The thing about a blog is this: it is different from a book because it happens late at night and I can write about you because you show me a little picture of your face when you sign on as a follower, or you confess in an email that you have been reading the blog... (I should tell you that because I am a little ashamed to be associated with the bloggers and blogs of the world I refer affectionately to this little bit of periodical as 'the skinnytree'--I hope you will too because 'blog' and 'blogging' and 'blogger' can be such an embarrassing thing to claim, mostly because the word log is involved and I hate to imagine the skinnytree reduced to firewood, you know: logs, and such unless you are going to build a giant bonfire so you can keep warm while you sleep all night out on the beach...)
[Dear gawd, those were good sleeps out there with nothing but my favorite sleeping bag (which I still have), my bestest friends (all boys, ironically) and their giant bonfire made of huge timber brought forth to us out of the roils of the pacific oh!-shen...]
Anyways there are these things I am thinking tonight and because you are not just reading a book I wrote, not just perusing a collection of my poems I can take advantage of a sort of subscription you have bought into and keep you up to date. woo. hoo.
so for one thing
I was reading through Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow and thinking that it might be my favorite book these days because he says things like
But sometimes a prayer comes that you have not thought to pray, yet suddenly there it is and you pray it. Sometimes you just trustfully and easily pass into the other world of sleep. Sometimes the bird finds that what looks like an opening is an opening, and it flies away. Sometimes the shut door opens and you go through it into the same world you were in before, in which you belong as you did not before.
He keeps writing things like that. All kinds of things like that godamnit. You really should try this book out. I mean it, in the most Reading Rainbow spirit of recommending books. Lavar Burton is going to jump out from behind a tree at any moment and say you don't have to take my word for it.
and for another
We have been working like little mules on a video which will be sent out to possible donors so the graduate school I love so well will be more sufficiently funded (it is young and so has no endowment). We transcribed the interviews and read through the text of it until we were drunk from the possibility that these things these folks are confessing in these interviews are not just hopeful, they are also true. Which leads me to wonder as to how many of the things we hope to be living also happen to be true about life in general, if only we would stumble upon some kind of proof? Too bad hope evades proof... if you could prove it you would have just passed it by anyway and you wouldn't have to hope in it anymore; it would turn into something from the past, rather than something for the future and ouch. That would suck, I think.
So I keep noticing things that portend some kind of larger lovely thought or even something as simple as the next poem. I keep on tracking with the next blossom, the next bead of sweat on your brow or the next drop of rain. I hope for the next favorite book to reveal itself or the next friend to send word she is pregnant. I wonder when you will photocopy your degree and send a copy via snail mail, I wonder when you will tell me you have been reading along and the skinnytree is helping. I worry (just a little) that you will refuse the anti-depressants or forget to take them each day because I hope that you will even out and integrate so that when you cry you won't feel as though it is reason to abandon who you really are.
so here is a quick little poem about it:
there is a song,
a sound
about
around about
the night I lay bleeding and
nestled, nested,
wrestled, rested, against the cotton
of your folded wing during the storm.
In and out of my waking, the sleep and not sleeping moments between cloudbursts and lightening bolts,
over the din of dreams, under the drowning of my sorrows,
which wove us tighter together:
where before only a prayer tied me to you
now there is a rope and its knot:
a body and its blood
(whole and parts of it
moving together like one note among the rest in the notes, love).
A shoebox full of loveletters is like
trying to contain a river in a wine glass...
I can't recommend it.
but if you made copies of all the things I wrote
and sent them back to me
well,
at least that is real...
evidence of the way the exchange never ends.
it is a little like how
tears are part of the water cycle, the process by which water moves up over down and around:
evaporation condensation precipitation
love is like that
too:;:;
particles
clouds/fogs
droplets
the rising and falling and song of it against the window and puddling
all about around about.
& that is enough for now I think. goodnight.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
so you know what I'm saying about you.
to those of you who remember camp so fondly: I do too... but I think you also remember how scary it was to be so close to those screaming mountain lions... and if you lived at camp you remember how good it was as well as how hard it was, which is why I love you so.
to those of you who love camping: you probably already know I'd sleep outside under the stars and blue moons with the best of you, I'm not really squeamish about that. but good grief, I really love taking long showers these days.
to those of you who don't like sermons, even of the most honest types: you can stop reading here, my dear.
022110, phinney ridge lutheran church, seattle wa.
I grew up at summer camp. No, really. We were there, all year, every year for 12 years. Our house was at the end of a dirt road nestled between a hill too steep to climb and a creek too swift to cross. Kids my age came by the hundreds from the suburbs of San Francisco and then returned to their sidewalks and streetlights after a week’s stay. They said I was so lucky to live in the woods. They loved to visit the wilderness and wished they could stay longer. I, on the other hand, lived in the wilderness. I knew better. I worried in winter that the creek would rise and flood the roads again. I remembered when the electricity was out for two weeks straight and we cooked on a propane camp stove the whole time. I became an excellent camper, of the highest order. But I hated it. I was stung by bees, bitten by mosquitos, lost on long hikes and my throat stung constantly from dust caught in my sinus—not just for a week or two each year but every day, all year. It was a real wilderness time for my whole family. The wilderness is a dangerous place. But mostly I thought of it as uncomfortable. I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t respect it. I took it for granted. I dreamed of an escape. And Really we all do. My friends from the suburbs dreamed of getting away from the cement and drug deals while I dreamed of getting away from the threat of mountain lions and forest fires.
We give in to the idea that danger is temporary or that discomfort won’t last and so we never come to respect the familiarity of discomfort or see danger as a constant companion. When I think of the Messiah in the wilderness, I want him to be a hero—even though I should know better. I want him to wave off temptation as though he were swatting mosquitos. I want him to outsmart dangers and avoid discomforts of all kinds. It is so easy to overemphasize his divinity and figure it was simple enough for him to handle wilderness and temptation, danger and discomfort. His days on earth were numbered. But the truth of the matter is that so are mine, by a God who knows what it is like to have skin that is no match for thorny brambles, bones that ache from walking too far and a heart that breaks too easily. The Messiah experienced danger and discomfort just as real and lasting as any that you and I confront. The difference between the Son of Man and this child of God is that Jesus wasn’t always planning his escape. The Christ draws near to drug dealers and comes close enough to hear the mountain lions scream—he doesn’t turn and run, nor does he expect them to arrive at perfect on their own. There was one way for the Messiah to truly come, to be with us in solidarity and perfection. It says right there in Luke’s text that he knew the discomfort of hunger pangs, just like you and I are hungry when we are really hungry. He was not just peckish and not power hungry either but hungry nonetheless with the kind of hunger that comes after a long lost connection with something beloved. He was hungry like the widower gets lonely or the orphan hopes for a mother’s embrace. This hunger is the kind that comes when the addict needs a fix or the prisoner hopes for release. But Jesus, unlike us isn’t desperate to escape it, or solve it or wish it away. He stays in it, God, with us. We can be sure that the Messiah from today’s story is after more than bread, but we can also be assured that he knows what it is like to need sustenance. He walks steadily out of the wilderness and calmly, gently, proclaims a blessing over the song of our whining bellies: He knows our hunger, He knows our need—(He brought us to this place, and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey) and He is here, with us To say You needn’t live on bread alone. In fact, the worst wilderness is not any easier to handle on a full belly because it is going to be dangerous—no matter what. I’ve traded the redwood trees of my childhood for a life among the brick buildings but I know there is more to life than my surroundings—there is my inner life to attend to. And there, I find myself still wishing to escape dangers and discomforts of all kinds.
We always want for something easier and simpler. I wanted to wake up this morning with a renewed sense of my calling, unafraid! and confidently preach my first sermon as your Vicar. But I didn’t wake up in denial of the import of this task and so I’m left wanting more and hoping to escape the wilderness of my insecurities, if just for this moment and bless you with a hopeful word. I’m out here in the wilds of internship and I am aware of the dangers of this position, deep down in my gut. It grumbles a little as it digests and suddenly I am aware of my need in a new way. I am ever more aware that I don’t need more food, I need more faith. I need to trust, to hope, to love and that means I need you. I need this community, I need this common meal to make the discomforts of life into something bearable, maybe even beautiful! I need communion with you to strengthen me for this long journey. We all need to return to this bread and water and wine as often as we can.
At the end of the day I am glad the Christ knew hunger well because I am hungry. I am glad he is not avoiding discomfort because we are hungry and hurting and wanting for more than a simple trail mix, snack-sized spirituality. And here is this bread--so big it has to be broken. We want more than a bottle of water: And here is this font overflowing with the waters of grace and purity splashing so high and loudly that we jump out of our seats when we hear it poured out for all of us. They are here, we are here Right here. You and I are out in the wilderness of our lives but we are not alone we are together with Jesus and here we will come to see that because of him this water and this bread are satisfying, they are more lasting than our discomfort, and they are not an escape from danger—they are the Truth, the Life and The Way, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
to those of you who love camping: you probably already know I'd sleep outside under the stars and blue moons with the best of you, I'm not really squeamish about that. but good grief, I really love taking long showers these days.
to those of you who don't like sermons, even of the most honest types: you can stop reading here, my dear.
022110, phinney ridge lutheran church, seattle wa.
I grew up at summer camp. No, really. We were there, all year, every year for 12 years. Our house was at the end of a dirt road nestled between a hill too steep to climb and a creek too swift to cross. Kids my age came by the hundreds from the suburbs of San Francisco and then returned to their sidewalks and streetlights after a week’s stay. They said I was so lucky to live in the woods. They loved to visit the wilderness and wished they could stay longer. I, on the other hand, lived in the wilderness. I knew better. I worried in winter that the creek would rise and flood the roads again. I remembered when the electricity was out for two weeks straight and we cooked on a propane camp stove the whole time. I became an excellent camper, of the highest order. But I hated it. I was stung by bees, bitten by mosquitos, lost on long hikes and my throat stung constantly from dust caught in my sinus—not just for a week or two each year but every day, all year. It was a real wilderness time for my whole family. The wilderness is a dangerous place. But mostly I thought of it as uncomfortable. I didn’t take it seriously. I didn’t respect it. I took it for granted. I dreamed of an escape. And Really we all do. My friends from the suburbs dreamed of getting away from the cement and drug deals while I dreamed of getting away from the threat of mountain lions and forest fires.
We give in to the idea that danger is temporary or that discomfort won’t last and so we never come to respect the familiarity of discomfort or see danger as a constant companion. When I think of the Messiah in the wilderness, I want him to be a hero—even though I should know better. I want him to wave off temptation as though he were swatting mosquitos. I want him to outsmart dangers and avoid discomforts of all kinds. It is so easy to overemphasize his divinity and figure it was simple enough for him to handle wilderness and temptation, danger and discomfort. His days on earth were numbered. But the truth of the matter is that so are mine, by a God who knows what it is like to have skin that is no match for thorny brambles, bones that ache from walking too far and a heart that breaks too easily. The Messiah experienced danger and discomfort just as real and lasting as any that you and I confront. The difference between the Son of Man and this child of God is that Jesus wasn’t always planning his escape. The Christ draws near to drug dealers and comes close enough to hear the mountain lions scream—he doesn’t turn and run, nor does he expect them to arrive at perfect on their own. There was one way for the Messiah to truly come, to be with us in solidarity and perfection. It says right there in Luke’s text that he knew the discomfort of hunger pangs, just like you and I are hungry when we are really hungry. He was not just peckish and not power hungry either but hungry nonetheless with the kind of hunger that comes after a long lost connection with something beloved. He was hungry like the widower gets lonely or the orphan hopes for a mother’s embrace. This hunger is the kind that comes when the addict needs a fix or the prisoner hopes for release. But Jesus, unlike us isn’t desperate to escape it, or solve it or wish it away. He stays in it, God, with us. We can be sure that the Messiah from today’s story is after more than bread, but we can also be assured that he knows what it is like to need sustenance. He walks steadily out of the wilderness and calmly, gently, proclaims a blessing over the song of our whining bellies: He knows our hunger, He knows our need—(He brought us to this place, and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey) and He is here, with us To say You needn’t live on bread alone. In fact, the worst wilderness is not any easier to handle on a full belly because it is going to be dangerous—no matter what. I’ve traded the redwood trees of my childhood for a life among the brick buildings but I know there is more to life than my surroundings—there is my inner life to attend to. And there, I find myself still wishing to escape dangers and discomforts of all kinds.
We always want for something easier and simpler. I wanted to wake up this morning with a renewed sense of my calling, unafraid! and confidently preach my first sermon as your Vicar. But I didn’t wake up in denial of the import of this task and so I’m left wanting more and hoping to escape the wilderness of my insecurities, if just for this moment and bless you with a hopeful word. I’m out here in the wilds of internship and I am aware of the dangers of this position, deep down in my gut. It grumbles a little as it digests and suddenly I am aware of my need in a new way. I am ever more aware that I don’t need more food, I need more faith. I need to trust, to hope, to love and that means I need you. I need this community, I need this common meal to make the discomforts of life into something bearable, maybe even beautiful! I need communion with you to strengthen me for this long journey. We all need to return to this bread and water and wine as often as we can.
At the end of the day I am glad the Christ knew hunger well because I am hungry. I am glad he is not avoiding discomfort because we are hungry and hurting and wanting for more than a simple trail mix, snack-sized spirituality. And here is this bread--so big it has to be broken. We want more than a bottle of water: And here is this font overflowing with the waters of grace and purity splashing so high and loudly that we jump out of our seats when we hear it poured out for all of us. They are here, we are here Right here. You and I are out in the wilderness of our lives but we are not alone we are together with Jesus and here we will come to see that because of him this water and this bread are satisfying, they are more lasting than our discomfort, and they are not an escape from danger—they are the Truth, the Life and The Way, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
in, tern, ship...
This internship has finally set sail.
Here is what I learned today, in spite of crying through supervision, sitting too long at the desk and getting the juice from a giant apple all over the sleeve of my dress shirt:
"Those who would work for good liturgy can sometimes think that it is an enterprise of interpreting: educating people so that they can translate the symbols into theological language. Not so. Good liturgy occurs when no explanations are needed, when the symbol and the story which surrounds it are done fully, faithfully, powerfully. This will happen when our rites, which are so rooted in all that it means to be human, and which tell all that it means to be Christian, are truly ours to do."
So just remember: even if you're not superhuman, at least you are human, and that is saying quite a lot, I suppose.
In short, please be yourself. It is a lot of work, but I'm asking nicely and optimistically that you can do it, knowing only
you can.
Here is what I learned today, in spite of crying through supervision, sitting too long at the desk and getting the juice from a giant apple all over the sleeve of my dress shirt:
"Those who would work for good liturgy can sometimes think that it is an enterprise of interpreting: educating people so that they can translate the symbols into theological language. Not so. Good liturgy occurs when no explanations are needed, when the symbol and the story which surrounds it are done fully, faithfully, powerfully. This will happen when our rites, which are so rooted in all that it means to be human, and which tell all that it means to be Christian, are truly ours to do."
So just remember: even if you're not superhuman, at least you are human, and that is saying quite a lot, I suppose.
In short, please be yourself. It is a lot of work, but I'm asking nicely and optimistically that you can do it, knowing only
you can.
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