Poetry Of The Day

What the Dark-Eyed Angel Knows

A man is begging on his knees in the subway. Six-thirty
in the morning and already we are being presented with
moral choices as we rocket along the old rails, through the
old tunnels between Queens and Manhattan. Soon angels
will come crashing through the ceiling, wailing in the voices
of the castrati: Won't you give this pauper bread or money?
And a monster hurricane is coming: we all heard about it
on the radio at dawn. By nightfall, drowned hogs will be
floating like poisoned soap bubbles on the tributaries
of every Southern river. Children will be orphaned and
the infrastructure of whole cities will be overturned. No one
on the East Coast will be able to make a phone call and we
will be boiling our water for days. And of course there are
the serial killers. And the Crips and the Bloods. And the
arguments about bilingual education. And the fact that all
the clothing made by slave labor overseas is not only the
product of an evil system but maybe worse, never even fits

so why is it that all I can think of (and will think of through
the torrential rains to come and the howling night) is
you, sighing so deeply in the darkness, you and the smell
of you and the windswept curve of your cheek? If this
train ever stops, I will ask that dark-eyed angel, the one
who hasn't spoken yet. He looks like he might know

"What the Dark-Eyed Angel Knows" by Eleanor Lerman, from The Mystery of Meteors.
© Sarabande Books, 2001. From today's Writer's Almanac.

Thought For The Day

Give me your failure, God says, and I will make life out of it. Give me your broken, disfigured, rejected, betrayed lives, like the body you see hanging on the cross, and I will make life out of it. This is the divine pattern of promise and transformation which gives such hope to history. It is probably the central Gospel message.

- Richard Rohr

Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Songs of the Day

Both from the inimitable Patty Griffin, on her album Children Running Through, which I listened to while making pasta sauce this afternoon.

Crying Over (listen here)

Light it up baby
Light up that fire
I don't know what's going to save me
From the cold now
From these sorrows I'm crying over
From these sorrows I'm crying over

Embrace me
Embrace me with your kind love
It's all I ever wanted
All I ever dreamed of
And all of this dreaming
Of silver and gold
It's something to break this
Winter so cold

And these sorrows I'm crying over
And these sorrows I'm crying over
You go straight for the thunder
Straight for the rain
Love leaves a mark
And love leaves a stain

Back in the saddle
Again and again
Millions of eyes
None of them friends

You better light it up baby
Light up that fire
'Cause I don't know what's gonna save me
From the cold now
From these sorrows I'm crying over
From these sorrows I'm crying over
Crying over

and

Little old man, little old man staring down the road
Waiting on the bus, he's getting kinda cold
Bus finally gets there, he got nowhere to sit down
And the driver said, "You can stand right here behind me or wait for the next one to come around"
And the old man says, "That's okay, I'll stand
I might look like a little old man to you
But I've been riding this bus for years and years and years
I don't even know where it's going to"
And the driver says, "You don't know where this bus is going to?"
Old man says, "No, I don't, do you?"
Driver says, "You don't know where this bus is going to?"
Old man says, "I just want it to get me through
Hey, I'm staying on the ride, it's gonna take me somewhere
Staying on the ride, it's gonna take me somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere"

The bus is rolling along, outside it's looking kinda strange
The Earth is shaking, the clouds are breaking
Everything is blue where it was gray
A thousand rivers flood over fields of snow
The driver looks back in the mirror for the old man
"Where did he go, where did he go?
Oh, there he is
Hey, old man, old man, old man, you still don't know?"
And the old man says, "No, I don't son, but I'm happy to go"
Hey, "I'm staying on the ride, it's gonna take me somewhere"
Hey, he said, "I'm staying on the ride, it's gonna take me somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere

I was born with no name, knowing nothing, still I don't
Somebody said, 'You need a name, I'm gonna give you a name'
And I said, 'No, you won't,' I said, 'No, you won't'"
Oh, "You can let me off here, son, thank you for the ride"
And the driver said, "This is the middle of nowhere, sir,"
He pulls off to the side
And the old man says, "It might look that way to you, maybe it is"
Old man says, "It might look that way to you, son, maybe it is,"
And he says, "Stay on the ride, it's gonna take you somewhere,"
Hey, hey, he said, "Stay on the ride, it's gonna take you somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, somewhere
It always takes you somewhere, gonna take you somewhere
It always takes you somewhere, gotta take you somewhere
It always takes you somewhere, gonna take you somewhere
It always takes you somewhere, gonna take you somewhere"

Compassion

Two friends (one I know in "real" life, one in "blog" life) both posted reflections about compassion this week which gave me good stuff to chew on, particularly in regards to my own present journey. The posts included two quotes which I share here.

This one, from Parker Palmer:

There is no "fix" for the person who suffers, only the slow and painful process of walking through the suffering to whatever lies on the other side...we learn that being there is the best we can do, being there not as cure but as companion to the person who suffers...There is no arm's length "solution" for suffering, and people who offer such only add to the pain. But there is comfort and even healing in the presence of people who know how to be with others, how to be fully there...I have experienced deep depression. Both times various friends tried to resuce me with well-intended encouragement and advice: "Get outside and enjoy the sunshine," or "You have such a good life -why be depressed?" or "I know a book that might really help you." For all their good intentions, these friends made me even more depressed...Their advice served only to distance them from me, leaving me even more isolated. In fact, distancing ourselves from each other's pain is the hidden agenda behind most of our efforts to "fix" each other with advice. If you take my advice, and do it right, you will get well and I will be off the hook. But if you do not follow my advice...I am off the hook nonetheless: I have done the best I could, and your continued suffering is clearly your fault. By trying to fix you with advice, rather than simply suffering with you, I hold myself away from your pain.

And this one, from Henri Nouwen:

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant ministers, we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. Those who can sit in silence with their fellowman, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.

One of the things I think of, is how thankful I am to have non-advice-giving people, truly compassionate people, in my life.

Thought For The Day

People in the developed world have been trained in power and performance principles, but not at all in a spirituality of imperfection, detachment, letting go, and least of all any kind of surrender. It sounds like losing, and we do not like that. (Yet we worship a God figure, Jesus, who is clearly losing by every criterion imaginable.) The Gospel is often non-understandable to the common mind, unless one has meditated long and hard on the message of the cross.

Surrender, to Western or comfortable people, sounds like losing when it’s actually accessing a deeper, broader sense of the self which is already content and totally abundant. We would call it the “true self” or who-you-are-in-God.

Once you move your identity to that level of deep inner Contentment and draw life from that deeper Abundance, why would you ever again settle for a scarcity model for life—“I’m not enough, this is not enough, I do not have enough”? In God and in grace, you are overwhelmed by more-than-enoughness!

What looked initially like losing becomes the ultimate finding.

Richard Rohr, Adapted from The Little Way

Prayer Of The Day

Lord, I believe.

Help me in my unbelief.

Amen.

Scabs and Scars

When I was in the second grade, I fell out of our climbing tree in the backyard. I don't remember what happened -- I think I just lost hold -- but I remember falling out of the tree backwards, landing flat on my back and the breath knocked out of me.

On the way down, a broken bit of branch tore a good long scratch in my right upper arm. It was the only wound from that fall.

What I also remember is the scab on that scratch. The scratch was long and thin, on my inner arm. It scabbed over hard and tight. And I remember sitting in class, in second grade, and every time I raised my hand to answer a question, the scab would pop apart a little. And it would hurt. I remember that even more clearly than getting the breath knocked out of me.

I was thinking about that today, driving the short hour home from spiritual direction, being literally knocked about by the windy day after an extended session of being spiritually knocked about -- not by my director, mind you, but by my own pain, and my own desperate struggle to hope.

My life right now is like that scab. Only bigger. That scab covers a two-year old wound and the months of continued wounding afterwards. It's a wound to the body, the soul, the spirit. It's a loss of trust, of belief, of innocence. It's layers of wounds over which is a hard, tight scab which I'm sure served a purpose for a time but is no longer much serving me. Because the only thing left outside is anger. And unbelief.

And I don't talk about it much. At all.

Every time, though, I raise my hand to speak of justice, of hope, of life, that scab pops apart a little. And it's terrifying. You'd think it would be nice, you know, a sign of healing, but it just hurts. What's underneath is tender tender tender and doesn't really want to be hurt again. And I resist that, and it's exhausting.

But on the other hand. When the scab begins to crack, the air can get in. And that tenderness can get out. And I need that. I need that. I am not this anger and unbelief that is left.

Today the scab cracked in a big way. Oh, it hurt. A lot. I'm exhausted. But feel a glimmer of hope (a little goat therapy this afternoon, including head rubs from Arlo, helped).

In second grade, eventually, the scab came off, bit by bit. I still have a scar on my arm from that fall, but the wound healed and stopped hurting. I like to look at that scar and remember that it is proof that in my life I have climbed trees without fear.

This wound will leave a scar as well. I wonder what I will think of it then.

Elk Bugling

A few weeks ago we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park with JT, BlueEyes, and a new friend T to hear the elk bugling (and to celebrate JT's birthday!). The bugling is the sound the boys make when they're, er, looking for a girlfriend. We stayed out there several hours til long after dark listening to the fascinating, and often funny, sounds. We were also treated to an amazing star show on a crystal clear (and cold!) night.

Here's a little clip of the bugling. Also heard are human giggling, and a &@%*!# diesel truck.







By the way, this is the first time I've ever posted my own video. Kinda cool.

Friday Five: Lifesaver Edition

Lifesavers are the theme today from the revgals...

1) Your lifesaving food/beverage.

Ice-cold Coke in a glass bottle, pepperoni pizza, pasta, and of course, chocolate!

2) Your lifesaving article of clothing.

I usually don't think of clothing this way...but I would have to say my Keen sandals. You can walk around town in them, hike in them, wade in river streams in them, jump waves at the beach in them, and lobby Congress in them. What they can't do! And when they begin to get dingy, just toss them in the washer and they come out like new.

3) Your lifesaving movie/book/tv show/music.

Movie: Well, actually, I'm not sure...
Book: Most recently it was "Love Poems From God" but it's a long list
TV: Baseball, and The Vicar of Dibley
Music: Indigo Girls, Patty Griffin

4) Your lifesaving friend.

Thankfully, another good list. My cielo is at the top...I won't try to make a list as I'm sure I'd leave somebody out! But if I've ever called you "my people" you're on it...

5) Your lifesaving moment.

One I can think of is my ordination in May, where the love and power of the Spirit and the community present (in more ways than one) were so palpable I could barely stand up. I remember that when I'm feeling discouraged...

Poetry Of The Day

thinking of "my" workers today, with just the amount of snow on the ground we have been praying for...a little work for them shoveling, and well paid, I hope...

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To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

Prayer Of The Day

I always appreciate being reminded of this --
--------------------------

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so.

But I believe the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing.
I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.

I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-- Thomas Merton

I'll Be Working Today

Descanse En Paz

The inimitable Mercedes Sosa passed this week. Here's the extraordinary singer's signature classic, "Gracias A La Vida".



And another classic, "Solo Le Pido A Dios":



And another, "Todo Cambia":



And another, "Canción Con Todos":



And, finally, from her most recent recording, a duet of yet another classic, "La Maza," sung with Shakira, about the only singer I can think of who could hold her own with Mercedes.

Pray With Me?

Today the immigrant day laborers I visit with every week and I had a good laugh. It's the kind of laugh that is born of deep pain and anxiety. You know, the kind of laugh so you don't cry.

Work has been desperately hard to come by. Day labor by its nature is an incredibly vulnerable way to make a living, and in this economic crisis, even more so. Workers go days without work, weeks with only a day or two here and there.

They had told me before that they don't like it when it rains because there's even less work (although they're still there, waiting faithfully...just like last week, in a cold drizzle). But at least when it snows, there's work shoveling driveways and parking lots and such.

So I asked the guys today, are they hoping it snows? Should we start praying for snow?

Well, it all depends. Most of the time the snow here in Denver is a few inches, then the sun comes out the next day and melts it off in a few hours. No need to shovel.

But if we pray for more, well, you have to be careful there, too -- if it's too much, like waist-high or more, then you can't get out to go get the shoveling jobs (and the shoveling jobs can't get to you).

Then we began to giggle. What kind of snow should we be praying for? What would bring in shoveling jobs, and let them get out to find the jobs, on a steady basis? Everybody was measuring on their bodies -- here? this high? 3 weeks? 1? Finally we figured it out:

Knee-high snows, every two weeks. That should be good. So I will be praying for that. And that they get paid for their work, as there is rampant wage theft in day labor. So that, too.

I hope you'll join me.

What Would Jesus Do?

Thanks to Greta at Team Shiprah for this.