I wanted to write about so much: Micah; roommate dialogues; poetry reading (ee cummings); a beautiful truth I read today in a fiction novel; relationships; frustrating goings on; a fancy poem I wrote; mountains; the fact that I'm reading fifteen (15) books right now, and I may be going insane.. etc.
But instead of writing, I watched a lousy movie (read: without plot) nearly twice, and ended up having a good conversation on the phone while walking outside in the cold (I forgot to put on gloves or a hat, and my hands were quite sad, and blue, by the end of the conversation. It was a good convo). So, worthwhile, but for the second night in a row, I'm getting nothing done. Maybe that is what weekends are about? The problem is, this week is extraordinarily busy, and I have to finish 6 books before the university library's winter break so I can get new books and return my current batch, and I get to celebrate birthday's (hooray!), and work. Writing will suffer.
I read Micah today. A certain passage caught my interest, and it isn't even the most-often-quoted section of Micah (Micah 6:8, another of my favorite passages). What I love about Micah is his consistent use of puns and irony to make statements. Right from the beginning, statements like "At Beth-le-aphrah roll yourself in the dust" - at the house of dust, roll yourself in the dust. But it is an actual city name, so it's twice as clever. Or even, "Because a calamity has come down from the Lord, to the gate of Jerusalem" (Jerusalem is city of peace, dwelling of peace etc). He's quite a poetic prophet, and though the passages in this book are not necessarily sequential - they tend to be organized by theme - he's got a poetry in his prophecy that I appreciate, even though I don't speak Hebrew.
And it will come about in the last days that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of mountains. It will be raised above the hills and people will stream to it....
Each of them (nations, peoples) will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
(Micah 4:1,4)
I think this passage struck me for at least two reasons: 1. it has some similarities to possibly my favorite verse in the bible, Philippians 4:5 (Let your gentle spirit be made known to all men. The Lord is near); and 2. I really appreciate the peaceful imagery it suggests and the strength of God. It brings to mind the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) with the God who gave Jonah a restful plant under which he might find shade. But I've also been contemplating mountains a great deal lately. I like hiking, backpacking, or just walking through nature, but there is something extra magnificent about mountains. Every time I visit my house, if the weather permits, I try and take a day to climb a mountain nearby.
Matthew introduced us, and we are fast friends now, my mountain and I.
As I drove home for thanksgiving, the sky was perfectly blue, a blue of an eternal peace, deep and dark as can only been seen when the sun is oblique to the world, and cold. Never have I so clearly seen the mountains: St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson to the south, Rainier, the cascades, the olympics, mount si, and the ridges surrounding issaquah. They were glossy white with their caps of snow, and I could understand why so many ancient cultures think of gods as living on top of the tallest of mountains.
There is something primal, domineering, majestic, intimidating, and demanding of our respect about the tallest of peaks, and even in summiting, we are not conquerors, but merely ants atop the pinnacle of nature, having picked our way up the glaciers, we have not ascended to the domain of gods, but, somehow, I feel closer to God every time I am in the mountains.
I really appreciate the motif in Micah regarding mountains, as I find mountains to be a place of peace and importance in my life.
The second thing I was thinking about today was relationships. I'm quite old-fashioned when it comes to many things. Well, I don't know if that is exactly true, because I'm a feminist, among other things, and that certainly isn't a traditional belief. But I generally prefer to follow the rules, and when I was a child I couldn't even understand how people could break them. When my mother said "no punching" I actually believed for quite some time that punching wasn't just against the rules of the household, but against the rules of nature. I could just as easily punch someone as I could fly. It wasn't until I was punched for the first time that I realized punching wasn't just a fake television event (like in the old batman movies: kapowie!), and could actually happen.
So if a friend of mine tells me they've had sex before marriage, I cringe. I don't believe in sex before marriage - it's very much against my rules. Then they spend an hour trying to explain how they believe that what they are doing is right and biblical even, and my stomach is turning. Now, I haven't experienced this point in a relationship myself, so I'm no authority. I've never been in a relationship nearing sexual anything, nor have I ever been in a relationship period. I've actually never even held a girl's hand outside of prayer, and I don't even have any good-single-female friends. (by next year, I don't think I'll have any good friends who aren't married). I'm not authoritative on the subject, but I have rules, and that people I know can so blithely stride past them with boasting confidence makes me feel quite uncomfortable. I really wish right now I had my own vines to sit under and my own fig tree, and that I could sit on top of the tallest mountain and stare out over a sea of clouds, contemplating such things. I want to think and write and pray and walk and stare into the stones of mountains letting water slip through their fingertips in waterfalls and rivulets, and clamber over stones into the snow-tipped peaks of the world's highest peaks. I want to walk through forests whose branches are bare, and sunlight streams obliquely through a glade, striking the sheathes of ice on each branch and blooming the forest into a fire of golden light that drips and sings like chimes, with the earth cracking beneath my feet and rabbits wrinkling their noses as dawn lights the southeastern sky, and the birds sing their sorrow-songs at not having migrated south until spring.
Well, that was a mess of words that went nowhere. A bunch of raw thoughts spewed out everywhere.
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
by E. E. Cummings
The last stanza of this poem is one of my favorites of all ee cummings work.
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