we are limbs to each other

Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.


- Saʿdī, medieval mystical poet, native of Shiraz, Iran translating the Prophet Mohammad

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

a moment's pause

so, this is the last time i take the journey south, bound for dublin, on an outbound ticket. next time it'll be a return.
tomorrow i'll back up over the border in a van to move all my worldly possessions.

100 miles seems very far today. but as i stood on the platform at holywood with my suitcase and looked out over the lough, feeling my throat choke up and my eyes prick at the corners, i realised i felt relief mixed with the anxiety and sadness of such a significant day. relief at having a different view in the future. of how the past 4 years (almost) have been against this backdrop with so much sadness and loss. each time i have looked out over the water, that was in years before shared and home, having then changed irrevocably... each time looking out over the water acted as a reminder of things i'd rather forget.

i'm moving so that i have a different view. a life less scarred by memories. the memories i associate with dublin are older. and having been in belfast for 8 years, i have been able to leave much of the past it holds to rest. so that now it feels like a new place. so here i am, on a train, leaving the past behind.

as i sit here on the train as i have done so many times in recent months, and as i hold back tears, all i can say with conviction is, i want the future to be different.

::

later....

as the train passed Newry and crossed the border the sun finally appeared, and a feeling of leaving turned to going toward...

tomorrow i will have some, "see you soons" that will catch in my throat. but for now, the view from my parentals' balcony is of hills and trees exploding in spring green and there's dinner on the stove. so i'll be thankful. for tomorrow will be a long day with a 200 mile round trip in the van and moving as much stuff as it'll take and there won't be time to pause and take in the beauty. and then a weekend of unpacking awaits.

::

the writer's almanac for today tells me it's annie dillard's birthday. which is worth a pause in itself in which to feel good about the world. it's a better place for her having been in it.

also from the almanac, Leisure, by William Henry Davies. which i haven't read in years. hard to argue with...

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

::

as an old Irish saying goes,
not one of us is promised tomorrow.

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.)