drawn to this one. Wouldn't you know, it was used to accompany another poem about ashes and dust? )

Poem to Start a New Week and to End the Christmas Season

I have no original thoughts. (Do any of us, really?) But today is the last day of Christmas and it is also Sunday, and this is a wonderful poem that relates to Incarnation and communion/Eucharist/Lord's Supper, and it has been in my mind all week, so I will share it here.

(The photo is from an old chapel on the grounds of Spring Hill College, in Mobile, Alabama.)


By George Herbert.

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.

Poem to Start the New Year

On my "someday-maybe" list is to read a book of poetry by Czeslaw Milosz. I only heard of him a few years ago, but what I've heard makes me want to know more.

Found this poem today and thought how, even though the middle lines might be different for each of us and would be for me, we can probably all "amen" the first line. And be grateful that the last lines are also true. (Unless we've really, really been stupid and gotten famous for it somehow.)

He wrote this the same year he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Here's to wise choices in the New Year!

Account

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,

Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,

Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,

The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,

The time when I was among their adherents

Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,

If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,

I was driven because I wanted to be like others.

I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.

For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.