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.