Mary Hicks Late Show With David Letterman

this is nice...

the footage - finally aired

RIP bill.

The Reader

i think this is a case of, "best not to know too much about the narrative before encounter", so i'm not linking to any trailers or sites, but suffice to say, i saw The Reader tonight, and recommend it highly.
it's been a long time since i saw a film so *morally* provocative.
i haven't read the book on which it is based and some opinion suggests something is lost in translation out of German, but without any foreknowledge at all as to the plot, this film really challenged me and offered no easy answers in the telling...

i am typically drawn to narratives that end with a sense of uncertainty and lack conclusion - that provoke one, with a kind of honesty, to face the frustrating, unfinished nature of so much of life's encounter... if you too like being left as the credits roll to ponder emotional and moral challenges with such open-endedness, then check this one out...

::

there's something about the drama of human relationship that hangs on what we don't say, rather than what we do... the tension is between the lines, underneath, in the unspoken and unutterable... perhaps, because in real life we've not got a script... the things we need to say or others need to hear are frequently those which never get past our lips...

LB

MILK

make this a must see if you haven't already. i expected this film was gonna be wonderful, and it didn't miss a beat.

this is a political film certainly and powerfully told, but with gus van sant at the helm, it's not only significant, it's beautifully shot cinema.

make time for this.

LINK TO OFFICIAL SITE

LB

i know, i know it's serious

this is one of those days when one sits with fingers wavering over keys... uncertain of what to say, what to write...but wanting to. wanting to write the feelings that are here in the present moment...

this is one of those days when other words needing to be written sit waiting...
waiting in line, their turn, in the wings... for the words that bring solace and will are those to which the soul yet still gives precedence...and that desire to first write words for no reason at all than their own sake sems a kind of evidence of green life still present...

sitting, wisely or not, plugged into music that i associate with Sonoran dust, saguaro spires, seduction of shrines... seduction of brilliance and brokenness colliding with mute fear... the langour of Sunday poured and melting over ice and suited decks... the sprawling flatness of the city 5,000 miles away, where i think a piece of me will always reside...

the horizon here so limited, the sky hanging low and grey... when sun comes one feels gratitude... i miss having my breath stolen by ranges on all sides erupting from the desert floor jagged and mauve as the constant, faithful, always present sun climbs and falls...

but the desert alone could not win the battle for me... could not appease muteness nor frustration, bring the inside peace longed for, keep the bright light aflame...

and in truth, these grey days are improved, or no... these past few days, i in them... calmer, finding a steady rhythmic... small structure being pieced together... tentative plans made and determination to see it through... taking shelter in a smaller nest, tending broken wing with gentleness rather than frantic beating... sitting with feelings rather than grabbing at solutions... accepting the liminal... the transition...making changes that may seem to be retreat but are maybe necessary...

facing the morning mirror i see flecks of life returning to eyes... contrasting with dark kohl beneath freshly shorn hair... making craft of collapse as fragile redemption... remembering how to find expression as well as comfort in the colour and texture of my protective layer upon layer... so similar to feeling the unseen boundary around me solidify... falling back into myself... trying to see strength in claiming that small patch of secure, sacred ground... the affirmation and constancy of those protecting that patch come hell or high water... regardless of shadows, seeing light... these are not days for devises or dodges or putting up a front...and ambitions are small...but better small ambitions than none...

these are days of holding on...no answers... but presence... to draw hands in around the flame is thoroughly pedestrian... ordinary... without adventure...there is no seduction in these days...days that betray the exhaustion depression has wrought by their need for gentleness...
but far from the frantic manic, here is a balm of no-bullshit constancy pulling me up to zero... and that is what will get me through, whatever the weather... for as one lets out tentative, silk-fine but perhaps-as-strong threads of hope to imagine one might yet dance again... the soul is gently massaged back to strength with soft, intentional life-bringing words of love... and i in turn am quietly gratitudinal... that this is not over yet... that she'll pull through...

the bird has no other way to build its nest than by one twig at a time...

LB

for warmth

For Warmth
by Thich Nhat Hanh

I hold my face between my hands
       no   I am not crying
I hold my face between my hands
   to keep my loneliness warm
       two hands protecting
       two hands nourishing
       two hands to prevent
my soul from leaving me
           in anger

APM SoFwKT

well it seems i can't quite get away entirely...
in response to S&C, here's the hyper links to Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. quotes from Palker Palmer and others were from these programmes.

i have several friends on both sides of the pond who have found ongoing inspiration, insight and comfort from this programme. it's beauty is exposed in the benefit of repeated listens to the programmes - for each interview has so much substance and it is typically a very gentle experience...

yesterday i wrote after listening to several programmes that have been most pertinant to my life of late. so here's the links. i was too tired last night to make up the hyperlinks...

The Soul in Depression (included Andrew Solomon and Parker Palmer)
The Spirituality of Addiction and Recovery *
The Wisdom of Tenderness
L'Arche: A community of brokenness and beauty

there are many other episodes well worth our time... there isn't one that doesn't have at least a nugget of something worth a month of Sundays and there are several that are notably quotable in their entirety...

the interactive webpage for each programme is well worth exploring and offers extended interviews, transcripts and resources and there are several options for listening including a free download of podcasts of the archive.

until such time as i find a house of prayer and worship, SoF offers a gentle welcoming space where one can dwell in wonderment and hope for this world and ourselves...

i'm off to relisten to the John O Donohue interview, which is always a balm to the soul...

LB.

* p.s. i should have mentioned this when i recommended it earlier in the month... this programme is somewhat controversial, as the interviewees are (to some degree at least) breaking their AA anonymity. if that's an issue for you, you may want to give it a miss, although i think they are very cautious and are openly mindful of the fine line they are walking. you can see a range of pertinant comments on anonymity on the Listener's Reflections section as guidance. all that said, i have personally found the programme extremely insightful & helpful. anyway, i wanted to be sensitive to those who might be in AA, NA or any other -anon group who might find this aspect a stumbling block. peace.

some words

this was going to be a brief reply in the comments box to Brook, but i found myself feeling like my head stayed above water today and i ended up having more to say than i thought i would...

so here's some words... thanks also to RD and ohchicken... and now i see as i go to post, from anon...

thanks for those kindnesses... i will add them to a little collection of messages and mails from folks that i am returning to as often as i can at the moment and just sitting with them and trying to connect with a feeling of anchoring... solidity...

anyways, here's my reply comment that kind of unfolded into something more like a posting...

::

Brook, i found your words helpful. thank you for the invitation to read your musings...
a friend of mine recently uttered the same line as Colbert and then pondered whether this past year's wine harvest was bad. we concluded it might be best to avoid the '08 vintage.

there's two really powerful testaments to community at the APM Speaking of Faith online archive. i may have mentioned them here before but they are well worth visiting and revisiting. i've been doing so today...

L'Arche: A Community of Brokenness
and
The Wisdom of Tenderness - an interview with Jean Vanier.

ever since my brother worked as an assitant at L'Arche, it has set the benchmark for me on what the grounding spirit of community should embody. Vanier speaks directly out of his experience of founding and living in the L'Arche community but his thoughts apply to all human relationship. it's *deeply* challenging stuff. and for as intellectual as Vanier is, he speaks completely from the heart and with a gentle but powerful commitment to finding God in the
fragility of human experience rather than in idea... i like that...
as with the SoF programmes, ::the soul in depression:: and the one on the twelves steps, ::The Sprirtuality of Addiction:: that i recommended recently, there is here again the theme of how in weakness that one finds strength and truth...

in a world of competition, of being big, powerful, full of knowledge, being winners, it is in truth in our weakness, our vulnerability, the dark places where we feel in exile, that we are closer to truth of what being human is really about...
it's not to choose to stay in or glorify that place of struggle or pain or suffering but to live in the reality that we are, by virtue of being human, always vulnerable. and dealing with that is how we find true strength... reason to feel joy and rejoice is not the suffering itself but it has to start with being present to reality... in the words of Andrew Solomon, the opposite of depression is not happiness but human vitality - a vitality that does not avoid pain... or in the words of Parker Palmer by seeing deep soul pain, "as the hand of a friend that will push us down to the ground on which it is safe to stand."

as is mentioned in ::The Soul in Depression:: insight is hard to find when one is in the throes of despair. but i have been reminded repeatedly in recent years to never lose total sight of the goodness, the joy, the pleasure one has felt before - to remain mindful of the tiniest moments of light, and to trust, if not hope, that if one was there before one can get back there again.
we have to hold onto that, although there have been far more days than not in recent months where that has been difficult... some days that's the battle, when one only has an abstract concept of oneself... to feel disconnected from oneself... as if one's true, strong inner being as climbed out and gone away... those days, those hours, those moments, are wretched...

and then comes a simple day like today where one feels more embodied... where one tries to rest in the aftermath and allow oneself to just be... not knowing if or when that disembodied sensation will return... and only being able to just stay in the present and cautiously allow oneself to breathe... but i am grateful for it...

i often call to mind Sarah's version of Psalm 139 from a good few years back,

"and the weak are somehow strong
and the lonely* do hold on"

and it is so often a mystery as to how that happens... but if i know that a deep part of me believes in that mystery, i also know there are others who, if i am struggling to hold on, are holding on to me...

community, committed to deep, intentional connectedness and committed to reality, is an embodiment of that mystery... like family at its best... i need it to move in the right direction... it helps create firm ground on which to step...

the best i can do right now is to keep my world small, or perhaps better... tight... what parker palmer describes as community hanging in there with you, holding out with the belief that you can come back round from the dark side of the moon... for if there are hours in which 'not feeling' the light, the solidness, the self makes the ordinary overwhelming, i know there are loving others that are feeling *for* me... and step by stumbling step i must test the ground, and pray that by mystery and courage i find that which is solid...

for as Palmer also notes, and indeed i remember my brother saying the exact same thing when he worked in L'Arche Daybreak, there is a place of pain where one's role in community to the other is not to invade or evade pain, but to be present to it...

in the exhaustion of struggling against darkness, i know there are those close to me who want nothing more from me to let them do that... let them close enough so they can be present, then i also right now need to be present to myself... and if there are moments when one cannot take steps, one just lets oneself lie on the solidity of the bottom, however small a patch of ground it seems... to rest rather than battle... to pause and see where the light is coming from, rather than trying to rush on or escape and thus miss the light or not allow oneself to feel the ground beneath...

i found myself resting on a little patch of solid ground today...


there... there were some words in me after all...rambling i'll admit, but i think there's something in there i need to be mindful of... or better still, heartful of...

when one's Bright Light feels like a barely there ember flickering to stay alight, then perhaps one needs to sit in shelter of the other and let the tiny glowing self be gently breathed upon...

LB.

* (or is it lowly? i've always heard it as lonely. works either way..)

without words

i used to write because, with each word that fell across the page, i knew i was surviving.
these days i don't get that same comfort and much of the time i have no desire to keep on keeping on.

this past year took a heavy toll. i played my part in poorly more often than not. there are many things i regret in it... a year i ago i felt hopeful and full of welcome. but that didn't play out so well. efforts i made to do the right thing and live with an open heart backfired...

someone said to me the other day that they wanted to live life in 2009 the way i approached 2008 - to stop being one of the living dead. that even if a year from now they found themselves facing loss and despair, they think it's worth the risk. risking fear, stepping out into a terrifying world, and trying to love people well... they promise this will end, that i will find myself again, that this is something that will pass... but i have lost so much of myself in the process. nothing matters more to me than community... to want to live within it with integrity and honesty and a sense of honour... but this past year has been a lesson in what it looks like when that falls apart... when it no longer feels like a safe space...

it could have all been different i am sure... words spoken that should never have been said, and words witheld when they could have been spoken... just a few words...by me and by others...

words said and unsaid that drown out all others in these days... i live these days with no sense of trust...

thanks for sharing something of yourselves in the comments left. i have always appreciated them, although mostly surprised anyone would keep looking in, especially when posts have become increasingly sporadic.

but i'm not sure i can keep coming to these pages...
i'm tired of staring at the keys and having nothing left to say.

i hope wherever you are, this finds you well and fulfilled
and if not, that you are getting what you need to get through.

so, for however long. or forever...

take care,
LB

the power of poetry

Everyone is Afraid of Something

by Dannye Romine Powell

Once I was afraid of ghosts, of the dark,
of climbing down from the highest
limb of the backyard oak. Now I'm afraid

my son will die alone in his apartment.
I'm afraid when I break down the door,
I'll find him among the empties-bloated,
discolored, his face a stranger's face.

My granddaughter is afraid of blood
and spider webs and of messing up.
Also bees. Especially bees. Everyone,
she says, is afraid of something.

Another fear of mine: that it will fall to me
to tell this child her father is dead.

Perhaps I should begin today stringing
her a necklace of bees. When they sting
and welts quilt her face, when her lips
whiten and swell, I'll take her
by the shoulders. Child, listen to me.
One day, you'll see. These stings
Are nothing. Nothing at all.

::

"Everyone Is Afraid of Something" by Dannye Romine Powell, from A Necklace of Bees. © University of Arkansas Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

from The Writer's Alamanac with Garrison Keillor, today.

one day at a time...

how slowly things change and how fast others...

i have possibly recommended this SoF programme before, The Spirituality of Addiction and Recovery but i have played it once through today and plan to play it throughout this week & so am marking it.

having been able to work on some of my own issues in the past few months with those in recovery - be that from alcohol or drugs or sex or food or co-dependency or abuse, this has way more meaning now than when i first heard it. it was a great privilege to walk with those who have put so much work in already, to feel the humilty in that journey, and to see that when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter what destructive cycle you are trying to break or what pain healed, we are all so very alike... and so when i put the work in it's easier to be compassionate, because i remember how hard it is to get through some days and not panic...

if anything the intensive work i did on retreat in the autumn has only served to teach me that some days are so much harder than others but the better days are the one's when i put in the work. by me. for me. and with the faith that i am not alone. and so by the grace of God.

for after the intensity of retreat i let much of the daily discipline and practise slide and i have suffered for it. but today is a new day and so i am choosing to live in it.

today is a day which has not been plain sailing but in which i have taken as many little steps as i can. because so often putting in the work looks like waking somewhat fitfully but choosing to lie in the warmth of my bed as long as i can and seek rest rather than sleep as the howling wind ushers in the morning... listening to discussions on one of my favourite radio programmes to stimulate my mind while washing the dishes and making coffee... briefly braving the wet windy morning to go to the corner shop for a Sunday paper... .. listening to speaking of faith while taking a long soak in a hot lavender bath... taking time to nourish and massage winter weary skin...sending messages of good will to others...

later i will hang out over homemade food and board games with close friends and all the while through each of these tasks aiming once more to be mindful of the present - of each act i am undertaking and in doing so let go of that which invades the peace of my mind...

i don't like many Sundays. but i am liking today.

"...mindfulness is easy. it's remembering to be mindful that's hard..."

- Kevin Griffin

there is much in that SoF podcast from beginning to end that is of great worth... but it was these words in italics that really pulled me up short today... creating a moment of epiphany...

::

Ms. Cheever: It's a lack of trust. It's an inability to just think, 'You know what? It's going to be all right.' And, like, who was that, St. Julian?

Ms. Tippett: Julian of Norwich.

Ms. Cheever: Who said, "All will be well."

Ms. Tippett: Yes.

Ms. Cheever: "All things will be well."

Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Ms. Cheever: It's the opposite of that. It's a kind of panic. It's, 'There's never going to be any more food.' 'There's never going to be another drink.' 'There's never going to be enough for me.' And in my experience, addiction comes out of that, that wanting, that hunger. And that's very intimate. In other words, you won't get a lot of people on the radio even copping to this stuff. And, you know, therefore, to put that into remission, or to calm it down, you have to have a faith or a system or whatever you're going to call it that's very intimate as well, because it's private, it's personal. And I think — you know, I often wonder why we live in a culture that is so blind to alcoholism and I think that's one of the reasons, it's so private, it's so personal what a person drinks or what they don't drink.

And I think that's partly also the basis, you know, of Bill's understanding of the importance of anonymity is that anonymity sort of protects that incredibly intimate private nature of addiction and, you know, the treatment for addiction, of that change of heart. You know the human heart is such a, such a private and frightening place. But I also think that it — to me, one of the greatest — I don't know what the word is — one of the greatest foundations of spirituality is what Bill called anonymity and, you know, what Christ called humility. And I'm sure that Buddha also had a name for it.

::

it's not dramatic, it's not exciting, it's nothing to write home about. but this is what putting the work into being well and whole looks like... "utter simplicity..."

all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well...

LittleBird.