Lauren Kooistra

Friday, March 6, 2015

Growth: 5

When long days threaten to take over,
It is the Strength of the Lord that drives me forward.

[No matter the source of the long,
Remember the Source of the Life;
The Alpha, the Omega,
The Beginning and the End.]

[grow, verb: to increase in size or substance;

to spring up; to develop to maturity]

Thursday, March 5, 2015

Growth: 4

[For too many years]

This smokescreen of fear stands here between,

turns my eyes back toward myself,

causes me to change myself,

into the self fear tells me I am.

[Today I say] No more.

[grow, verb: to increase in size or substance;

to spring up; to develop to maturity]

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Growth: 3

The ferociously grasping beast of grumpy takes me into its confidence as the weakness of another imposes on my day.

Slow, slow, steady on: I turn that which is inside of me around.

I turn my face toward the face of the weakness, not away.

I remember the favor that has been shown me in every weakness I hold in my own pleading hands; I breathe in new love, I breathe out new care.

Slow, slow, careful now. Steady, on.

[[grow, verb: to increase in size or substance;
to spring up; to develop to maturity]

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Growth: 2

Today I make it into the driveway
just as the pouring down ice begins to be a problem.

I cancel the piano lessons, and settle down at my table.
I sort through the mail I have finally picked up,
and watch the cars navigate the hill outside my kitchen window.

There is so much work I could do, really rather should do, on this late afternoon of unexpected time. But all I can bring myself to do is stare outside at that pouring down ice, as it pings against the house.

My soul feels riled,
as if this house is not a shield.

Before my staring eyes float thing after feels-uneasy thing,
found in this wintry mix of life-these-days,
and I watch as each one vies for my attention.

But then I think of a quote, sent by a friend, not too long ago:

It would be very dangerous to have no worries—or rather no occasions of worry. I have been feeling that very much lately: that cheerful insecurity is what Our Lord asks of us.
[CS Lewis~Yours, Jack]

And I realize I have grown, as I ping the uneasy things away.

Cheerful insecurity, this is what I choose instead.
I close the bag full of the work, I close the laptop full of the email.

I pick up the book,
I curl in my chair;
I listen to the falling ice,
and I read.

[grow, verb: to increase in size or substance;
to spring up; to develop to maturity]

Monday, March 2, 2015

Growth: 1

Grace wanted us to be better people than we were, and she knew that the chances of our becoming real writers depended on it. Instead of telling us what to do, she showed us. Human rights violations were more important than fiction. Giving your full attention to a person who is suffering was bigger than marking up a story, bigger than writing a story. Grace turned out a slender but vital body of work during her life. She kept her editors waiting longer than her students. She taught me that writing must not be compartmentalized. You don't step out of the stream of your life to do your work. Work was the life, and who you were as a mother, teacher, friend, citizen, activist, and artist was all the same person. People like to ask me if writing can be taught, and I say yes. I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to write dialogue, maybe even how to construct a plot. But I can't teach you how to have something to say. I would not begin to know how to teach another person how to have character, which was what Grace Paley did.

[Ann Patchett, This is the Story of A Happy Marriage]

[grow, verb: to increase in size or substance;
to spring up; to develop to maturity]