Sharing a Bed

Rumpled blankets
bury books and fold up
kittens tangled around the dog
who gives wet licks
to wake us up for
breakfast.

Here's a must for middle age ~
get again not one, but two kittens.
Their paws are softer, whiskers
ticklier, fur silkier, and purr louder
than my earlier memories recall.

At play, they make me smile
at the tumbling chase and laugh
at their clumsiness. My eyes
water in wonder as tiny
padded paws pat my cheek.
Close isn't quite close enough
at times for a kitten, but
I have no way to unzip
my skin for them
to get all
the way
in.

Unlikely Pair

Dick Staub doesn't do celebrity coming or going. Neither does Nigel Goodwin. What they do is dream up ways to gather artistic creative thinkers. They encourage, include, endorse, and foster. Kindling is a way to start fires and keep them burning. 

They both have lion sized hearts. Untamable hair. Voices that roar over valleys and bounce off the highest hills. Hugs that mend aching, fatherless hearts. 

Nigel wears funky street dancer shoes just in case the mood should strike him to tear up the pavement. His signature style is butterfly colored socks and jackets unmatched to anything else he wears. He is unabashedly bold about being seen in public this way. He tries to keep Dick stocked up on colorful socks, to no avail. Barefoot is better. It must be an island thing?

Kay Redfield Jameson in Exuberance tells of the musical that Jim Dale wrote about P.T. Barnum's extraordinary life. It reminds me of Nigel. 

Barnum is portrayed as keeping at bay his own and the world's ennui by spinning off energy and joy. "Through a night as dark as space / And cold as the sea / Someone's got to make it bright / Shoot a rocket, shine a light." Someone, in short, has to build a fire.  Exuberance, Barnum knew, is complicated. Exuberance is contagious. 

In the musical he also sings ~

"The colors of my life

 Are bountiful and bold 

The dazzle of a flame 

The glory of a rainbow 

I put them all to shame. 

no quiet browns and grays 

I'll take my days instead 

And fill them til they overflow 

With rose and cherry reds. 

And should this sunlit world 

Grow dark one day 

The colors of my life 

Will lead a shining light 

To show the way."  

She also quotes C.S. Lewis. It reminds me of Dick's untiring work to see his vision come into being and bear fruit.

"Good things as well as bad are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to get wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.....They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry." 

Might I explain Kindlingsfest 2011 this way?  I've been both warmed and wetted three years in a row. I don't have to have a studio, an audience, or a patron to be creative. I don't need permission, degrees, pedigrees, or papers. I don't need to have a maid, or months of solitude. I only need a way of thinking and being. A way of living each day noticing beauty. I need to choose it amidst the interruptions and disruptions of real life. I want to use color, words, my voice, my gifts, and our home in ways that dance and sing and cast prisms for me and others to swim in.

May these men (and their forbearing, steadfast wives and families) receive more grace, much mercy, and heaped to overflowing blessing upon blessing. Someday we will stand with all heaven and applaud as they receive the  eternal, "Well done boys, well done."

The Kindlings has a wide assortment of links and doors to look behind. You'll discover the dots connecting with International Arts Movement, Taproot Theater, Jeff Keuss's new book, Your Neighbor's Hymnal, Image Journal, and more. The recorded interviews and podcasts are a gold mine of interesting dialogue. The archives are deep and wide. Take a deep breath and dive.

Chickadee Feathers

The flies have been pests in the garden and yard this year. I put out a few fly traps and some fly paper strips around the yard. It is a gruesome solution, but I was desperate. 

I took down the gooey sticky paper strips though. Never to be used in my yard or life again. Never. I didn't know. Now I do. 

As I was watering, I looked over to see a young chickadee crucified to one of them. Its wings were stuck fast, spread wide. It took awhile to loosen the little fellow. I brought him in the house and used warm water and soap to clean as much of the stickiness off as possible. His heart was thumping too hard for its size. I separated each feather and blew gently to dry them off. Many were missing, still stuck to the death trap not intended for a baby bird. 

I set him gently in a sheltered spot. He immediately tried to fly. It was an unsuccessful attempt. My hurting heart couldn't follow him where he hid under some brush. I couldn't save him from the troubles he was in. I hope he lived, but have strong doubts that he could heal properly. 

Grieving, all that day I kept thinking about "not one sparrow falls to the ground without your father knowing and noticing." 

There was a time about ten years ago when I truly believed that he cared about sparrows more than he did about me. It is because I had always misunderstood the verse. 

I thought he kept the sparrow from falling. Why then, couldn't he keep us from danger and sickness. Why didn't he help us when we were in dire straights? Why was he silent most the time. Why didn't he act? 

Now I live and think and trust differently. These things I know:

He sees. 

He notices. 

He cares. 

He's always there. 

I'm never alone. 

He waits to bind up my wounds gently, with profound care. 

He feels my heart pounding too hard. 

He calms my wild eyes. 

He washes the stickiness off. 

He binds the broken parts. 

Puts me in a safe place. 

He hopes that I fly again. 

He does. 

He loves me this I know. 

Every single hair of my head is counted. 

Even the ones that are falling out by the bushel, making it easier to number them I'm sure. 

Seeded

Tess is ill. Again. Worse than any other time. The progression is scary. I went to Idaho to bring her  home a week and a half ago. She lays limp on her back day after day. We have a neurology appointment on the 22nd. It can't come soon enough. None of us are able to talk much about what's been going on. Advertising publicly seems indelicate. But we do need prayer sent our way. So I speak out. We also don't want to wear people out with the continuing saga. It is time to find answers and not quit until we do.

Meanwhile I'm learning to trust. More. I'm glad I know the one I pray to. I'm glad he goes to the father on our behalf. He cares for Tess more than anyone. I'm learning to notice things to be thankful for, on purpose, over and over again.

Gardening in the rain is possible. I am. I bury seeds and watch them rise up from the darkness. Reaching for light. It's a thin light, but it draws life. Nothing says hope like a small seed. Seeds need rain. Me too. Wash me. Wash all of me. Rain on me. Cry for me. Be our gardener. The gardener of our souls. Shield us. Shelter us. Plant our roots deep during this time. Twine us together, close.

Lucky

An angry artist painted 

jaded predictions into a young 

pastor’s portrait. Each sitting brushed
 telling layers onto the covered canvas 

 keeping its secret week to week. 

Unveiled, the easel revealed 

in detail how twenty years 

would finish the man.

Fifty years in his chosen 

vocation  hasn’t erased the warning 

framed and stretched. Waiting, closeted, 

it's an amulet, an antidote, a ready 

remedy if Botox unexpectedly 

tries to inject his soul
with apathy.  

His smile spilled a papa’s

patriarchal blessing over our 

waiting heads. Laugh lines cracked

 open around his eyes bestowing love and 

 benediction. We face our future now
with goodness and mercy following
 us, leavings left by a warrior
 poet whose life proves
the portrait wrong.

Lucky him, lucky you, lucky me.  

Coming down from the mountain has been difficult. The Image Seminar at Whitefish with Eugene and Jan Peterson was truly epic. He didn't merely write The Message, they live The Message. Greg read a piece called Born, Again and Again. It describes the entire experience perfectly. If I told the backstory for this poem, you would need to take your shoes off. Be content to ponder it with me, for I mustn't speak of the sacred just yet. 

Early Phone Call

When the phone rings at six in the morning, it usually isn't someone wanting to have a friendly chat. A week ago Wednesday, the phone woke me. I picked it up and saw Loverby's number. Instead of saying, "Hello" I said, "Did your motorcycle run out of gas again?" "No, it's worse than that. Someone turned in front of me - I'm in the hospital. Will you come and pick me up?"

His shaking voice told me to hurry. My one comfort was that he was able to call and the news wasn't from a nurse or an officer.

On the way home, I stopped at the scene of the accident trying to find his new prescription glasses. Shattered glass was mingled with broken reflectors and a headlamp. I didn't find his glasses, but in the rubble, sparkling to be noticed, was a heart shaped piece of windshield.

I'm a grateful wife, thankful for the miracle, grateful that the sacred was not torn from my hand. 

Look to the Edge

I was watching a fascinating link that came across my Twitter feed today. It was a behind the scenes look at the making of the Documentary Rising from the Ashes. Anything about Rwanda catches my interest. Each layer of this unfolding story echoes with redemption.

The Director, T.C. Johnstone finished with, "...there was a moment that kind of told the story for me - in the dailies - here’s this peloton, this group of 19 riders, they’re screamin’ down the road, they pass this guy and he’s on an old bike, and I don’t think he even had shoes on, and the team comes by and this guy just starts barreling down and he comes in and they open up the peloton and in the edge of the frame - after I watched it two or three times - they let him in, and he gets there for just like, maybe like 20 seconds he can hang with these guys, then he pulls out and the peloton continues. But we didn’t shoot that! That’s the story.”

Help me see that story, please help me not miss it - the one on the edge of the frame.

A Strong Song

I used to hold

shells to my ear,

hoping to hear

ocean music.

Now, I go 

into the open 

pink spirals

twisting a trail

for the mystic

in me.

I follow

this invitation

to its middle

where new tears drip

ointment, tending

old wounds.

This place

welcomes me,

the-being-still-me,

making it easy

to choose

the good part.

Wooed and won,

I’m content to stay

cradled this way,

living inside a song.


Click here to watch Kathy Hastings conch spiral series. I saw them as I wrote. 

~To my beloved rabbi, who pointed the way~

Easter Morning Breakfast

A bunch of us foodies gathered to make breakfast early Sunday morning. We didn't cater to vegans, vegetarians, or anyone on a no carb diet. For the gluten or lactose intolerant, I hope they took their pills.

It was straighforward-farmboy-comfort-food. Heavy. Buttery. Food that stays and sticks in ways unapproved of by the health/weight conscious  ~  biscuits, sausage gravy, potato casserole, bacon, scrambled eggs, strawberries, blood oranges, orange juice, and milk. We felt no guilt. There was no force feeding this sort of warm fun down anyone's throat.

Loverby had the dutch ovens stacked high between layers of briquets. A circle of us hovered around them to keep warm. The biscuit steam curled up to catch and mingle with the bacon's perfume.

If we all had gone out to plow eighty acres, milk the cows, hoe the garden, feed the stock, or hand scrub nine loads of laundry, it would have been good fuel for the work ahead.

Instead, singing and hugging each other was the most strenuous thing we did afterwards. We wanted to take 'carb' induced naps, but the good news we were hearing kept us awake.

He's alive! For me, it's true. I happen to believe the grave is empty. 
I often wish I could have been that Mary, the one who first saw him. I imagine grabbing his ankles in the dust, not wanting to ever let go. I imagine his look of fondness, unembarrassed by my too intimate, too passionate, public display of affection. 

The building where we gather doesn't have a kitchen. Boldness and desperation made me ask a favor on behalf of the camp kitchen set up outside. Weather favors are risky. Asking for good weather when it is supposed to rain is crazy. I'm crazy. I asked, plead, begged, and persuaded.

As the line formed to eat, we were scrambling to make do with plastic forks for the bacon and strawberries. Christine hurried to the front of the line and put down two pairs of tongs. "I washed these last night and planned to bring them today, but don't know why." She had planned to bring them, even before I planned to forget to bring them!

Because she listened to the prompt, I felt overwhelmed with love from the one who held back the rain, and the one who stretched food for seventy to one hundred and thirty or so.

As the last canopy was taken down and stowed, it started to sprinkle.

Love like this gets my attention. And eternal gratitude.  

There's no lover like the one who strategically and deftly makes plans to pleasure his beloved. 


(Thanks to Loverby, Paul/Kimmie, Tracy, Frank/Trisha, Brita, Renee, and Dave.)

Momentos

The rabbi tears flatbread apart,
generously offering me half-
over and above his full,
full plate.

Crumbs fall wasted
between
our silverware.

I fight the urge 
to sweep them 
into my pocket.
Hoarding can't preserve 
this moment's scarcity.


Instead,
I take and eat - in 
remembrance for 
later - when deep
yearns for deeper.

Communion.