Stone and Stained Glass

 

 

So, following up on the Birthday Birthplace, here comes another phenomenon of light.

 

This site, now a part of Montgomery Bell State Park, is the birthplace of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. A log house is just down the way, a replica of the one where one of the first preachers and founding fathers lived. This chapel is not as old as the house, though it took me a while to track down information on when it was built, which turns out to have been in 1960. Not what I had thought! But still it's older than me.

 

It's a simple stone building, sweet and solid. If I were just passing by, I probably would not have even gone in, having been inside several simple stone church buildings over the years. But I had seen photos on the website that made me want to see the interior, and I did want a quite place for prayer.

 

But I had no idea what to expect. The photo I had seen intrigued me but did not do justice to what I found inside.

 

This is similar to the photo I'd seen on the website, except without so much of the side shots. So it seemed like a nice country church, a good place to pray, not likely to draw big crowds.

What I didn't expect was the windows all around and what light would do coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the looks of it, the Bible may have been original to the church.

(This photo hints at what's coming in the next post.....tune in next time....)

I love the way the light casts reflections on every surface possible, smooth or rough, near or far.

I think it's the first time I've been able to see through stained glass to the surroundings outside (the trees out the window, in case you can't tell).

When I was reading about the place, I learned that the man who lived in the house down the road, Rev. Samuel McAdow, died at age 84, in 1839, after losing three wives to death. According to the website, his last words were, in answer to a friend, 'All is peace, my work is done, every thing is ready; I have nothing to do, but to die; there is no doubt, no fear.'"

Makes me think that despite his being "rather inclined to despondency" throughout his life--or perhaps because of that--he must have searched out light and found it.

Dark. And a Phenomenon of Light.

In the very early morning, lying awake when I would have preferred to be asleep, I heard the rain start. A pouring rain. I hoped it might wash away the troublesome thoughts and feelings, and maybe I could get to sleep. That didn't happen, but it felt good just to hope for it.

During church, more rain fell than I remember hearing ever while in that place. Heavy, hard, pounding rain. It couldn't wash away the troubles, either, but being at church did help. Kind hearts and hugs do make a difference, as do songs of faith, reminders that ultimately Love will heal and transform this wounded world.

But outside again, the sky was gray. The clouds were thick and heavy. It's the peak of summer, but it was dark and bleak outside.

Later in the afternoon, I sat in a Starbucks talking with a friend. One of my best listener friends.

The content of much of our conversation was dark, heavy, thick, bleak. Hard. Because of situations in this dark world that weigh heavy on me. That can't be washed away. That will never wash away. That block the light from shining through, at least much of the time. That wake me up in the early hours more days than not. Because people I love are wounded, because I am wounded, because the world is so deeply wounded.

The rain stopped. After much talking and listening, the sky was a lighter shade of gray.

At some point I looked up. I had looked up in that direction often as we talked. Through the window of Starbucks were huge electrical lines and huge boxy thing-a-ma-jiggers connected to the lines, on their tall poles, crossing the street and looking ugly. Across the street huge golden arches blared bright yellow against the gray sky. And behind them a billboard advertising something or other framed the view. Urban ugliness matched the bleakness of the weather. A wounded landscape, like so much in the city.

But at that point when I looked up . . . . it was faint, but I thought I saw a rainbow. No, I was imagining it. Or was I? As I continued to look, it became more distinct, and I could see for certain that a rainbow was forming.

 

 

(I didn't have a camera with me. These are photos from five years ago. A faint rainbow is there, just right of center above the ground.)

Soon it became full-colored and distinct, and I couldn't help but notice that while it was interrupted and blocked by the ugly wires and arches and billboard, it went way beyond them, and beyond other signs and poles,  beyond where I could see, beyond, beyond, to wherever rainbows go.

In the midst of the wounded landscape, a sign.

Love will heal and transform this wounded world.

Birthday Birthplace

 

In July, as part of a retreat I went on, I went in search of a small church I had seen a photo of online when I was looking at the website for Montgomery Bell State Park, the site of the retreat.

 

It intrigued me that a state park would have a picture of a church on their site, so I wanted to find it, learn more about it (if there was a story connected to it), and I hoped to sit quietly and have a cool, mosquito-free place to just pray and think.

 

When I drove in the direction the park representative told me to go, I came to a parking spot and this sign.

 

 

 

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't take a picture of an informational sign, but it was just kind of amazing, because I didn't know this church was connected to any birthplace, and because February 4 is my birthday!

 

So I immediately felt a sort of kinship with the place, whatever kind of birthplace it was.

 

It turned out that there was actually a log cabin (which I don't have pictures of, because my batteries died, and I didn't have extras with me), and also this church.

 

 

Not particularly spectacular seen this way, but in my next post you'll see why my batteries died. They say you can't judge a book by its cover. Well, you can't judge this church's photographic potential by its exterior, either!

Till next time. . . .

Sketches

Oops. I went over a month with nothing on my blog. While I'd like to get back into more frequent "blogging" (still hate that word, cf. my very first post from--gasp--eight years ago), I do at least try not to go more than a month without posting something.

 

So tonight, a quick post.

 

In looking for something a few weeks ago, I came across these doodles in a couple of notebooks. The top three were done during a class when I was kind of bored.

 



 

Looking out the glass window to the foliage outside--wishing I were outside.

 

 

 

 

 

This, as I recall, related to something we were discussing in class.

There was not a tree in the room, so I was sketching an idea, not something I saw--obviously!

(Does anyone know how to stop Blogger from turning photos sideways?

I never have figured it out.)

Another view out other windows. It looks as if I were interrupted, or else that tree on the right would continue branching out into the window pane to its left....but I actually remember that it didn't.

It just went upward at that point, out of sight.

 

Another notebook, one I took to Croatia. This was the plan for tiling the bathroom,

though our plan was not to have a sideways bathroom.

Life is different over there, but we don't live sideways.(Blogger again!)

Of course when time for tiling came, and dear hubby flew home to oversee the project,

neither of us remembered that I had drawn this sketch!

 

 

Anyway, just seeing these things while in search of something else reminded me that I really do enjoy sketching/drawing/doodling and don't do it much. I enjoy the way it slows you down, focuses you, connects you to your own body and to the world around you.

 

So when I saw a very small, portable sketchbook at the bookstore the next day, I brought it home. It's set up to do a sketch a day, which I was doing until severely interrupted by two intensive weeks of school, but I intend to get back into the habit.

 

Maybe I'll share some more, though I must say sketching itself is much more relaxing that doing a post on sketching.

 

Here's to old-fashioned fun, no screens involved.

Sorella Luna

 

 

All Praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;

 

 

 

 

 

 

in the heavens you have made them,

 

 

 

 

 

 

bright, and precious, and fair.

 

 

 

 

~from "Canticle of the Creatures," Francis of Assisi

 

(And perhaps someday I will get a fancier camera so as to better photograph Sister Moon.)

Magnolia Blossoms

 

 

 

They

 

 

 

 

are

 

 

simply

 

 

wonderful.

 

~ ~ ~

(I wish I could have gotten pictures of the blue heron, the baby chipmunk, and the hawk I also saw this morning. But flowers don't move around so much! Morning walks are the best part of the day.)

Towery City

It's been a long while since I quoted any Hopkins on my blog, and many readers may not even realize that the name of my blog comes from him.

Tonight I am for whatever reason thinking of the towers of Italy, Monteriggioni (above) being perhaps the most towery city I've seen there. San Gimignano may have more towers? not sure--but Monteriggioni has the most impressive arrangement of them, still intact.

Hopkins wasn't writing of either Italian city in his poem, but of Oxford, and was imagining the time when his hero, Duns Scotus, walked those streets and breathed that air. A man who "of all men most sways my spirits to peace."

For me, thoughts of Italy often sway my spirits to peace. It's not because Italy is perfect, or especially peaceful generally. Its cities can be chaotic and maddening at times. But because in recent years my trips there have been just that--trips--they have been peaceful. I wasn't working there, I wasn't going to teach a class or do a workshop, but just being there, seeing friends, taking it in. And of course in the countryside, it is breathtakingly beautiful, a peace-inducing sort of beauty.

A few years ago I spent three days in Assisi by myself and was able to follow the footsteps of Francis and Claire. Those were tiring days (I did a lot of walking! and much of it uphill!) but also very peace-filled days.

These days, I keep a photo on my desk at work of the view from Claire's prayer garden, a place where she used to pray, and a place where I stood briefly, once upon a time.

It's funny that I wrote "once upon a time." I only meant to say that some time back I stood there. But the phrase actually hints at what I want to say about why I keep the photo on my desk. It is a professional photo. a postcard I bought, and so as a photo it is quite close to perfect. And it is in a frame, which sets it apart. And so it is easy to see it there on my desk and think of it as "once upon a time in a land far, far away," as if it were not quite real.

But the truth is that I stood in that very spot, could have taken that picture myself if there had not been other people around me. And it wasn't once upon a time. It was five years ago. It isn't a land far, far away. It's a real place. Francis and Claire were real people who really lived and prayed and worked there, and I really walked in that city, felt the wind blow in the olive grove, watched the chickens pecking at the grass just as they do in Arkansas or Croatia, and I really did feel the peace and exhilaration of those days in Assisi and of the rest of my trip five years ago.

So when I look at that photo on my desk, I use it as a discipline. For one thing, it reminds me to pray. For another, it reminds me that whatever is going on right now, whether in my own life or in the lives of my clients, that may be difficult, distressing, or downright awful--whatever may be going on here and now--that is only one part of reality.

I often tell my clients when they are overwhelmed by the present, or by parts of their past, that if they can remember some good time, some time when life was simpler, or more joyful, or more peaceful, then they really must believe that those times were just as real as what is going on now that is so hard. They may seem long ago and far away, but they were every bit as real as the difficult present.

And, I tell them, from a metaphysical standpoint, they may have even been more real. Because love and joy and peace are things that will last forever. Pain is not. Evil is not. Suffering is not. They will not last, so in a sense they are less real. And my clients owe it to themselves, and to truth, to remember that and be strengthened by it.

And that is why I keep that picture from Assisi on my desk.

(Even though the picture above is Monteriggioni. I suppose after going in the direction I did with my writing that I should include some of Assisi five years ago. It's a fairly towery city itself.)

And here, for those interested, is the poem from which my blog got its name:

TOWERY city and branchy between towers;
Cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded;
The dapple-eared lily below thee; that country and town did
Once encounter in, here coped and poisèd powers;
Thou hast a base and brickish skirt there, sours
That neighbour-nature thy grey beauty is grounded
Best in; graceless growth, thou hast confounded
Rural rural keeping—folk, flocks, and flowers.
Yet ah! this air I gather and I release
He lived on; these weeds and waters, these walls are what
He haunted who of all men most sways my spirits to peace;
Of realty the rarest-veinèd unraveller; a not
Rivalled insight, be rival Italy or Greece;
Who fired France for Mary without spot.  

China, Marbles, and Memories

Our house was built in 1941. The tag on the plates in the antique shop said they were from 1941. I had been wanting some of these plates for years, and the price was better than many I had looked at over the past decade. It seemed meant to be, so I bought four of them.

I love them because they are beautiful. I love them because they are hand painted and simple. I love them because they are old. I love them because they are Franciscan.

And I love this picture because if you look closely, you can see one of my other favorite dishes in the reflection, upside down! I did not notice that when I was pressing the button on the camera!

In one photo, I am amazed at how much love I see. The wooden dish rack belonged to Grandmother. The plate reminds me of the love of St. Francis. The bowl reflected on the plate was a gift of love from my friend Carolyn, and was made in Italy, a country I love terribly much.

And even the little marble in the dish in the window has special memories of love. A few years after Grandmother's death, I was visiting the woman who now lives in her house. This woman's grandchild was playing in the room, and his toy car or ball or something rolled into the fireplace. When she (or I? I don't recall) went to retrieve the toy, looking into the far recesses of the fireplace, we found this marble. She was surprised and said they had never had any marbles since moving into the house. I said Grandmother kept marbles in this room, and they were played with quite a few years back.

So she gave the marble to me, and I treasure it as a reminder of my own childhood and the childhoods of cousins, nieces, and nephews who played in that living room over the span of decades.

Since 1941, in fact, because their house was built the same year as the one we now live in.

It pays to look closely. You perceive more love when you look closely. As Dostoevski wrote, "Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day."

Stripes and Lent

Lent started without me. I was out of town for a workshop, then got quite sick, and throughout this time was very involved in a rather intense effort to deal with a crisis situation in the life of someone very dear to me.

And although I was not raised in a church culture that practiced Lent, and in fact probably did not know the meaning of that word popping up every spring on my Hallmark pocket calendar until sometime in college, I have come to really appreciate the wisdom of this period of time leading up to Holy Week and Easter, and I look forward to it each year.

But this year I just wasn't able to enter into it fully. Unable to attend an Ash Wednesday service, I hadn't even had the time to think about how I would practice Lent this year, what form and structure my prayer, fasting, and giving might take.

Earlier in the month, however, I did go to St. Columba for a much-needed retreat of a day and parts of two days. And while there I was taken by the stripes of light one morning in the room when I woke up and opened the blinds to let in the sun. And then started noticing stripes everywhere.

So I got out the new camera my dear one had given me for Christmas, and I took pictures.

The wool blanket that was my Grandmother's. A lovely Lenten purple!

Stripes upon stripes.

The stripes of the rocking chair out on the porch (and the wonderful reflection of daffodils superimposed on it! And pens in the glass nearby.)

Stripes on the lampshade and all around.

Stripes on the side of the kitchen cabinet, stripes in the grain of the wood.

Stripes of light on the stripes of the dish drainer.

Light stripes kissing my little orange friends.

Stripes of light on the countertop and light working wonders through the curves of the glass.

And of course the stripes of the blinds themselves, the handmaidens of the morning sun, co-creating this visual display.

Stripes. Lent. "With his stripes we are healed." Everything connects to everything else eventually.

Today I was reading from the book Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, reading back over pages I had missed because of everything else going on. Edna Hong writes about the need for Lent. "Our self-indulgent and self-flattering age looks upon the self-maltreating and self-hating practices of the monastic and desert ascetics as pathetic and futile." We think those practices were silly, laughable, and those who engaged in them woefully misguided, perhaps even sick. And of course they were extreme and perhaps not healthy. 

But as Hong points out, our decision not to engage in such practices does not generally come from a place of already having arrived at such humility that we do not need such reminders. "It is rather our comfort-seeking spirits" that scorn those practices.

"But the spirit of truth does not seek comfort. The purpose of Lent is not to escape the conscience, but to create a healthy hatred for evil, a heartfelt contrition for sin, and a passionately felt need for grace.....There is no motivation for works of love without a sense of gratitude, no sense of gratitude without forgiveness, no forgiveness without contrition, no contrition without a sense of guilt, no sense of guilt without a sense of sin."

"In other words, a guilty suffering spirit is more open to grace than an apathetic or smug soul. Therefore, an age without a sense of sin, in which people are not even sorry for not being sorry for their sins, is in rather a serious predicament. Likewise an age with a Christianity so eager to forgive that it denies the need for forgiveness. For such an age, therefore, Lent can scarcely be too long!"

His stripes heal us. We don't need to stripe ourselves with self-flagellation like some of those ascetics.We could never heal ourselves, anyway. And yet most of us find we do need practices that challenge our apathetic and smug souls. Many who are not aware of that need, I have observed, engage in non-literal forms of self-flagellation. They beat themselves up for not being perfect, for mistakes they've made even years earlier sometimes. They whip themselves in order to perform better and castigate themselves when they fail. It's a routine I know well from earlier times in my life.

How much better to accept that we are imperfect, accept forgiveness, forgive ourselves, and live in love and gratitude. If Lent can help that happen, bring on the purple. And thank God for the stripes that heal. And for the light that brings life.

(I had not heard of Edna Hong before reading this today. But she lived an amazing life! Married a day after college graduation, hitchhiked to New York, sailed to Denmark, translated Kierkegaard, raised eight children, took in war refugees, wrote children's literature, lived over ninety years....Wow.)

Eat this Breakfast

When I grow up, I want to be like my friend Carolyn, at whose table I sat on the morning of Valentine's Day.

Carolyn doesn't just make the bed and set out towels for her house guest. She sets out books on the nightstand that connect with whatever event has brought me to town, or books that she knows relate to something I've been interested in lately. Sometimes she sets out a cross or other decorative object that I have given to her in years past.

She leaves a belated birthday card on the bed for me to find when I come "home" late after a long day at the workshop I'm attending.

And she sets a breakfast table with china, a Valentine napkin, and even a dignified cardinal to socialize with the little hoppy bird Valentine's card that I had left out for her the night before.

In these ways and in many others that go deeper, Carolyn makes love tangible. And I love her for that.

As my previous post, Eat this Book, talked about assimilating scripture into our very being, I want to assimilate Carolyn's hospitality into my being. Not just receive and enjoy it but find ways to imitate it, to share it. To take the time to think about another person and what would add joy, or interest, or beauty to their day--and then to actually make that happen.

What a beautiful way to start a day.