This Week A Letter and A Brief Aside To My Soul

The week, I think, has ended.  I'd like to put my stamp on it, seal it, send it off, and declare it won't be returning.

It's full.  I'll have to put multiple stamps on it, or perhaps I could buy one of those pre-paid, one-size-fits-all boxes.  But then I'd have to buy packaging tape and be confronted with that tape-stretching sound, like the roar of an old lion calling to God for its food.

What I'm trying to say is, it's been a busy, full week.  It's ended, humorously, with multiple exhortations, from multiple sources, to slow down.  The last chapter in a book Reslife staff is reading (title intetionally ommitted due to excessive cheesiness) struck home, it was about "slowing."

My life, this semester, has taken an unexpected turn, its pace rushing from the dull hum of occasional activity to something much closer to a freight train packed full of inevitability.

The chapter in aforementioned book, combined with a reflection on overcoming tempestuosity, and the reading and discussion of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, have all served to awaken again the stifled voice of my soul.

Brief aside - addressing my soul: 

Hello again, old friend. 

Allow me to take this moment and express the wretched feelings your absence has created.  I've missed you.  If only I had a way of knowing how long you've been gone.  We could catch-up, do more than discuss the weather and exchange bad puns.

Silly, I know, awkward even.  It's just that I have this pent-up, nervous energy that bubbles over when I'm not sure what "the situation calls for."  Why do you think I'm rambling?

Can you speak?  I promise I'll be quiet.  I've done too much talking, not enough listening.  I even wrote my own obituary and barely consulted you.  That, I know, was foolish.

        

A Wednesday Poem and A Monday Feeling

Blank Verse In The Mall and Single On February 13


A plastic ribbon dangles in the air
and free this gaudy pink of coarser grain
but for the knots that hold it to the ground,
that cheapen pain, wind, snow, and seeing her.
On marble floors my shoes thud, hollow, down,
soulless by bright, red ribbons.  Plastic
is color interrupting.  Incase love,
crust it over with one solid coat
of brighter gold and wait for desperate hands.

They’ve known the will to tremble and compose
though forgotten now, beloved, bright, bursting
in and up and over.  All the world
now only paper, symbols, loss, unfair
exchanges, cashiers.  See, Michael covers
his head with his camouflaged hood, too sad 
to accept she’s gone, a month, he's only twelve.
Their ages torn amidst wet kisses on
projections and the bright, white shine of shelves.

Adam Names The Rain

If you, tonight, stand outside on the path from Howard to the fountain, the snow spins around the Raley spire.  There is no direct, causal relationship between my standing and the snow spinning, but if I'd walked much faster I would have missed it.

This week the Bison theme requires I write about rejoicing.  Sad, because, somehow, it's always easier to sing a dirge.  

Last year was my dirge.  I have the journals to prove it.  I filled them with prayers, mourning, an acute feeling of distance between heaven and earth.  Melodramatic?

I remember standing in the alley behind the GC, looking up at the stars, and thinking come speedily, O Lord.  

There's still mourning; still a lot of pent up, post-adolescent angst churning.  But there was a day of slow-change.

I remember the November rain.  I tucked my journal underneath my sweater, walking briskly.  I sat at a painted-white, metal table under the edge of the library roof.  In angst I began, Mark these cowardly hands.  They seek to build what they have long forgotten, if ever knowing at all...then a pause.  

Then a glance upward.  Wet leaves.  The smell, the sound of rain.  

Yet, I wrote, and so soon, why be so self-preoccupied?

Do you not see, poor soul, how God has sent this rain for such a day?  As you come nearer tears, mark instead wet leaves and this thirst-quenched earth.  Cast your eye upon the squirrels and trees, consider the birds and the thankfulness of this morning, and forget your fleeting insecurities

How fragile your flame, and how fleeting all your mind now seeks to encompass.  It will change with better food, the passing of a tooth-ache.

Cast your eyes up, not in.  Consider the steadfast love that has upheld you, that did not leave you as you were.  Trust.  Keep your mind fixed upon the hope of salvation, and your armor faith and love.

Doubt, by all means, this present course, but do not doubt his faithfulness.

Do not forget your oft repeated cry: "I want to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Find your comfort here, in the consideration of Christ, and contemplate so great a love, so tremendous a victory.

This heart will learn to sing.  You will know, man, and so be transformed into His image.  Fear and fret not.  Through his faithfulness he will speak and his words will be of "well done."  For his word will do well in you.

Only faith working through love

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'

For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself

And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God 

I know little about thankfulness, less about rejoicing.  I have known, however, unspeakable faithfulness.  So I hope in the unconquerable might of Grace.  Grace I have known, and know.  

I write it all here because I don't know how to write it.  Every word, then, is hope.  To write is to understand and clarify, not to conquer.  I create as creation, for words multiply, are fruitful, and fill the earth.  

Adam's charge is naming all he sees, participating in the creative act and, in so doing, coming alongside the Triune movement. 

To name is to offer back to God, in praise, the things given.  It is deep, mysterious.  In the naming, the acknowledgment, is the recognition not of my authority but of divine Grace.  I see, I name, and begin to understand that nothing is from me, but, as a priest, everything moves through me back to God in grateful exaltation.  

I patiently accept what comes, seek to understand it (right faith), and then offer it again to God (prayer).  And this, in some small way, is life.           

My Gateway to Joy

When I was very little there was a tan cassette tape that I and all my siblings would listen to often.  The tape was of a radio program called "Gateway to Joy," which featured Elisabeth Elliot speaking about various things for a brief amount of time.  On this particular tape she read stories for children.


I'd forgotten about this tan tape till yesterday.  And, this morning, I've found the transcript to part of the tape, which I'll reproduce here:

"You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, telling stories for children during this week.

I had a postcard from a mother whose little son Isaac, three years old, listens every day to Gateway To Joy, which comes on at 11:15 a.m. She says, "I tell Isaac, 'It's quiet time. We are listening to Mrs. Elliot.' He is very good to play quietly with cars or whatever. The other day in the car I heard him say, '1-800-759-4JOY' with the exact intonation of your hostess. Then he said, '1-800-759-4569.' I decided if he ever gets lost, the police will be calling Gateway To Joy. I hope that makes you smile."

Well, it certainly did. Thank you ever so much, Kathy Lewis, from Alderwood, Washington. I get letters often from mothers who home school and whose children are asked to be quiet and sit and listen to Elisabeth Elliot, if the program Gateway To Joy comes in the middle of their homeschooling time. I do want to thank you.

And I often have letters from children. I do remember you when I speak on this program, and I realize that many of the programs I give would not be of the slightest interest to you. This week I decided that I'm going to tell you some stories. These stories are for all different ages, and I especially hope that you children will enjoy them.

My father gave me a little book that he grew up on called THE GOLDEN WINDOWS by Laura E. Richards. So today I'm going to read you the first story, which is the title story, "The Golden Windows."

"All day long the little boy worked hard, in field, in barn, in shed. For his people were poor farmers, and could not pay a workman. But at sunset, there came an hour that all was his own, for his father had given it to him. Then the boy would go up to the top of the hill and look across at another hill that rose some miles away. On this far hill stood a house with windows of clear gold and diamonds. They shone and blazed so that it made the boy wink to look at them.

But after a while, the people in the house put up shutters, as it seemed, and then it looked like any common farmhouse. The boy supposed they did this because it was suppertime, and then he would go into his house and have his supper of bread and milk and go to bed.

One day the boy's father called him and said, 'You've been a good boy. You've earned a holiday. Take this day for your own. But remember that God gave it, and try to learn some good thing.'

The boy thanked his father and kissed his mother, and then he put a piece of bread in his pocket and started off to find the house with the golden windows. It was pleasant walking. His bare feet made marks in the white dust. When he looked back, the footprints seemed to be following him and making company for him. His shadow too kept beside him, and would dance or run with him as he pleased, so it was very cheerful.

By and by he felt hungry. He sat down by a brown brook that ran through the alder hedge by the roadside, and ate his bread and drank the clear water. Then he scattered the crumbs for the birds, as his mother had taught him to do, and went on his way.

After a long time he came to a high green hill. When he had climbed the hill, there was the house on the top. But it seemed that the shutters were up, for he could not see the golden windows. He came up to the house and then he could well have wept, for the windows were of clear glass like any others and there was no gold anywhere about them.

A woman came to the door and looked kindly at the boy and asked him what he wanted. 'I saw the golden windows from our hilltop,' he said. 'I came to see them, but now they're only glass.' The woman shook her head and laughed. 'We are poor farming people,' she said, 'and we are not likely to have gold about our windows. But glass is better to see through.'

She bade the boy sit down on a broad stone step at the door and brought him a cup of milk and a cake, and bade him rest." Do you know what that word "bade" means? She told him to. She told him to sit down and she told him to rest.

"Then she called her daughter, a child of his own age, and nodded kindly at the two and went back to her work. The little girl was barefooted like himself, and wore a brown cotton dress. But her hair was golden like the windows he had seen, and her eyes were blue like the sky at noon.

She led the boy about the farm and showed him her black calf with the white star on its forehead. He told her about his own house, about his own at home, which was red like a chestnut with four white feet. Then when they had eaten an apple together and so had become friends, the boy asked her about the golden windows. The little girl nodded and said she knew all about them, only he had mistaken the house.

'You have come quite the wrong way,' she said. 'Come with me. I will show you the house with the golden windows. Then you will see for yourself.'

They went to a knoll that rose behind the farmhouse, and as they went the little girl told him that the golden windows could only be seen at a certain hour, about sunset. 'Yes, I know that,' said the boy.

When they reached the top of the knoll, the girl turned and pointed. There on a hill far away, stood a house with windows of clear gold and diamond, just as he had seen them. When they looked again, the boy saw that it was his own house.

Then he told the little girl that he must go, and he gave her his best pebble, the white one with the red band, that he had carried for a year in his pocket. She gave him three horse chestnuts, one red like satin, one spotted, and one white like milk. He kissed her and promised to come again, but he did not tell her what he had learned. So he went back down the hill and the little girl stood in the sunset and watched him.

The way home was long, and it was dark before the boy reached his father's house. But the lamplight and firelight shone through the windows, making them almost as bright as he had seen them from the hilltop. When he opened the door, his mother came to kiss him. His little sister ran to throw her arms about his neck, and his father looked up and smiled from his seat by the fire.

'Have you had a good day?' asked his mother. 'Yes.' The boy had had a very good day.

'And have you learned anything?' asked his father. 'Yes,' said the boy. 'I have learned that our house has windows of gold and diamond.'"

I wonder if you understand that story. Can you think what it means? Do you want me to tell you what it means? I really don't want to tell you what it means. Not right now, anyway. Maybe I'll tell you on another day what I think it means.

One of the wonderful things about stories is that they usually have many different meanings for many different people. Can you learn anything just about his trip up to the house? Did you notice that he was glad to walk by himself? His bare feet made marks in the white dust, and the footprints seemed to be following him and making company for him. His shadow too kept beside him, and would dance or run with him, if he danced or ran, so it was very cheerful. I think he enjoyed the brown brook and the clear water and the birds and the green hill.

I hope you're learning to really love the beauty in the world that God made. Birds. Maybe the only birds you ever see are pigeons because you live in the middle of a big city, or maybe you live on a farm where you have all kinds of birds.

We have a mockingbird that sings at our house. He has a tremendous repertoire. He can imitate a catbird, and a catbird imitates a cat. You know, he sounds almost like a cat. The mockingbird imitates a cardinal absolutely perfectly. He can imitate a robin, and then he has a whole repertoire of his own. He trills and whistles and chirps and trills and whistles and chirps. It's just as if he's practicing. I love to listen to the mockingbird.

I love to watch the seagulls. Do you love to watch a sunset? Are you up early enough to watch a sunrise? It's wonderful to watch a sunrise. Have you thanked God for the beauty around you?

Perhaps you're listening to this program in the wintertime. Maybe there's snow. Maybe there's darkness. Much shorter days. My husband grew up in Norway, where in December they only have about four hours of daylight.

What do you think about those golden windows? Does it teach you a lesson about contentment? Think about that. Tell your brother or sister the story. If you don't have a brother or a sister, maybe you can tell your dad when he comes home. See how much of it you can remember. The boy said he had had a very good day, and he had learned something.

Another thing that I noticed in this story was that the little girl was unselfish with him and he was unselfish with her. What did he give her? Do you remember? Yes. He gave her his best pebble. What did it look like? A white one, with a red band. What did she give him? Some of you remembered. Three horse chestnuts.

We used to love to collect horse chestnuts. But hers were red. One was red like satin. One was spotted. One was white like milk. I have to confess, I've never seen a white horse chestnut, or even a spotted one. I think all the ones we had were red like satin.

Nonverbal Acknowledgement: Casual, Cool

Saturday morning, the quiet hum of Howard heating.

I thought I'd write something before breakfast, a kind of "Good morning" greeting akin to the low, semi-friendly grunt of the groggy, "just-woke-up" individuals one sometimes sees in the hallways of university housing.  Or perhaps a head nod would be more appropriate, manly and intimidating.  The casual, cool, slight movement of the head as if to say, "I see you.  I believe in you.  We're both hip-and-happening."

Frank O'Hara's Meaning Babbled By The Gods

Well, what is there for me to say?  What possible good could come of spilling all my soul upon these digital pages?  In writing it I'd lose what I intended at first.  And that is the paradox of thought to word, of expression.

One class today had me reading Kubla Kahn, Coleridge's lament of a perfect poem lost somewhere in the communication.  I've lost so many things in telling.  A well established point, somewhere between the image and the thing, breaks true meaning apart.  This is the frustration, undeniable reality, Babel assertion of man's inability to properly name.

How frustrating a task, the word!  How inevitable failure!  And oh! the depths of exclamation not quite communicated in my punctually limited lamentation.  After all, it's only these: ".?!,/"';(-_)=+^*~`[<{]}>" (and I quote).

Truly, none of this has come as powerfully upon me as it does when I sit in poetry circle.  There my poems are read, I and others quietly-aloud, and slowly the room fills, ebbs, and sinks with the realization that much is lost in the transcription.

I sit now, reading Frank O'Hara, wondering what he means.  I wonder what frustration fell upon him in the quiet hours, the "cold-thud-of-a-white-bic-pin-on-no-show-carpet-in-a-dark-room-drops-and-oh-i-hear-it-for-the-first-time-in-years-isn't-that-a-fan-oscillating-and-the-cool-warm-breeze-of-midnight" moments.   

The Second of Many, A poem for Dallas

Golden Evening Hovering Over a Dallasian Pond

billowing, I want to name you, painting

melodically your many-subtle hues

especially as your light departs

you’d be alone if not for

cold, coarse, rock reflecting.

Light even rules the night,

rules conspicuously in absence.

My great uncle fell from a hayloft and died

on his pitchfork, light was everywhere

spilling from his pores

I wouldn’t mention it

except there is this old rough red barn

standing on a distant green hill and all the animals are dying.

Not violently, but slow, three-pronged, sure

as the gravity that pulled

my great uncle down

To interrupt, I’ll end, a Transam truck

and the smell of dust.