Pre-Lenten Ponderings

This song (above) is several years old.  It came about when I was driving.  I was struggling that day - I can't for the life of me even remember why - I just remember being in the car, in the midst of a panic attack, while crying, and then (because I was alone in the car) starting to sing these words.  For some reason I was thinking about if the other day in relation to Lent, to fear, to pushing past fear and felt compelled to share the song.  The recording is not great, just an attempt to get thoughts down.  I recorded it before I was married to a sound genius.

Life is bizarre.

The rhythms of the body,

welcomed unconsciousness,

resurrection,

the weighty feel of the mind,

the awkward unmentionable movements,

and the light hold of reality

all accepted as normal.

Consoled by blankets, tea,
and -hushed clanks of heater, refrigerator's whoosh,
dog's breath- something like silence,
I quiet myself
-Or attempt that perplexing process.-
I need more: silence, hearing, humor.
Less: distrust, words.

I feel the malady of the quotidian of late.  The swiftly moving days, the inability to stop myself mid-motion and let myself see.  It is good to stop and listen, to look, to find the beauty in the full tilt.  There is much I need to hear, to learn, to celebrate.

Beauty has been sneaking up on me, pushing itself into my squinted eyes.  To be honest, I don't always recognize it.  I mistake it for other things, for a good nights sleep maybe, or simple science.  As is the case often with me, I am hesitant.  Hesitant to claim it, reluctant to state an absolute I can not defend with well phrased logic.  I am also hesitant to gush, for fear both of loss, as if an overabundance of words could kill a thing and for fear of oversimplification, this cannot be explained in my half-knowing language.

And yet, there it is.  Happily, tentatively.  The pessimist in me fears beauty for how easily it can be lost, however I am starting to be able to latch onto the joy of it, while knowing, even if... "all shall be well" for fear and over-thinking can also kill a thing.

2nd Sunday in Advent

I spent a good deal of this morning anxious, frustrated, and, to be honest, feeling downright crazy (and it might have been more than a feeling).  My thoughts can get so caught up in what should be something simple, and can then be found somewhere far away from their original course.  Trying to distract myself I pulled up facebook (yes, facebook) to find one of the first posts declaring that today is the second Sunday in Advent where we light the advent candle of peace.  I immediately felt my body lose some of its tension.  The Prince of Peace is coming, has come.  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

I am so easily discombobulated.  It is so easy to let peace slip past.  It is easy to let the perplexity of people, of words, of emotions, of relationships frustrate.  So much in life is muddled.  I am also the kind of person who wants desperately to understand, and wants to be understood.  This is frustration.  I feel as though I keep having to come back to the places where like in Job, God answers from out of the whirlwind, out of the mess of the storm and says you cannot understand, says it with a lot of sarcasm (which I always kind of loved) says it over and over again using so many various analogies.

 "Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

Dress for action like a man;

I will question you, and you make it known to me.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?"  (Job 38:1-5 ESV)

However, not stopping there I also need 1 Corinthians 13:12

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

So then, in a sense I arrive back to where I started.  Words and more words making everything murky, however, thankfully the first 2 advent candles are hope and peace.  There is hope that this frail limited mind that yet seems so complex and frustrating to me can be both known and will know.  For now I only see in part, and that gives me peace as well.  I know (if not at all fully) the one who knows.  

Jane Kenyon

"Having it Out with Melancholy" f many remedies are prescribed for an illness, you may be certain that the illness has no cure. A. P. CHEKHOV The Cherry Orchard 1 FROM THE NURSERY When I was born, you waited behind a pile of linen in the nursery, and when we were alone, you lay down on top of me, pressing the bile of desolation into every pore. And from that day on everything under the sun and moon made me sad -- even the yellow wooden beads that slid and spun along a spindle on my crib. You taught me to exist without gratitude. You ruined my manners toward God: "We're here simply to wait for death; the pleasures of earth are overrated." I only appeared to belong to my mother, to live among blocks and cotton undershirts with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes and report cards in ugly brown slipcases. I was already yours -- the anti-urge, the mutilator of souls. 2 BOTTLES Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin, Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax, Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft. The coated ones smell sweet or have no smell; the powdery ones smell like the chemistry lab at school that made me hold my breath. 3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND You wouldn't be so depressed if you really believed in God. 4 OFTEN Often I go to bed as soon after dinner as seems adult (I mean I try to wait for dark) in order to push away from the massive pain in sleep's frail wicker coracle. 5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT Once, in my early thirties, I saw that I was a speck of light in the great river of light that undulates through time. I was floating with the whole human family. We were all colors -- those who are living now, those who have died, those who are not yet born. For a few moments I floated, completely calm, and I no longer hated having to exist. Like a crow who smells hot blood you came flying to pull me out of the glowing stream. "I'll hold you up. I never let my dear ones drown!" After that, I wept for days. 6 IN AND OUT The dog searches until he finds me upstairs, lies down with a clatter of elbows, puts his head on my foot. Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life -- in and out, in and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . . 7 PARDON A piece of burned meat wears my clothes, speaks in my voice, dispatches obligations haltingly, or not at all. It is tired of trying to be stouthearted, tired beyond measure. We move on to the monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Day and night I feel as if I had drunk six cups of coffee, but the pain stops abruptly. With the wonder and bitterness of someone pardoned for a crime she did not commit I come back to marriage and friends, to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back to my desk, books, and chair. 8 CREDO Pharmaceutical wonders are at work but I believe only in this moment of well-being. Unholy ghost, you are certain to come again. Coarse, mean, you'll put your feet on the coffee table, lean back, and turn me into someone who can't take the trouble to speak; someone who can't sleep, or who does nothing but sleep; can't read, or call for an appointment for help. There is nothing I can do against your coming. When I awake, I am still with thee. 9 WOOD THRUSH High on Nardil and June light I wake at four, waiting greedily for the first note of the wood thrush. Easeful air presses through the screen with the wild, complex song of the bird, and I am overcome by ordinary contentment. What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment? How I love the small, swiftly beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples; its bright, unequivocal eye.

Wonders can not reach me.  Balanced edges hang around forced continuity.  If I dared I might run, clipped knowledge seeping from flailing limbs, abandoned wisdom and displaced responsibility left to cling to nothing but thin air. And yet I know that I am not brave enough for such wild decisiveness.  I fear the empty expanse, the lonesome fate of freedom, the harsh wisdom I could acquire.  So I rest, stayed by a thought, caught in the heavy silence.