When you awaken to visions of champagne corks popping around your head, having slept the entire dang night.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Friday, February 3, 2017
Today I am Seeking {6}
Today I am thinking about connection.
I am thinking about two friends, African-American, who took me [kind of stupidly floundering] and didn't aim to educate me; they simply aimed to love me. They opened their world and they showed me in, and I learned.
(If I wasn't connected to them, ...)
I am thinking about a woman I know, white and of the privileged class, who emailed me to say "thank you for helping me think about these things" and how they were things I have learned, because I listened to my friends.
(If she wasn't connected to me, ...)
I have been Seeking, you know, because that is what I have aimed to do, and I found something, ringing through my head:
When we walked again, few boys spoke. Among the living, many boys were lost that day; they had given up. One such boy was Monynhial... After the bombing, Monynhial's eyes were without light.
--I can't be hunted like this, he told me...
--I'm leaving the group when I find a village, Monynhial said.
--Don't say that, I said.
But soon he did. The next village we passed through, he stopped. Though the village was deserted, and though Dut told him the murahaleen would return to this village, Monynhial stopped walking.
In this village, Monynhial found a deep hole, created by an Antonov's bomb, and he stepped down into it. We said good-bye to him because we were accustomed to boys dying and leaving the group in many ways. Our group walked on while Monynhial stayed in the hole for three days, not moving, enjoying the silence inside the hole...No one visited Monynhial; no animal or person; no one knew he was there. When he became hungry the first day, he crawled out of his hole and through the village, to a hut where he took a bone from the ashes of a fire. Clinging to it were three bites of goat meat, which were black outside but which sated him that day. He drank from puddles and then crawled back to his hole, where he stayed all day and night. On the third day he decided to die in the hole, because it was warm there and there were no sounds inside. And he did die that day because he was ready. None of the boys who walked with me saw Monynhial perish in his hole but we all know this story to be true.
It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan.
[D. Eggers, What is the What, p. 160]
Why does this connect with me so? Why do I keep hearing it,
the "It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan"?
It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan.
It is very easy for someone to die, when they have given up, when they have lost connection with the very reason to keep on walking, and with the group with whom they walked.
(If he wasn't connected to them, ...)
I read the book, and my heart connects, with the boy in the hole, who dies in Sudan.
I read the book, and my heart connects, with the work of the narrator to hold on to resilience.
I listen to my friends and my heart connects, with the places they have been forced to have been, simply based on the color of their skin.
I listen to the woman who is full of the wrestling, and my heart connects, with her want to understand.
Today I am thinking about connection.
I am thinking about two friends, African-American, who took me [kind of stupidly floundering] and didn't aim to educate me; they simply aimed to love me. They opened their world and they showed me in, and I learned.
(If I wasn't connected to them, ...)
I am thinking about a woman I know, white and of the privileged class, who emailed me to say "thank you for helping me think about these things" and how they were things I have learned, because I listened to my friends.
(If she wasn't connected to me, ...)
I have been Seeking, you know, because that is what I have aimed to do, and I found something, ringing through my head:
When we walked again, few boys spoke. Among the living, many boys were lost that day; they had given up. One such boy was Monynhial... After the bombing, Monynhial's eyes were without light.
--I can't be hunted like this, he told me...
--I'm leaving the group when I find a village, Monynhial said.
--Don't say that, I said.
But soon he did. The next village we passed through, he stopped. Though the village was deserted, and though Dut told him the murahaleen would return to this village, Monynhial stopped walking.
In this village, Monynhial found a deep hole, created by an Antonov's bomb, and he stepped down into it. We said good-bye to him because we were accustomed to boys dying and leaving the group in many ways. Our group walked on while Monynhial stayed in the hole for three days, not moving, enjoying the silence inside the hole...No one visited Monynhial; no animal or person; no one knew he was there. When he became hungry the first day, he crawled out of his hole and through the village, to a hut where he took a bone from the ashes of a fire. Clinging to it were three bites of goat meat, which were black outside but which sated him that day. He drank from puddles and then crawled back to his hole, where he stayed all day and night. On the third day he decided to die in the hole, because it was warm there and there were no sounds inside. And he did die that day because he was ready. None of the boys who walked with me saw Monynhial perish in his hole but we all know this story to be true.
It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan.
[D. Eggers, What is the What, p. 160]
Why does this connect with me so? Why do I keep hearing it,
the "It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan"?
It is very easy for a boy to die in Sudan.
It is very easy for someone to die, when they have given up, when they have lost connection with the very reason to keep on walking, and with the group with whom they walked.
(If he wasn't connected to them, ...)
I read the book, and my heart connects, with the boy in the hole, who dies in Sudan.
I read the book, and my heart connects, with the work of the narrator to hold on to resilience.
I listen to my friends and my heart connects, with the places they have been forced to have been, simply based on the color of their skin.
I listen to the woman who is full of the wrestling, and my heart connects, with her want to understand.
Today I am thinking about connection.
Today I am Loving {282}
When you begin the day in a friend's living room,
praying for refugees and all other immediate things,
and then you enter your office for the day,
and begin the conference by talking with the Iranian student,
apologizing to her for what is out of all of your control.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Today I am Loving {281}
When you needed a bigger bag, but now you find you just carry more things, which makes you laugh.
Today I am Seeking {5}
Multiple solid nights out of ten, there I am, wide awake by 4 am.
Sometimes, I leap from my bed, to knit with the dark, awaiting the sun.
Sometimes, I take the time to simply be still, to rest in cozy and warm.
Sometimes, though, it feels as if the morning will kill me, waiting to attack with all of its possibility, and there I lie, a pile of lethargy.
It is hopelessness, weaving strands throughout my being, until the snooze eventually asks for my reply, and I give it, time and time, again.
(It is hopelessness, my old and weary friend. Each of us has one, the thing that ties us down when all we want to do is get up, stand up, be.)
This morning I climb out of bed, later than I meant. I climb down the stairs. I climb toward the coffee pot. I climb into the chair.
I climb into the Father's lap, and let Him hold me, there.
I lay my hand upon His heart, beating there, for me, for you,
for this weary worldly spin.
He lays His finger on my wrist, pulsing, pulsing, just like Him.
He holds us dear, He holds us dear, He holds us dear.
Hope.
(So, today, I am Seeking. And, today, I was found.)
~~~
Hold Everything Dear
for John Berger
as the brick of the afternoon stores the rose heat of the journey
as the rose buds a green room to breathe
and blossoms like the wind
as the thinning birches whisper their silver stories of the wind to the urgent
in the trucks
as the leaves of the hedge store the light
that the moment thought it had lost
as the nest of her wrist beats like the chest of a wren in the turning air
as the chorus of the earth find their eyes in the sky
and unwrap them to each other in the teeming dark
hold everything dear
the calligraphy of birds across the morning
the million hands of the axe, the soft hand of the earth
one step ahead of time
the broken teeth of tribes and their long place
steppe-scattered and together
clay's small, surviving handle, the near ghost of a jug
carrying itself towards us through the soil
the pledge of offered arms, the single sheet that is our common walking
the map of the palm held
in a knot
but given as a torch
hold everything dear
the paths they make towards us and how far we open towards them
the justice of a grass that unravels palaces but shelters the songs of the searching
the vessel that names the waves, the jug of this life, as it fills with the days
as it sinks to become what it loves
memory that grows into a shape the tree always knew as a seed
the words
the bread
the child who reaches for the truths beyond the door
the yearning to begin again together
animals keen inside the parliament of the world
the people in the room the people in the street the people
hold everything dear
[19th May 2005 | Gareth Evans]
Sometimes, I leap from my bed, to knit with the dark, awaiting the sun.
Sometimes, I take the time to simply be still, to rest in cozy and warm.
Sometimes, though, it feels as if the morning will kill me, waiting to attack with all of its possibility, and there I lie, a pile of lethargy.
It is hopelessness, weaving strands throughout my being, until the snooze eventually asks for my reply, and I give it, time and time, again.
(It is hopelessness, my old and weary friend. Each of us has one, the thing that ties us down when all we want to do is get up, stand up, be.)
This morning I climb out of bed, later than I meant. I climb down the stairs. I climb toward the coffee pot. I climb into the chair.
I climb into the Father's lap, and let Him hold me, there.
I lay my hand upon His heart, beating there, for me, for you,
for this weary worldly spin.
He lays His finger on my wrist, pulsing, pulsing, just like Him.
He holds us dear, He holds us dear, He holds us dear.
Hope.
(So, today, I am Seeking. And, today, I was found.)
~~~
Hold Everything Dear
for John Berger
as the brick of the afternoon stores the rose heat of the journey
as the rose buds a green room to breathe
and blossoms like the wind
as the thinning birches whisper their silver stories of the wind to the urgent
in the trucks
as the leaves of the hedge store the light
that the moment thought it had lost
as the nest of her wrist beats like the chest of a wren in the turning air
as the chorus of the earth find their eyes in the sky
and unwrap them to each other in the teeming dark
hold everything dear
the calligraphy of birds across the morning
the million hands of the axe, the soft hand of the earth
one step ahead of time
the broken teeth of tribes and their long place
steppe-scattered and together
clay's small, surviving handle, the near ghost of a jug
carrying itself towards us through the soil
the pledge of offered arms, the single sheet that is our common walking
the map of the palm held
in a knot
but given as a torch
hold everything dear
the paths they make towards us and how far we open towards them
the justice of a grass that unravels palaces but shelters the songs of the searching
the vessel that names the waves, the jug of this life, as it fills with the days
as it sinks to become what it loves
memory that grows into a shape the tree always knew as a seed
the words
the bread
the child who reaches for the truths beyond the door
the yearning to begin again together
animals keen inside the parliament of the world
the people in the room the people in the street the people
hold everything dear
[19th May 2005 | Gareth Evans]
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Today I am Seeking {4}
I cannot get it out of my head.
Article it may have been, but I suspect instead: Posting of a friend.
The only Christian job, it said, (during "this election") was to protect protect and only protect, our religious freedom.
It haunts me now, though it bothered me then.
(I have been on my face, in repentance of this; my complacence, yes.
But the pride of this, Christ's church?
I have been on my face, in repentance of this.)
We are called His Body,
but where did his of-the-flesh and on-this-earthly body go?
Even unto death.
(We are called His Body; if you are the church, and I am the church, then I am on my face because my body, hurts.)
Think back, look at this: He claimed he was the "Son of God," prince in line from the Highest King, yet he knelt his body on the ground. He took in hand and tenderly washed the filthy, nasty, dirt-of-the-walking feet of those down and out friends, weary from the following him.
And then he was led to a cross, bled from his own blood our every other stain, so all who call upon his very Name, walk clear and forevermore, stain-free.
(I am on my face, to repent of this stain, the stain of this, my body:
When did Jesus ever command: protect yourselves?
Lose your life, he said. Follow me, he said.
To claim that we are following him is no. small. thing.)
So, today, I am Seeking. And, today, this is what I found:
Not everyone who calls out to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that judgement day, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven out demons in Your name, and done many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them publicly, ‘I never knew you; get away from Me, you who act by disregarding My commands'. [Jesus, as quoted by Matthew, The Bible, p. 1074.]
I never knew you. Get away from Me.
If your heart doesn't break now Church, it certainly will then.
Article it may have been, but I suspect instead: Posting of a friend.
The only Christian job, it said, (during "this election") was to protect protect and only protect, our religious freedom.
It haunts me now, though it bothered me then.
(I have been on my face, in repentance of this; my complacence, yes.
But the pride of this, Christ's church?
I have been on my face, in repentance of this.)
We are called His Body,
but where did his of-the-flesh and on-this-earthly body go?
Even unto death.
(We are called His Body; if you are the church, and I am the church, then I am on my face because my body, hurts.)
Think back, look at this: He claimed he was the "Son of God," prince in line from the Highest King, yet he knelt his body on the ground. He took in hand and tenderly washed the filthy, nasty, dirt-of-the-walking feet of those down and out friends, weary from the following him.
And then he was led to a cross, bled from his own blood our every other stain, so all who call upon his very Name, walk clear and forevermore, stain-free.
(I am on my face, to repent of this stain, the stain of this, my body:
When did Jesus ever command: protect yourselves?
Lose your life, he said. Follow me, he said.
To claim that we are following him is no. small. thing.)
So, today, I am Seeking. And, today, this is what I found:
Not everyone who calls out to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that judgement day, many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven out demons in Your name, and done many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them publicly, ‘I never knew you; get away from Me, you who act by disregarding My commands'. [Jesus, as quoted by Matthew, The Bible, p. 1074.]
I never knew you. Get away from Me.
If your heart doesn't break now Church, it certainly will then.
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