Water Women

We do not want to rock the boat you say
mistaking our new poise for something safe.
We smile secretly at each other sharing the reality
that for some time we have not been in the boat.
We jumped, or were pushed, or fell,
and some leaped overboard.

Our bodies form a freedom fleet
our dolphin grace is power.
We learn and teach as we go each woman sings
each woman's hands are water wings.
Some of us have become mermaids or Amazon whales
and are swimming for our lives.

Some of us do not know to swim
we walk on water.

-Rene Alla Bozarth-Campbell

My pastor sent me this poem in the mail. It comes from the bulletin of another woman's ordination and I'm wondering about her as I ponder the poem. Was she a woman who jumped in, fell, or was she pushed? Does she swim with the grace and power of a whale, or prefer to walk on water?

And what of me?

I already know this answer; I leaped overboard. Dived right in, in fact. And I know that smile the writer suggests . . .the one exchanged between women that have taken risks theologically. The ones who continue on, despite the disapproval of family, friends--some church bodies and denominations. The women who face disapproval from those who even love them . . . . They are warriors in the Buddhist sense: gentle, aware, courageous. Their actions say enough, and they stand before God unashamed. With that comes a playful mischief in their eyes, accompanying the I've-been-through-hell-but-it's-worth-it smile, and I'd like to think that they know what it means to live a life well-lived.

In the throes of introspection . . . .

I've been pondering grief lately, as a message from my mother stirred memories of a friend of mine who died a few years ago. The following is a quote from one of Wendell Berry's Sabbaths poems:

And yet we all are gathered
in this leftover love,
this longing become the measure
of a joy all mourners know.
An old man's mind is a graveyard
where the dead arise.

As the sun rose over the Atlantic this past weekend, I allowed myself to remember him. Running along the shoreline, we felt the sand beneath our bare feet, and we laughed as we made fun of each other's beach-running capability.

And then I cried.

Florida

I got stung by a jellyfish this weekend. A Portuguese Man-O'-War, in fact.

How fun is that?

A Lazy Saturday

Dima lounges in the kitchen while I stretch out on the chaise lounge. From here, I have a view of 3 rooftops, a chimney, and the bell tower of a nearby church. If I change angles, I can check the time of day from the clock tower of the police station. Today's view is exceptional in that the snow is altering the usual shapes. Bricks varying in the usual reds, browns, and tans are now outlined in white, and I'm noticing the height of the trees for the first time. The sounds of Wisconsin Ave. have also lessened . . . .

What is it about snow? The world slows and the land ponders something for awhile. A giant "shhhhh" from God, maybe.

A Meditation

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are, quite naturally,
Impatient in everything to reach the end
Without delay.
We should like to skip
The intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being
On the way to something unknown,
Something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
That is made by passing through
Some stages of instability
And that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually-
Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves,
Without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
As though you could be today
What time (that is to say, Grace and
Circumstances acting
On your own good will)
Will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
Gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
That His Hand is leading you,
And accept the anxiety of
Feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

-Teilhard de Chardin

the Holiday

Jack Black's character in The Holiday--Can I please marry him? Or at least date him?

Since I'm on a Ray kick . . .

I was meandering through some old journal entries and found this one. I'm not sure what I'm really getting at, but what's new?

Ray LaMontagne’s song Jolene brought me to tears the other night, causing me to think of the girls that I work with and their addictions. “Jolene, I ain’t about to go straight . . .it’s too late . . . .” and then later, “I still don’t know what love means.” I think it was the repetition of this last phrase that grabbed me. Feeling everything at once, I sat on my bed and had one of those good soul-cries. I’m not sure what it is that I’ve been feeling lately . . .it’s not despair, but it is a sense of sadness for the pain some people must endure. Sadness too, for the lack of love people endure. And I wonder, have I loved people well? Authentically? Have I been loved well, and from whom?

Do I know what love means?

One chapel I attended in college was a commencement ceremony and had I known that it was going to be that, I wouldn’t have gone. Thankfully I was among the ignorant few.

A phrase given by the chemistry professor receiving the award that morning has stayed with me on an almost daily basis: “You must never let your heart callous.” I can’t imagine a worse death in life, than to lose the capability to give and receive love . . .though I see so many (and sometimes myself among them) who have given up because of bad experiences with others. As humans we have this tremendous power in forgiveness, kindness, mercy, and yet it seems we’re afraid to exercise them. We’re afraid because we need others to do the same, and those others have a habit of disappointing us. And why do they disappoint? Because they, too, are afraid.

The old adage “Perfect love casts out all fear” comes to mind and I wonder if we’ll ever get there. To love without expectation, and yet with discipline and sensitivity. With honesty and courage. With compassion.

So what then, does love mean?

One more goodie . . .

Get your ears on Ray LaMontagne's Heaven is a Honky Tonk. I'd provide a link for you, but what I have is on a cd given to me by my neighbor, and he found it off a live recording from an Austin City Limits show on PBS. I investigated their site, but alas, no luck. Also, the live version of Empty is incredible--the harmonica almost brought me to tears.

Mason and Ray . . .you're so good to me. Thank you.

"Real"ness . . .

"Just think about the process of abandoning your Real self. You let go of a dream here, a feeling there. Elements of yourself fall away so quietly that you don't even notice. But something inside you feels the losses. And as the losses mount, so does the pain. I believe this feeling, this grief, is at the core of generalized unhappiness, malaise, anxiety and depression that is epidemic in our time."--Toni Raiten-D'Antonioa, The Velveteen Principles