indigo hosannas

this poem from today's writer's almanac reminded me of the garden at the degrazia gallery/house in tucson. adoring love drips from the page... timeless, dazzling devotion...

Wind chimes ping and tangle on the patio.
In gusty winds this wild, sparrow hawks hover
and bob, always the crash of indigo
hosannas dangling on strings. My wife ties copper
to turquoise from deserts, and bits of steel
from engines I tear down. She strings them all
like laces of babies' shoes when the squeal
of their play made joyful noise in the hall.

Her voice is more modest than moonlight,
like pearl drops she wears in her lobes.
My hands find the face of my bride.
I stretch her skin smooth and see bone.
Our children bring children to bless her, her face
more weathered than mine. What matters
is timeless, dazzling devotion—not rain,
not Eden gardenias, but cactus in drought,
not just moons of deep sleep, not sunlight or stars,
not the blue, but the darkness beyond.

- "The Waltz We Were Born For" by Walt McDonald, from Blessings the Body Gave. © Ohio State University Press, 1998.

love was never meant to be restrained or reserved... at least not to a 4 like me. i wonder if mcdonald is a 4... seeing beauty in the darkness beyond...

LB

same story

the screen-saver scoops up photographs and creates a mosaic. and as the images multiply, they combine to become yet another photograph - an image of my little nephew, minutes old. swirls of red paint i made last summer with my right hand colour his florid cheek, sylvia meets jonah charging in the bend of his arm... and a favourite moment of you, laughing with head thrown back, melts deep into the black of his eye...

Even if I were to stretch this letter out, God forbid, to a thousand pages, would I ever be able to convey my full story to you? I suspect the answer is no. I suspect that our stories in their fullness will always be hidden from each other and that all those whiskered old men and bonneted old women looking out at us from their photographs in the family album will always remain mysteries to us even if, like me, they happen to have written their memoirs. And yet I believe that all is not lost. Maybe we can never know each other's stories in their fullness, but I believe we can know them in their depth for the reason that in their depth we all have the same story.

Whether we're rich or poor, male or female, a nineteenth-century Swiss jeweler like Isaac Golay in his oversized frock coat, or a twentieth-century American clergyman like me with a penchant for writing books, or a young squirt celebrating his twenty-first birthday in the twenty-first century like you, our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to beleive in something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live.


- from letter to benjamin, by frederick buechner, in the longing for home (1996)

all witnesses to one another's becoming... it was never your destination i cared about, just as i've long since forgotten the punchline. your laughter made the air vibrate...
i watch you in the transformation...

LB

this is somethin' else

Pachelbel's Canon in D major as arranged by Trace Bundy, playing with Sungha Jung.

educating us out of creativity

i know a load of folks who will totally get this. so i'm sharing it. plus it's full of quirky humour, as much as it's beautifully insightful.

LB

sacred questions before this 21st century cross

interrogate everything
- ikon, lessons in evanDelism, '08

i've been listening to david's talk at ffm 09. which is about as frustrating a thing as a person can do for pleasure of a rainy sunday. my brother said he enjoyed it because it's like having david in the room. a comfort in a familiar voice. and that's why it's frustrating. david peppers all his talks with, does anyone have anything they want to throw in on that?

and david means it. which is one of the reasons i like him so much, why he's one of my favourite people to be in conversation with. he's got, what seems to me, something like an instinctual Ricoeur thing going on. it's all about the space inbetween, in the exchange, in the Q&A, the back and forth of that inbetween where things get electric. that to me is the space of divine happening.
so i'm speaking to the laptop. saying, yes, i do... i wanna talk about this. wonder around this. i want to see the space spark and breathe. i want how i envisage it to be expanded. see its edges perforated, where my limitations only now see solid boundaries. i want cracks to appear so that more light comes in... but all i have is the laptop and me responding to an audio recording...

perhaps when we have a space in between that's closed, small... claustrophobic, only reaffirming of what we already think or finding ways to reaffirm what we desire to achieve, then the possibility of divine happening is being squeezed out. it's the kind of space in which politicians sit with lawyers and find doublespeak loopholes that will make, pervert, justice to be synonymous with brutality. that's a space that's not opening up room for revelation, for truth. in those spaces, people become bodies. and we become God, rather than G-D being revealed... and i don't know what to do with that... not a fucking clue other than to pray... and praying to G-D i pray is outside of my head... the G-D that suffers here:















david quotes Marx,

religious suffering is at one at the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature the heart of a heartless world and the soul of souless conditions.

the man who also said, "religion is the opiate of the masses"... and david poses a question about how we define religion. global consumerism as religion perhaps...?

and so i'm there speaking back to the laptop and asking, what happens if we say it's democracy that's the opiate of the masses? or maybe, the drug's a two party system played out in the media as a false dichotomy of left v. right, that reduces what should be moral action to mere party political?

what is it that's keeping us asleep?

because religion, when it's weak, when our G-D is weak, by which we might mean self sacrificing, might help us speak to power... i'm trying to make sense of how interrogate everything without adding to the brutality... faced with this cross, what do we stand for...? what will i stand for?

i was reminded of this:

If anyone asks: "How did Jesus raise the dead?" kiss me on the lips, say:
like this!

- Rumi, Like This, translation from Rumi's Divan by Fatemeh Keshavarz

when i heard this:

justice is what love looks like in public
- cornel west, ffm09

that's about as religious statement as i've ever heard. we need this space for the apocalyptic, for the conversations from the war room to the campus to the check out aisle to the hospital room waiting room to the prison to keep being broken open with our questions, out interrogations. i know i need it, 'cause i don't know what to do with all of this.

and so by way of cornel west and solomon burke and all the other poets, i find those edges of the conversation that david and others keep bringing to the table, that i talk to as i stand at the kitchen counter with coffee and scrambled eggs... those edges are pushed out wider for me... this, i say, i believe:

it's not the religion of Jesus that keeps me numb... that's what keeps me hoping there's something impossible around the corner... that justice, which is beyond any impeachment, but looks like heart rending change in the name of full force goodness... it keeps me questioning everything, even when i'd rather sleep easy and not have to look this cross in the face.


::

this i used to believe. 4 very different stories on this american life. all worth hearing.

edited to add: as is this sobering conversation between bill moyers and co-creator of the wire, david simon on the truth about what he calls the war on the underclass.

"If you don't need 'em, why extend yourself? Why seriously assess what you're doing to your poorest and most vulnerable citizens? There's no profit to be had in doing anything other than marginalizing them and discarding them."

::

thy kingdom come
thy will be done

LB

(photo from this in the daily dish.)

the power of digression

be still my beating heart.

i just washed off the grime of the day with this as the soundtrack. don't know if i posted it before but it's worth recommending again. i find this to be deliciously good. and beautiful.

LB

from a tea break

it's all about interesting conversations at the moment. well, that's one of the bigger themes.
the day-to-day this week is all about emptying shelves and packing my life up into boxes but that's dull as dishwater in my book. the unpacking and subsequent turning of a blank magnolia slate of an apartment into a suitably me-zone is the only carrot to tempt me to keep up the pace. still, at least i'm not having to do this relocation while my heart is in free fall, like the move to here last May. if i needed proof that there's some strength in me, that i survived that fucking horrible month is a contender. but thankfully that is the past and today is today and if i find myself bored rather than weeping while i pack, then i know i'm doing better.

so. anyways. interesting conversations... oh. yes:

my dear brother highly recommended this interview from ffm 09. his praise was not unwarranted. not that it ever is. so i knew whatever this turned out to be it'd be good.
cornel west talks with lupe fiasco. i'd never heard of mr fiasco but this conversation contains some great stuff from both of them. it's been running in the backround as i pack to stave off the boredom and on each listen i hear something new.

i get to go to tuesday group tonight. which is cause for joy and gratitude.

LB

the woman next door

via an incredibly eloquent dorothee soelle quote from sarah,

and via the daily dish. sullivan got choked up over Miss Boyle, (who, physically, reminds me so much of the Scottish women i was surrounded by in my youth), and i'm unashamed to say, so did i.

here's to the unseen and unexpected. which is a theme i'm increasingly interested in, especially in a gender and queer context - seeing the assumed normative deconstructed as it is subverted by those kept to the edges because they don't quite fit our expectations.

my dear brother-by-choice, Chris, said, "If The Wire were a bible passage it would be this:" seems fitting here too...

God chose what is weak in the world to make the strong feel ashamed. And God chose what is insignificant in the world, what is despised, what is nothing, in order to destroy what is something, so that no one may boast in God's presence. (1Cor 28-29)

LB

we love with our innards

Ms. Tippett: Something I've always been intrigued by, though, in my conversations with Orthodox Christians, is how this attunement to, to the senses is also very earthy, also has a very earthy side. It's not all just about gorgeous images in worship. And, you know, I just, I wanted to read this passage that you quoted in your book Incarnate Love, which, of course, is a central theme of the Easter story. And, you know, the example you used of talking about this is, is how it was articulated in, by Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, right?

Mr. Guroian: Yes.

Ms. Tippett: And you wrote, he said, "Alyosha, my boy, so I want to live and go on living even if it's contrary to the rules of logic, even if I do not believe in the divine order of things. The sticky young leaves emerging from their buds in the spring are dear to my heart, so is the blue sky, and so are some human beings, even though I often don't know why I like them. I'll get drunk on my own emotion. I love these sticky little leaves and the blue sky. That's what, you don't love those things with reason, with logic. You love them with your innards, with your belly."

Mr. Guroian: Yes. And of course, the irony, which is so often a device used by Dostoevsky is that the principal atheist who's rebelling against God in the novel is articulating precisely what the Christian experience is or ought to be...

from this conversation.

LB

when the night has come...

and the land is dark
and the moon
is the only light we see
no i won't be afraid
no i won't be afraid
just as long
as you stand
stand by me

it's curious how singing helps us feel safer in the dark. this video (served up on the daily dish) seemed like an invitation to have faith and solidarity as we wait for what we hope will come...


Stand By Me from David Johnson on Vimeo.

so, 'til the new dawn easters in, i'll keep watch. you, find some rest. i'll try and sing softly.

LB

harsh and delicate

from Sunday: Will and Stox discuss the CFC legacy on the Northern Irish music scene with Stewart Bailey on Sunday Sequence. surreal way to start one's Sunday. were it not for the listen again button i'd have thought i'd dreamt this conversation while dozing. (see the highlight from latest programme Hidden Sermons...)

::

from today:
bravo to Vermont. another significant step in the right direction for gay rights in the US. let's hope 2009 proves to be the year that Ireland achieves marriage equality for all its citizens.

(might as well celebrate something good, since news today is now shifted from the tragic scenes in Italy to be dominated by the brutal emergency budget. the next couple of years will be lean. as if on cue, the weather has turned brutish and we're being blasted into the night by driving wind and rain. just to add to the mood. it's being called the toughest budget in the history of the Irish state. but will the government fall? time will tell.)

another welcome thing: nathan phillips has sent me a lovely gift of his new cd, Postcard. (couple of tracks at that link). i'm gonna curl up under the duvet for the first listen and pore over the lyrics. i think nathan's voice is like dandelion clocks in slow motion. aaron & whitni roche and julie lee feature. it's gonna be good.

you are giving it up
to the one in the rough
of the Cyclamen, violets and thorns
there is life to be won
there are things to be sung
so you pull down the guard
and lift up your voice
to know your not all alone

high on the hill
where you are in the sun
peace comes to you
where you are in its beams
through the sky, over the trees
leaps in patches along the leaves

- where you are, nathan phillips, on Postcard

LB

ever get the feeling...

that you're just not living?

certainly can't be said of this man:
George Moyse, a few days shy of his 98th birthday.

brilliant.

LB

the showing up

this wonderful TED talk by elizabeth gilbert reminded me of so many people i know.

there is a embryonic thought in my mind that this is exactly why we should seek the "authentic", the "small"... there's something running through this idea that what might be divine or transcendent is revealed when we are at our most human, not trying to tell of G-D, but tell of ourselves. and in doing so, that which could or might see beyond how we understand the world, that which is outside of us, speaks in, through or around us... is revealed.

in other words, we can err as humans, and if we are willing to let that constant state of error be out in the world, others might see even in our stumbling, the alternative, get a glimpse of what i'm calling at the moment, the G-D's eye view. i've been thinking about tich naht hanh's phrase that conflict happens because we do not understand one another. perhaps then i am wondering, if i best understand what i call G-D as the unknowable eye or ear or heart which is above or beneath or in the middle of all situations and experiences, outside time and space is that which sees into the heart of all the players and thus understands what causes things and what we all really feel.

if only you could see you through my eyes, with my heart, with my mind, and soul, and i, yours. but we can't. that's not the deal we got given as humans.

so our job is maybe, yes, to just keep turning up and tell how we experience life as honestly as we can, and attempt to understand one another. to see in all our erring what it is we have in common. and listen to the other voice that weaves around our ongoing conversation. that which brings both mystery and clarity.

it's all about best guesses when you don't have an all seeing eye. to claim otherwise is to claim to be G-D.

LB