thoughts from someone I'd love to know

Her name is Megan, she owns a bakery in San Francisco, she used to be an English teacher, and she does yoga. We have half of those things in common! More like one and a half, since I'm still teaching English. I found her blog through Smitten Kitchen and after reading her lovely thoughts tonight, I've decided that I should frequent her blog more often.

Also, I made cookies tonight (these), so the title of her post was quite fitting. Even though I ate way too many and feel a bit regretful. Cookie hangover.

Anyway, check out a sweet spoonful and enjoy.

an evening with augustine

I'm reading Confessions with my students, and they are responding so thoughtfully. Because of a scheduling conflict, one of my students is reading it independently of the class; today she walked into my classroom at the end of the day and told me that she loves it.

Those simple responses really make my day. I personally feel conflicted in regards to Augustine's confession, especially his penchant for self-punishment, but I respond quite deeply to his ability to envision spiritual restitution.

"But just as it commonly happens that a person who has experienced a bad physician is afraid of entrusting himself to a good one, so it was with the health of my soul. While it could be healed by believing, it was refusing to be healed for fear of believing what is false. It resisted your healing hands, though you have prepared the medicines of faith, have applied them to the sicknesses of the world, and have given them such power." Confessions VI.iv.6

I read that tonight and responded in the spirit of this poem:

There will be a book that includes these pages,

and she who takes it in her hands

will sit staring at it a long time,

until she feels that she is being held

and you are writing.

(you guessed it)

-Rilke

vespers

I come home from the soaring

in which I lost myself.

For the past week or so, I've been reading for 15 minutes when I wake up and 15 minutes before I go to bed. After a few days, I couldn't resist journaling each time. In the morning, I've been reading Ann Voskamp's book and I write down an insight or two that I anticipate will carry me through the day. Or at least get me started with hope. At night, I usually read Rilke or the Psalms and journal a few lines that bring me comfort. I've come to think of these times as my Matins and Vespers, morning and evenings prayers. Maybe not prayer so much as re-centering. It's been hard to pray these months, but I will read poetry and feel my spirits lift. That's enough for now.

Tonight I read a couple lines from Rilke that named the movement in my soul this past week of re-centering. If I'm being honest, I think he's alluding to a more positive "soaring"...being lost in God. My lostness has been Dante's "dark woods" of despair, knowing God is there, just maybe not for me. But I read these lines and I anticipate the expressions of gratitude I will read in the morning and I believe a little more that the dark woods are not the end of my journey.

I come home from the soaring

in which I lost myself.

Now I am still

and plain:

no more words.

i don't seem to be able to depart

This song is one of those that is difficult to listen to for the same reasons that it's irresistible - the weight of his voice and the lyrics. And those horns. I just can't pass it up.

We've got another thing coming undone
and it's taking us over
and it's taking forever
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You, God, who live next door -

If at times, thought the long night, I trouble you
with my urgent knocking -
this is why: I hear you breathe so seldom.
I know you're all alone in that room.
If you should be thirsty, there's no one
to get you a glass of water.
I wait listening, always. Just give me a sign!
I'm right here.

As it happens, the wall between us
is very thin. Why couldn't a cry
from one of us
break it down? It would crumble
easily,

it would barely make a sound.

-Rilke

I keep encountering the idea of waiting. I think of Rilke, David Rosenberg's translation of the Psalms, and Waiting for Godot, which wrenched my heart (and bored my students) the first time I read it this past year.

I wait listening, always.

Just makes me think of those brothers. I skimmed Waiting for Godot again and there are several lines I'd love to share, but that gets tiresome if you haven't read the play. Maybe this is presumptuous of me, but I think the the following exchange illustrates simply the universal affliction of a hope deferred.

Vladimir: A—. What are you insinuating? That we've come to the wrong place?

Estragon: He should be here.

Vladimir: He didn't say for sure he'd come.

Estragon: And if he doesn't come?

Vladimir: We'll come back tomorrow.

Estragon: And then the day after tomorrow.

Vladimir Possibly.

Estragon: And so on.

Vladimir: The point is—

Estragon: Until he comes.

the rest of the poem

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough

to make each hour holy.

I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough

to be simply in your presence, like a thing -

just as it is.

I want to know my own will

and to move with it.

And I want, in the hushed moments

when the nameless draws near,

to be among the wise ones -

or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.

I never want to be too weak or too old

to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.

Let no place in me hold itself closed,

for where I am closed, I am false.

I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself

like a landscape I've studied

at length, in detail;

like a word I'm coming to understand;

like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;

like my mother's face;

like a ship that carried me

when the waters raged.

Poem after poem, I encounter the weight of his bare desires and simply spoken images.

a night with rilke

I want to know my own will

and to move with it.

then the knowing comes

The first thing I did yesterday was get coffee with Christine. Through every spiritual, emotional, relational valley in my life since I've known her (about 10 years) she has been by my side - when I'm stagnant, still, or in the first stages of movement, she is there. I think she has influenced me more than any other person in my life aside from my parents.

Yesterday she encouraged me to deeply consider what things comfort me and to pursue them on a daily basis. Pleasures that contribute to, rather than detract or distract from, the fullness of my desires and need for stability, confidence, and love.

I gave it some thought and two of the things I listed are

1. Reading and writing about poetry

2. Journaling

So I'd like to share two things I read today as a result of this pursuit. I'm trying to read a Psalm a day from The Literary Bible. Here is an excerpt from Psalm 23:

You set a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You give me grace

to quiet them

to be full with humanness

to be warm in my soul's lightness.

The grace to quiet my enemy - despair. To be obtain, or even just begin to hope for, fullness and warmth when I am empty and cold.

The second is a poem by Rilke. I picked him up off my shelf tonight and found a new poem that I have an instant affection for. Interestingly enough, I just listened to an episode of On Being in which the host interviewed the translator of the book of Rilke's poems that I own. She referenced this poem. I probably wouldn't have recognized it, if not for the memorable first line:

I love the dark hours of my being.

My mind deepens into them.

There I can find, as in old letters,

the days of my life, already lived,

and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open

to another life that's wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree

rustling over a gravesite

and making real the dream

of the one its living roots

embrace:

a dream once lost

among sorrow and songs.

If you're wondering how a poem that beings "I love the dark hours of my being" can lift my spirits, I understand. But there's just something about "meeting" a man or woman who can voice the condition I'm in. It's comforting to me to know I'm not the only one who has felt this way, and in fact, there are people who can describe it beautifully.

This poem makes me think of journaling.

Old letters to myself, some of which it takes me years to be able to read again.

Held like a legend and understood - there have been times when I've wondered "Was that real- the love I thought that person had for me; the faith I felt and clung to during that time; the movements of my heart and mind that I seem to have no way of accessing anymore.

By looking back, I see what was possible then and I am free to hope that some sort of growth is possible now, to maybe even imagine what shape it will take.

In the presence of the gravesite that now hosts my barren expectations and hopes, I am tempted to think that the roots of my being have no place left to go. But Rilke says that the tree embraces rather than repels the gravesite's soil, drawing strength from the plot of land provided, not chosen. My recorded thoughts bear witness to this cycle of birth, growth, death, and resurrection. I read my journals and I remember what happened last time and rustle, to borrow Rilke's language, as I consider what hope is available to me now.

I think of another unforgettable opening line of perhaps my favorite poem, by Louise Gluck of course. This has echoed in my mind countless times over the years.

At the end of my suffering there was a door.

days like this you think about the ones who love you

This past weekend, I attended the wedding of my friends Greg and Heather. I met Greg about a year ago, I believe, when he started working at the Midtown Scholar. I knew he was in a long distance relationship, and the bits and pieces he shared about his girlfriend intrigued me, especially since he's such a great guy himself.

I met Heather this summer when she moved to Harrisburg and became roommates with my friend Liz. It had been a few months since I talked to Greg, so I didn't know they were engaged until we were introduced. Within an hour we had moved on from small talk and began to share what challenges we'd faced in our recent transitions into adulthood and our desires to make sense of this new context. I think we bonded over being introverts in an extroverted crowd, though I'm pretty sure I'm much more of an "I" than she is.

From what I've observed of Greg, he is a focused, "in the zone" kind of worker, (I only really see him in this context). But when Heather walks in the room, his attention noticeably shifts in the best of ways. I've spent more time with Heather than I have Greg, and I can see why he is enamored with her - she has a bold sense of humor and a great laugh. She listens attentively and asks great questions. There are many other reasons, of course, but I must mention one thing I deeply appreciate about them as a couple - I have not once felt isolated in the presence of their mutual delight. They devote time, conversation, and thought to their friendships. They are two of the most down to earth people I know and I am so happy that they found each other.

Celebrating with Greg and Heather was incredibly fun, yet what what has been echoing in my mind since Saturday are the deep soul questions I have about marriage, commitment and everything else about the decision to marry. I may or may not come to understand how two people come to be sure they want to spend the rest of their life with each other. That question in and of itself invokes the same feelings that calculus did in high school- it's like there are two wires in my brain that I know need to touch in order for me to even begin to understand it, but no matter how hard I've tried to make it happen, it won't. One of those things that may be meant to pass me by and if so, I'll be fine without it.

But when I see this face:

and a moment like this:

And when I cry during their vows because of the tone of their voices and because of how brave they are - I must abandon my personal mistrust of the endeavor and enter into the hope and delight of my friends. Whether or not I get married, I never want to close myself off to what is possible, especially when I am priviliged enough to participate in a journey with such beautiful people as these. In a way, this wedding was sacramental for me, even just as an observer. I may be unwilling, unable, or even afraid to hope this for myself, but I do commit to celebrating the promises that my friends make and believing that it is real for them. That marriage can be a mysterious, full gift and that two people can receive the grace to care for that gift for a lifetime.

Orphaned believers, skeptical dreamers

Step forward

You can stay right here.

You don't have to go.

(these days I'm thankful for this song.)

my last night with milosz

...until I buy my own copy of his collected works. I plan to return Christine's to her tomorrow so I wanted to glance through it one more time tonight. Without fail, Christine's passion served as a provision for me. I needed him this summer.

Tonight, his poem "Fear" caught my attention, especially these lines:

Where have you gone, Father? Why do you not pity

Your children lost in this murky wood?

His witness to the devastation of the Nazi regime in Europe suggests layers of meaning in way I can't fathom, but what does resonate within me is this question: where are you God in my spiritual and relational barrenness?

The night has no end

from now on darkness will last forever.

The travelers are homeless, they will die of hunger.

Our break is bitter and hard as stone.

I want to believe You will provide, but today I went hungry and I don't understand why.

---------------------

One of the first poems I read in this book is simply titled "Love." I read it a month ago and some of these lines I'll never forget - especially the first four.

Love means to learn to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many.

And whoever sees that way heals his heart.

Without knowing it, from various ills -

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

And of course the first two lines of the last stanza. He wants to use himself and things so that they stand in the glow of ripeness. The lines I didn't mention are mysterious to me. But in a way, I guess I'm living the mystery that this poem suggests- those specific lines I mentioned inform my life right now, though I don't understand the whole.

Right now I'm not reading these poems too closely, and I'm not claiming they directly inform one another, but when I look at them side by side, I begin to ask questions:

How do we reconcile our condition of "lostness" with the promise that we are found? How do we reconcile barrenness with the glow of ripeness? How can I find healing in distance when all I want is to draw near and find it there?

I must consider how love and fear can be closely related. Sometimes love begets fear - fear of disappointment, loss, or the illusion that I once believed to be reality. When I notice this happening, I deeply desire the knowledge and ability to reorder my loves to cast out fear and insecurity.

Milosz's vision of love stuns me and then moves me to believe that love in its fullness is possible. I will pursue these possibilities that I did not create, but hope to witness in the glow of ripeness. Someday.

poetry and prayer on Good Friday

I subscribed to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, a daily newsletter that highlights historical events and provides a brief biography of a few notable people born on that day. I subscribed just in time for my all time favorite poet Louise Gluck's birthday (today!). I got so excited when I opened my email and one of her poems was the first entry in the newsletter. It makes me happy that other people have also started the day with a Louise Gluck poem, perhaps being exposed to her work for the first time. If you are interested, here is a list of some of them. Pick one and read. Many of the poems from her book The Wild Iris are firmly entrenched in my memories of phases and seasons going back to my sophomore year of high school. Still, every few months, I read one that voices to my current questions, desires, or sacrifices and I'm grateful.

Today is Good Friday. This prayer helps my "faith imagination," encouraging me to take hold of what's really possible in Christ. It is originally from People's Companion to the Breviary, Vol II. I read it in The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime.

"O God, you sent Christ Jesus to be my shepherd and the lamb of sacrifice. Help me to embrace the mystery of salvation, the promise of life rising out of death. Help me to hear the call of Christ and give me the courage to follow it readily that I, too, may lead others to you. This I ask through Jesus, my shepherd and guide."

travel plans

Plane tickets to Chicago PURCHASED. It's been nearly 4 years since I've seen my dear roommate. I've been itching to travel, especially to visit friends in their post-college cities.

Next stop: South Carolina, perhaps?

Cloves galore

Last night I made this. 44 cloves of garlicky goodness. I came across the recipe and instantly thought of my mom, who only eats garlic when my dad is out of town because he hates the smell and won't kiss her if she eats it. This is the man who nearly always prefaces his criticisms with "I'm not that picky BUT..." Yes, Dad, you are.

Anyway, I was a little nervous, but the soup was a success and my mom and I enjoyed two nights of this creamy, surprisingly subtle-tasting (because of the parmesan and whipping cream) soup.

Don't be afraid. If you are in an adventurous mood, try it!

echoes of Dante

Scenes of Hell - Billy Collins

We did not have the benefit of a guide,
no crone to lead us off the common path,
no ancient to point the way with a staff,

but there were badlands to cross,
rivers of fire and blackened peaks,
and eventually we could look down and see

the jeweler running around a gold ring,
the boss captured in an hourglass,
the baker buried up to his eyes in flour,

the banker plummeting on a coin,
the teacher disappering into a blackboard,
and the grocer silent under a pyramid of vegetables.

We saw the pilot nose-diving
and the whore impaled on a bedpost,
the pharmacist wandering in a stupor

and the child with toy wheels for legs.
You pointed to the soldier
who was dancing with his empty uniform

and I remarked on the blind tourist.
But what truly caught our attention
was the scene in the long mirror of ice:

you lighting the wick on your head
me blowing on the final spark,
and our children trying to crawl away from their

eggshells.

---------------------

Billy Collins first enticed me with his use of crisp images and brilliant metaphor in this poem but of course the Dantean spirit is what wins me over. He certainly makes it his own - this poet's "lostness" is different from Dante's, no "ancient guide" (i.e. Virgil) to lead the way. He imitates the structure of the Inferno: he starts off lost on a path and even his first observation involves a circle (the ring). Using abbreviated phrases, he initially alludes to menial sins paired with nearly comic images but then gradually descends into the grotesque (whore impaled by a bedpost, children with toy wheels for legs). True to Dante, ice composes Hell's center.

I'm not sure what to make of the images he and his companion point to - she points to a soldier dancing with his empty uniform, him to a blind tourist (notice he has emphasized the sense of sight so far). Are they struck by those who mirror their own weaknesses or do they point out the other's? I think the the latter interpretation aligns with human nature's tendency. Does she idolize superficial signs of importance or is she suggesting that he does? Is he the one who travels but has not the eyes to see or is he suggesting this to her?

The last images are striking - each family member's particular suffering at the hand of another. The extinguished flame and the eggshells accompanying conflict.

I borrowed the title for my blog (The fire becomes the mirror) from a Louise Gluck poem, and I associate that fire with suffering which purifies sight. But in "Scenes from Hell", ice is the mirror exposing vice. And now I'm contemplating what image I would see....

student poetry!

Read my students' poems! I asked the seniors to write a poem in response to "Cry the Beloved Country" and I was delighted with the result. After a difficult month, seeing the fruit of this exercise has given me "purpose again for my strength/Like the laborers returning to work from a strike" to quote David's poem. It made me happy that this assignment inspired Josh to put so much creative effort into his first poem and that it gave Shea an outlet for her spiritually sensitive observations.

and with the rest of the literary world I turn to...

a poem that a former professor of mine says is "the Purgatorio between the Inferno of “The Waste-land” and the Paradiso of the “Four Quartets.” And I'm always appreciative of an allusion to Dante.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

-"Ash Wednesday" - T.S. Eliot

goal-making

For me, making goals is a matter of bravery. I fear failure. I asked my 9th graders the other day what they fear most and aside from 15 year old boy silliness ("I fear cellulite on old women in bathing suits"), that same boy said "I fear failure." Yeah, you and me both. And that is why I avoid making goals. Running through my mind right now are my to-do lists from my senior year of college with bullet point after bullet point of massive undertakings with little time or just enough time and not enough diligence.

I am ready to be courageous. Goal-making, here I come.

Goal #1

I want to put more effort into creating beautiful spaces. I don't have a track record of putting much thought into consistent organization (order in the unseen) or aesthetic pleasantries for my living spaces. I am challenged/inspired by friends Andrea and Mary , coworkers, and blogs by people I don't know who will have more domestic success in a day than I'll have in a lifetime.

First steps for Goal 1:

1. In the classroom: Clearing out rubbermaid containers full of my materials I used over a month ago.

2. Picking up half my closet off the floor after my too-long endeavor to find the right outfit for the Mardi Gras party I attended last night. (First time celebrating Fat Tuesday and it was on a School Night!)

Goal #2

I want to grow herbs. Cilantro, basil, and mint.

Roadblock: I have a black thumb. Seriously can't keep anything alive. But I am determined to have success!

First steps for Goal 2: Buy pots. Buy seeds. Reread those how-to-grow-herbs articles.

Here is what I tell myself:

In the span of a year, I went from screwing up box brownies to cooking delicious meals for my family every week and baking cookies that have become just slightly infamous (for good reasons) in my little community, I can manage a little space-shaping and herb-nurturing.

thoughts of rebuilding

Right now I'm teaching Cry the Beloved Country to seniors in a Modern World literature class, and I can't help but feel unworthy of it. I'm confounded by the resilient hope of Stephen Kumalo - the souls of his family are shattered and the mending may be impossible. Not to neglect the context of this story, which is the real suffering of native South Africans leading up to the establishment of the apartheid, but I just feel this fear and hope so deeply within my own context.

I'm thankful to be reading this again.

The main character Stephen Kumalo is a parson in a small South African tribe where the men and women are leaving in droves for the bigger cities to find their spouses and children, never to return themselves. Stephen and his wife receive a letter that his sister Gertrude, who left years earlier for Johannesburg to find her husband, is sick. He finally decides to take the train to Johannesburg to find her and his son Absalom to bring them home and "rebuild the tribe." He finds his sister in the slums; she has become a prostitute and has a young son. Ashamed but desperate to leave, she goes with Stephen and they travel together to find Absalom.

"While Kumalo was waiting for Msimangu to take him to Shantytown, he spent the time with Gertrude and her child...He could not expect her to talk with him about the deep things that were here in Johannesburg; for it was amongst these very things that saddened and perplexed him, that she had found her life and occupation. Here were heavy things again...never again did they speak of the things that had made her fall on the floor with crying and weeping.

He had bought the child some cheap wooden blocks, and with these the little one played endlessly and intently, with a purpose obscure to the adult mind but completely absorbing. Kumalo would pick the child up, and put his hand under the shirt to feel the small warm back, and tickle and poke him, till the serious face relaxed into smiles, and the smiles grew into uncontrollable laughter. Or he would tell him of the great valley where he was born, and the names of hills and rivers, and the school that he would go to, and the tops above the Ndotsheni. Of this the child understood nothing; yet something he did understand, for he would listen solemnly to the deep melodious names, and gaze at his uncle out of wide and serious eyes....

Sometimes Gertrude would hear him and come to the door and stand shyly there, and listen to the tale of the beauties of the land where she was born. This enriched his pleasure, and sometimes he would say to her, do you remember, and she would answer, yes, I remember, and be pleased that he asked her."

I asked my students "Have you ever been in a situation with a close friend or a family member where the one thing you feel the need to talk about is the one thing that is off limits?"

*nods*

"What often happens to that relationship if you can't get past that barrier?"

"It dissolves."

To be willing to endure the silence because you know it's the only way to keep them near - that is the sacrifice. I felt it deeply when I read this passage.

How can we help to fill the void left by sin and fear? This books challenges me to mend in small ways, for instance, when I observe conflict between two students in study hall and know that one is assaulting the worth of another. And in big ways, when someone I love doesn't know how to love herself and she needs the committed celebration of her place in my life.

"The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again."

7 months later...

I'm grateful for The Literary Bible. The following is part of Psalm 19.

We're free to look at everything

every shape and color

light as words

opening the mind

from nightmares of social failures

desperate routines

we're inspired above

the surface parade

of men dressed up in power

we see the clear possibility

of life growing

to witness itself

let these words

of my mouth

be sound

the creations

of my heart

be light

so I can see myself

free of symbols

mind-woven coverings

speechless fears

images hidden within

we are the subjects of light

opening to join you

vision itself

my constant creator.

I feel like a new world has opened up to me.