Vineyard Picnic

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/08/vineyard-picnic/

Can we just remember this is a beautiful world? For a moment? Tonight, we went to a Shakespeare production in a park, beautifully backdropped by the harvest vineyard, rolling hills of green and golden earth, and the ridges of chehalem mountain and bald peak at our backs. The oaks hovering over our heads were sparse, but offered the perfect shade for an evening show, and the clean country air: perfect – pluperfect, perhaps. Metaperfect, superperfect, extraperfect.

Just because man sinned does not mean God’s creation invariably became un-good. I witnessed a piece of its marvel today. And Shakespeare was an exquisite accent on the bountiful blessings of our landscape, showcasing the creativity of the creation itself. Who spins words as that, since?

It can feel wrong to revel in such things when, around the world, people endure, and are contemporaneously enduring, agony, pain, sickness, angst, suffering. As my best friend and his wife attend to her mother who, even now, lies on what may be her deathbed; as malnutrition drags children to their knees, and injustice psychologically scars thousands and is not punished, remedied, or healed; as people die at the whims of country leaders sitting in comfortable chairs – how can I be so insensitive and admire this world, sighing at its grace, form, color, and clever creativity? This world that has, too, inspired a million poems, countless plays, dances, celebrations, relationships, love, painting, music, sports, books, and a thousand thanksgivings – can I cherish so simple a thing as a sunset over a vineyard, tonight? Can I feel the Spirit moving over the hills, and smell the heady wines in the air and the sugar grapes at their vines, and can I wait on the Lord, and be still in the wooded grove, listening to the whispering world sing praise?

If not I, then who? And so I must, and though I remember (or try) all their pains, the glory is here, also. I am thankful for that. God is not gone, and never was. But sometimes, I’m hard of seeing, poor of hearing, and dumb of speech, and the country is the perfect remedy for this disease. Lord, oh let me just be at peace with this beautiful sky full of stars for a little while, and the poplars brushing with the breeze, and the orchards thick with the redolence of green, and the apples collecting on the sidewalks and thick in the branches, and the plums plump in the leaves, and the blackberries bulbous on the vines, and the comfort of friends forever close, and the patience of a picnic in the crook of the hill – I’m a lamb in the pasture, forever by still waters and thick grasses lead, and let me follow, please.

Introvert Sabbath

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/introvert-sabbath/

Life has a way of sneaking up on you. You can either be a predator, or the prey, and you are not locked into the food chain of being. I think I’m woolgathering much, of late. I feel as though I’m one of those tribesmen mentioned in the Golden Compass who drill holes in the roofs of their skulls to collect dust. The magic-manna is falling from the heavens, and I’m gathering it where I must. It’s all very surreal, where I am. The skies are so elegant blueblueblue, and as I drove up Rex Hill, I marveled at the magnificent range of greens supplied by all the different trees. The darker pines and firs, the spring-bright verdancy of the maples and poplars, the darker edge of the oaks, the almost yellow hint on the aspens, the silver underbellies or the leaves on the bushes at the base of the mighty trees – greens arrayed all before me, side-by-side all reaching for the sky-lights.

But I’m woolgathering, as the world is beautiful and bright, and I’m spinning in circles as life shark-swims around me, preparing its strike, though I believe that I am the predator here. And in this time of new relationship, house, people, places, busyness, summer, Oregon, sunshine, earth, friends, books, thoughts, I’m discovering so many difficult and beautiful things.

I’m learning that relationships have a seemingly selfish component. That is, that relationship means I have to share my feelings, opinions, and desires, instead of merely seeking to fulfill the wishes of those I love. Not that that is a lousy tendency, and it is one that relationships in general tend to enjoy, but that a healthy relationship requires a certain reciprocity of giving and reception. You cannot simply give, but must receive and share also.

Because of this, I’m learning what it means to explain, carry, and examine feelings. I’m such an individualistic person that I’m quite capable of hiding these things so deeply inside of me that I only ever bless others, and never expect anything in return. I grew up lying so that I didn’t have to share these feelings, and though I stopped doing so in college, understanding that lies are not a firm foundation for honest friendships, I’m still playing my cards so close to my chest that it’s difficult to remember what showing them is like.

I’ve learned, again, how little things can be important, and even if I don’t value them, others might. Isn’t that the nature of reality? One man’s trash is another’s treasure?

Life is sneaking up on me, but I think I see it coming. It’s none so stealthy as it believes, and it never leaves, truly, only schemes another angle of assault. And I’m learning, living, loving, and laughing through life, and every day the Spirit intercedes for me in my weakness (with groanings too deep to utter).

But that’s enough babbling for one evening. I’m exhausted, but pleased. Sabbath Sunday: success. Even if much of it was cleaning, it was still sufficiently introverted in all the necessary ways.

Summer 2

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/summer-2/ ‎

far away and all too near,

my thoughts dress a thousand shipwrecks -

shattered stained-glass windows

collected into a graveyard

of a colored cathedral smashed in our laps;

and through this pastel mass

I dance on magic toes that float

above every little death the sea holds.

an apology to the wind, I deny

its grasp on me, no one my master be,

I'm over the clouds the ocean breathes.

how silver and august the marine waves -

don't chastise me for flying defiantly

through a beautiful world whose spirit

comforts me, and carries me ever home

Summer’s ever so busy. People bustling like bees, believing this to be the season of flowers, nectar, and dreams. And I’m behind where I thought I’d be, and ahead. Every day breathes so carefully, like a child behind a late-night couch where their parent watches tv, knowing they should be in bed, but needing, feeding on the closeness and love of unknown proximity. Life is tilting, and every time I shift my feet, everything else shifts. But I’m thankful.

Everything is a balancing act, and I’m trying to decide how to best navigate the things in life I need, want, and provide. And which should be first? I always consider my giftings as the most important, but that should not always be so. Perhaps never so, over my own needs. But what do I actually need? Most things are just wants. Other than food, water, sleep, warmth, and hope, what do I actually require for survival? My hope is in Christ, I’m well fed, sleep is iffy lately, but I’m certainly getting almost a REM cycle a day (maybe), and summer keeps me very warm. Everything after that is wants, cravings, and it feels greedy and selfish to ever expect those over provision for other’s wants. But perhaps this, too, is even not always so.

There is too little that is black and white that we try conforming into that dualistic picture. When we see greys and colors, we mentally try to collect them into black and white boxes for easier compartmentalization. Ems and I discussed this for a moment after watching Les Mis, when contemplating the suicide of Javert. When black and white justice acquires some semblance of grey, when Jean Valjean displays kindness, mercy, and humanity, Javert loses his pedestal of righteous judgment. His divine purpose is twisted, and his entire life’s compartmentalization is unboxed, and like the Greek story of Pandora, all his fears and nightmares are released.

Little is actually black or white, but that’s still what we pretend to see. I, in particular, want a simple trigger clause for activity and love, though such things cannot be applied. If so-and-so situation is this, follow this list of directions; if so-and-so does this, reply with these exact words. I don’t want to be a machine, but I sometimes internally fancy a set of machine instructions. What a silly world I’ve constructed for myself.

And summer is ever so busy with the musings on such topics, and the movements of life. Life is dancing, running away, and flirting with my consciousness in such a way that I’m ever confused, bemused, and craving more. 

Diagrammed Life

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/diagrammed-life/

You plot out your dreams, and layer schemes until every possible point is mapped, webbed, diagrammed into a sunset-reality with wildflower hills rolling into a swooping valley and a whispering stream, and the evergreens and weeping willows glow in the aging sunlight and the quaking aspens have burst into an autumn gold – and then the sky falls, and lightning cracks like a whip. The storm canter-claps across the heavens and hail hammers into the country-side like the hoofs of a great and dreadful beast.

But the sun dawns again, and the flattened flowers rise and bloom, and the grasses hold up their heads and answer Whitman’s question so sagely and wise that the stream is almost silent, pensive over the stones. Time is just this, no? Where the raging stream widens and slows, then stumbles into a slope and races and falls and flies into a waiting pool, where it sits patiently, and ambles towards the ocean as a drunken bloke, speeding up and slowing as the earth leads.

I’ve lost track of time. I came into this past month realizing my intentionality, my process, and knowing the sequence of my life as surely as a machine. My instructions were already lined up in the processor, awaiting the machine to stamp each tape deck, nod at the instructions, and calculate the function. But now what?

Providence, divine, has sewn wings onto my arms while I sleep, and the wind now carries me aloft, and I’ve no control, little control, over the breeze that sails my over the trees. A first house, a first girlfriend, a first time for many responsibilities, and life is overwhelmingly beautiful, but overwhelming. These are not, I’ve discovered, exclusive in the slightest. I think they resonate so intricately that they cascade, rebound, and reverberate until the echoes resound loudly in the ears of time.

I'll love you always

How can you say, “I’ll love you always,” without crying? What instance of life must such words be used, with what persuasion, that tears are not implied? And the floodwaters rise, tonight, as I whisper these goodbyes. I’ll love you always.

Is someone dying, or leaving for a distant place, or hurting in unfathomable ways? I’ll love you always.

Is someone furious and threatening departure, or foreign to such words and ways, or depressed? I’ll love you always.

These are the words of Christ, dying for us, the words of Stephen as he’s stoned, the words of the father stolen away from his son, or the boy going to war, or friends setting sail for the new world, or two friends estranged by the beliefs of their fathers, or the tragic tale of two lovers in warring factions – I’ll love you always.

And these are the words on my life, as friends never forgotten set their weary feet upon far-reaching trails and step away, into the horizon, into the rising sun, into the wandering deserts and a promised land – I’ll love you always.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/ill-love-you-always/

Agrarian Things

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/agrarian/

All around me, sinking ships

shipwrecked into sidewalks, streets,

jettison your hold, you are driftwood

swimming down like a sinking stone -

how many have lost their way from the sky

now swallowed by the earthen bones,

the mighty maw of urban night -

the gravestones windowed and tall

house a thousand, million souls,

with bent backs, ambling, they pretend

they are not yet dead

and only here are they,

for passing over the waters into the breeze

the green, gold, and red will resurrect

those who leave their steps behind

set sail on this dingy life into eternity

holding hands and barely breathing

I feel like our culture is consistently trying to be convincing. Through advertisements, arguments, doctrine and indoctrination of the media, politics and picture portrayal, we're stamping our persuasive arguments at every passerby. Who are we trying to convince of our rightness? I think, often, it's more ourselves than others. Convinced we've chosen the correct, the healthiest path; convinced God will respect our decisions, or forgive us for them even though we persist in faulting; convinced that each step is valid, sound, and permissible in the eyes of ourselves, our audience.

Is it possible to miss that which you never had? I, too, try to be convincing to myself. Sometimes I'm convinced I miss the times of community, in humanity's youth: the pastoralists, the nomads, the tribes, the polis, the smaller feudal towns. More, I miss the concept of the Amish, where community, tradition, and holding tight to values is captured perfectly in intentional love and family. I miss the wildness of the world, the time where warriors fought for theology, not money, and the whimsy of birds on the wind free.

Everything and everyone attempts to convince me otherwise, but I’m holding onto these things, the countryside and the wildflowers. Don’t swallow the arguments whole or you’ll find yourself spit on a hook and dragged to where your gills can’t breathe. 

These Hands

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/07/these-hands/

As I lied, I lied

tears shook your shoulders while you cried:

please stop, and hide the truth no more -

A ghost, poltergeist, an echo at most

left behind when you’ve carved out hope

replacing dreams with ash and lime;

traipsing down the somber street side

blithe and blank with an empty face

no matter the distance down aching lane

turn around and you’re home again

beside a hearth-whole fire

safe inside these walls

It’s amazing how little distance you must travel to find people hurting. We assume missions are necessary to Africa and Eastern Europe, or dangerous places for Christians like China or the Middle East, but plenty of hurt sits next to us on the bus, at the dinner table, or even on the church pews - perhaps especially on the church pews.

And how do you address such pains, the problems not of meals and poverty, but of internal poverty and spiritual starvation? How do you address depression, anxiety, loneliness, anger, despair, a lack of self-confidence, doubt, pain, or stress? These things our individualistic society has told us to bury deep within our psyche until they are embedded in our personality, entrenched in our existence, when a person cannot separate their identity from stress, pain, and the horrors of ill-relationship.

And I’m an introvert, tentative with hands of healing, shy with words of comfort, timid with grace and mercy, wordless with exhortation, bashful with blessing, hesitant with hope and helpfulness. How do I extend hands that are stuck in my pockets, and how do I open eyes that are self-consciously staring at my toes, and how do I love when my heart hides in my sleeves?

Holy Spirit move in me; a susurrus of wind and wave that washes me from head to feet, and dresses me in neat white linens, and sets me free to serve and be, and be wholly loving.

These hands that have taken, let them give; these feet that have wandered, set them true; these eyes that have judged, let them cry with mercy and grace.

Gentle Summer Love

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/06/gentle-summer-love/

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

Out of the night that covers me,

      Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

      I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

      Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Sunny days pierce me as surely as biting winds, colliding with my soul and warming me. It’s as though I’m sitting beside a fire with my friends, the cool wind nipping at my neck but my eyes are mesmerized by the embers bright, and the sparks like shooting stars fired back at the heavens – I’m warmed and unafraid, the master of my destiny. And love surrounds me in just such a way, the intense fragility (nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals / the power of your intense fragility - cummings) of our spirits strengthened like a three-cord rope (And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart – Ecclesiastes), until we are more than the things we bring.

There is peace in this world, and anger. As the sun rides high over the sky, and sets in pumpkin and cranberry sauce like a thanksgiving spill, the storms of night linger over distant Europe, tearing snow up from the mountains and dashing it violently against the rocks. The herbivore quietly nibbles at flower stalks while the predator stalks the prey, and what shall we say, when the beast survives? That the world is not beautiful? But see the petals, the roses, the sky, the mountains striking even in the night where only their shadowy silhouettes frame the horizon.

Tonight, I’m enveloped in loving-kindness, and shipped into sleep, praying the waves are gentle, else I might wrestle with the good night.

Entitlement Rant

Our culture has really adopted, and swallowed whole, a sense of entitlement. In Christianity, we say a few words and claim an entitlement of love, grace, protection, hope, and kinship with the creator of the universe; in friendship, we imagine our contract of mutual care ensures an entitlement of mercy, grace, forgiveness and love, even when we grossly overstep our bounds without remorse.
I hate this word, and equally I despise its connotations. Sanctification does not come from an empty proclamation of faith, but from an abiding belief. If your personal convictions of immorality and choices are stronger than your belief in the divine, your faith is empty. Are you not Judas, trading sanctity for coins? If your desire to sin, to cross the line, to ignore the laws of righteousness are stronger than your faith, what IS your faith in? Yourself or Christ? And if God does not grant you justice, can you really blame him? If you decide morality, surely you can impart your own justice? If you have set yourself up as your own god in life, aren’t you to blame for its misfortunes?
Friends, too, do this same thing. “I don’t mind lying, betraying my friends by abusing their trust and kindness, but I consider it a personal affront if my friends return the favor.” Entitlement then conceives an anger, a bitterness like that Blake spoke of in the poem A Poison Tree.
Let’s say for a moment you’ve made a mistake with someone whom you love, or claim to love. There are some options: confess the mistake and root out the mistake before it flowers and grows, or conceal it, nurture the mistake and water it until a poisonous tree grows up betwixt the love, and when it is noticed, your entitlement claims it is the other party’s fault, or tries to conceal it again. You see, those people will find out those things eventually, whether you will it or no. Perhaps you’ve chosen to conceal it, and when they find out, you pretend that you thought they knew all along, and so you initiate another lie to replace the first. You are the Johnny Appleseed of Poison Trees.
So, who are you, then, having planted so many poisonous trees amidst your relationships, to claim entitlement in these relationships? Perhaps if you had behaved respectably yourself, you might merit a little grace, a little forgiveness, a little kindness, but having behaved atrociously can you expect the other party to protect your abuse of their love?
As a simple example, if you lied, can you really feel entitled to know the truth your friends carry when you’ve lied? If you haven’t kept a secret, can you feel entitled to be told them? Entitlement is foolish, but I’ve seen it so many times throughout my life, often coming to the fore in passive-aggressive self-righteousness.
I know that as a friend and someone who loves, it is my job to forgive and love, even if I’m hurt. But there are limits. If a friend lies to me, or betrays my trust, even having forgiven them, I’m less likely to trust them in the same capacity, the same circumstance as before. And if I’m betrayed twice, or they justify their betrayal, doubly so.
If you were a knight and betrayed the knight’s code, can you really expect the all-knowing monarchy to protect you when you find yourself in trouble? Especially if you are unrepentant of your trespass, and perhaps continue to break the code daily (without remorse)?


On the flip side, there are many around me with enduring kindness, endless selflessness that I cannot help but return. Love is contagious. When a friend hugs me, I want to pass on that hug to the next person I see. When a person shares a truth with me, heals me, listens or speaks reassuring words, or comforts me in pain or sorrow, I can’t help but be a prism for that light.

If I'm hurt, this doesn't mean I'll deliberately be vindictive and full of vengeance, either. I hope I'm the very opposite. But it does mean I won't leap into making the same mistake twice.

I was thinking about entitlement today, and just was disgusted with its use. I think passive aggressive natures are my least favorite, and I’m no stranger to acting them out myself. So this was a bit of a rant. And so on.

But I know that in the end I need to be more forgiving, more graceful in reply. It's a vicious cycle otherwise. Instead of repaying with vindictive hate, anger, revenge, or petty cruelty, I need to be loving and patient, even especially when those who have hurt me know what they've done, and may even continue to exacerbate the circumstance. But even as I love them, I'll likely protect myself from future pain; even as I love them and extend the grace of God their way, if I choose not to return to them first when I need comfort or love, it is this, the poison tree, that stood in the way

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/06/entitlement-rant/ 

Flux

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/06/flux/

I read an article recently on divorce, whose author suggested that America's concept of marriage is tremendously skewed into believing you are marrying an instant of a person, a daguerreotype. People change, year by year, day by day, moment by moment, and if you love someone as an instant, as a trophy mounted on the wall, it's no wonder that divorce rates skyrocketed. There's no value in a person as a person, but only a value in the haloed, sanctified idol we’ve replaced them with.

I’ve never been in a relationship before (until now!), but I can’t tell you how excited I am to change, and see change moving through us as we grow in relationship, Christ, and simply as persons.

An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said that no man ever steps in the same river twice. He invented the concept of “flux”, the constant shifting of things, organic and inorganic. There is a hint of truth in his words, in that things are constantly changing, new molecules pass down the river instant by instant, and experiences mold the clay that makes a woman or a man. But there is some quality, a consistency of being, that stays.

Life, being, persons, everything is in flux, perhaps, and it is this which makes the “daguerreotype love” so precipitous, and enduring love so beautiful, even divine.

Your first love for somebody can last ... but it changes too after promises have been made and time as passed and knowledge has come.
Wendell Berry (in Hannah Coulter)

At the same time, the rustling zephyr canters

Through the leaves of trees and pushes clouds

Across the countryside, a gentle scythe over wheat

It transforms fields into a great, golden sea;

And a newspaper tumbles like a wheel of weed

Down soggy streets whose only light bounces down

From building window to window until it drowns in the road

And makes alchemy of oil, puddles, and spilt drinks;

And the clever man tips back his tumbler and taps his feet

To the beat of the jazz hands stumbling up the bass, down the piano

While a hundred classy customers celebrate with feast and dance;

And the same stars rise, climb, and fall where a boy sits

In the hospital and glances out the screen, remembering

That in the relativity of things, the heavens are a great eternity

Tonight was soccer night, coffee night, and the beginning of the weekend. There is nothing like soccer to end a week – I wish every night ended thus, sometimes: the adrenaline, the friends, the grass between my toes, the goals, the smiles, the joy at understanding how to run and kick and play.

The Cowled Mount

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/06/the-cowled-mount

At times like these, I feel I’ve unfettered feet, and more than perhaps two. I’m a centipede, marching mind thinking a hundred things, estranged from my own wandering shoes. I found the glory within, crawling over the pass and seeing the mountain, wearing no hood or cowl to match its name, but gleaming like a frozen font, a spike, a rigid canine, a snow-leopards ear. A valley swoops beneath me, the very land removed from under my rolling toes, and the curving wyrm of the land is like a Chinese dragon colored in wildflowers, a royal carpet sliding towards the sanctified Olympus.

And seeing that vision, the pinnacle of creative mass, I understand the inertia of love and the gravitas of sacrifice and sanctification, if only a little. I can feel the weight of it on my dreams, the deep, heavy sighs of the earth and I imbibe of the grace therein. I need everything, the nearness of it all and the prescience of divinity.

Tonight is the last day before my last best friend is married off. I found the most beautiful road in Newberg (well, I’ll hedge that with a ‘one of the’), and drove along a ridge facing Mount Hood, vineyards and grazing livestock filling the periphery with the perfect ambiance. I wonder whether my words are a subtle injustice, a slight on the majesty of creation. Does poetry only detract from true creativity, and music only a cheap substitute for the orchestra of creation? I cannot believe this to be true, as a general rule, but sometimes I cannot collect any words that portray the mountain, that harness the motion of the river, that captivate as surely as the woods, the rain, the clouds gloomy and playful over the starry sky.

I want to sleep, but my body fights me; I want to eat, but there, too, I’m refused; I want to imagine worlds and write poetry, to sing, play guitar, dream, and write beautiful things, but I’m stymied by an incessant farewell-love. It’s that inhibitive time where nothing can be done until I’ve done what must be done. I’m not the parents, but I feel as though I’m surrendering J and S to each other and to another place, just as I did Matthew, just as I did A and S, just as perhaps I’ve done countless times before, though each time with a greater piece of my heart to offer up.

So here I am, staring down a bag of chips and wondering if my pacing mind will focus enough to finish reading a book, or whether I might just sleep instead. I fear I’ll be stuck in a pasture without sheep to count, dear Olwen, but perhaps this is how all vigils should progress, in existential-quandaries of beauty, peace, and letting go.

There’s probably a Disney song about this. 

Abstraction

It was a busy day, but a great one, spent with CB. Among the many things we discussed, abstraction was frequently brought up as a necessity in our chosen - of late -  ventures of creativity and thought. CB loves historical reenactment, metalworking, shop-working, and many sorts of historically re-creative craftsmanship of a most excellent sort. If you willingly lend a listening ear and ask the right questions, his quantity and quality of knowledge in the area is seemingly boundless.
(Thank you very much for this, and hopefully again)
CB was explaining how he loves walking into various shops like pet stores, radio-shack type businesses, and other assorted businesses and just glancing at everything, locking it away in his memory. When walking through the pet store, he noticed a peacock feather, and noted how usable that sort of thing is in costume recreation; or a dog-ramp, and abstracting that into a means of easily loading equipment into the truck (if suitably weighted - and he mentioned constructing his own, simply abstracting from the designs of the given ramps).
I commented how it is this sort of abstraction that displays his love and aptitude for these creative shop adventures. He sees a piece of metal, and checks its tensile strength (ductility) and its type, and can infer information about how he might reuse those estimates in other projects making similar or dissimilar things. Don't I do the same thing with words (though with less practice and understanding)?
Both CB and I tend towards rational minds, and abstraction was a trained learning process, not a natural step in our thought patterns. I see a tree, and I see a web, and the tree is under no circumstances a web. However, when I abstract, I can marvel at how the branches leap out into a net of limbs and leaves, woven and draping over me, cast like I am the fish beneath the draping web, frozen in time. I'm terrible at this abstraction as yet, but the study of poetry has opened my eyes, showing me how the peacock feather isn't just that, it is a fountain pen, a tuft in a fancy hat, fletching, rainbow eyelashes, and so on. The universe of abstraction isn't just a vast array of stars in a night sky, but their constellations, stories, coruscation, and the dreams and whispers they share on breezy summer nights.

Exhausted

Mulled cider, pico de gallo, and stir fry, with snow, white as a funereal shroud, veiling the  ground outside, while the whistling wind scoops handfuls of powder, sprinkling it around again. I saw myself from above and outside, tonight, wondering who inhabited that skin, really, and where might they be going. Steps predetermined or arrayed before me - mulled, my thoughts, and swirling as the steam on this cider. It is lovely having friends who love, laugh, and entertain ridiculous nights over vegetables and rice and pressed apples. May there be an endless number of such.

Too tired for writing tonight.
Powells tomorrow,  and much ado.
I'm praying for you, each one. Rest easy this night.


Steam whirls and clouds the rim of this mug
Condensation and cold rebounds from the windows,
within and without, the snowflakes unique
all nestle into the same ground, roof, trees, shroud
the light in eyes is warmer than fire
please -
curl by the hearth near to heart
remembering in each flickering log
the sparks brightening, rise -
each distinct - and disappear
deep into grey
now the cider cools, I drink
the murky brink is clear - out of steam

Where are you going?

It's a question I hear a lot lately, whether internally or from concerned friends. Not that my life's direction appears disastrous, but due to the uncertainty found in a definitive lack of roommates in the upcoming year. Will I stay in Oregon? Will I retreat into Washington, or explore the world, or find new roommates, or buy a house? Just because everyone will be married does not mean my friends have removed themselves from my life, nor I from theirs. But my location is in question.
Still, the quietude, an ambiance not unfamiliar, is daunting, frightful. Part of me greatly desires living alone, knowing that I might accomplish much on silent nights. Another part of me understands that it may destroy me. Where am I going? Where do I go?
I think these questions assault me on these nights with a chill and empty sky, covered with blank clouds, when no one is home and the house is full of dead noise and electronic burrs. Once, twice a week, when silence sounds the gongs inside the wasteland.

I'd live in a log cabin if I could, in a forest by a stream. I'd live in a tiny house with a loft, skylight singing in the rain. I'd live in an abbey on a mountain, a cloister on the river bend, a yurt in the forest, a homestead in the hills. I just want to be with those I love, I guess. For now, that's here I think. Though I would like to see the rest of the world. I suppose I even have the means.

Tiny Houses

It's P and L's fault that I'm entranced with tinyhouses. Early this spring, P and L visited my house and we made dinner, walked through the orchards, watched the sunset, and pored over countless blogs of tiny houses. How easily was I swayed! Originally, I thought a nice tinyhouse on the cliffs of scotland, but realized how unlikely that dream might be.

I was born and raised in the country, so woods, mountains, streams, and gardens speak more of home to me than buildings and clustered community. I love community, I love fellowship, I love people and all my fantastic friends. I also love natural beauty and its serenity. I do not for an instant believe I must suffer a solitude of nature, but if nature experience is solitary, I suffer it gladly.
Tinyhouses always seemed ideal. I don't own many things. My "bed" is a mattress on the floor. I have three bookcases (four sorta), a desk, clothes, blankets, a guitar, and my work computer things. What else? I have some knick-knacks of course, artwork, gifts, and items valuable to me, but I can easily store everything in such a house. Only two best friends remain, and both will, likely, be married by next summer.

Now, instead of writing, I've spent about half an hour looking at tinyhouse blogs. My favorites are the ones like log cabins. Subsistence farming from a tiny house? Sounds like I'm turning into a Wendell Berry.

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry

Apple Juice Dreams?

A week ago, I discovered that drinking apple juice immediately prior to sleeping induces incredibly vivid dreams. Supposedly, it increases the production of acetylcholine which enhances memory and, potentially, dreams in brain activity.

This fascination with dreams, it is my roommates' faults. I thought it might be worth trying, as I love apple juice and I love dreams. I've had absurd dreams this past week, and last night's was no exception. It is worth repeating, however silly.

We were on a cruising ship on the outskirts of an island full of bridges that leaped into the ocean, falling into the sea. Our ship's engine was loud, though we had a sail raised also, and the wind pressed strongly into the cloth. The purpose of our voyage was simple whale-watching, and the boat was shaped as an extraordinarily large metal canoe, a tiny ironclad bobbing atop the waves.  As we sailed beneath the overhanging bridges, a giant humpbacked whale breached and soared into the air nearby, spouting as its entire length soared over the sea not twenty meters distant from our boat. Our captain was in shock at the proximity of the whales, and ordered our vessel slow, as traveling so close to whales is prohibited by law, he said.

More whales began leaping all around is, sailing through the air like flying fish, and striking poses as tourists snapped pictures madly. Then the captain panicked and said we must race for shore, because so many whales meant an attack, and we had to make it to shore before they ensnared our vessel in their clutches. So, with the wind surging behind us and our motors chugging, we steamed towards the nearest island. Then, as we passed beneath the arches of several majestic bridges, the whales began leaping beneath the ship, lifting it into the air on their backs so that the ship veritably flew over the waters.

We were running shy on time. The whales almost had us within the grasp, the captain cried.

Still, we could go no faster, as we now rode atop the whales' backs. And, soon enough, the captain was correct in his assessment. They lifted their flukes around our vessel, anchoring it in location just off the coast of a giant, temperate island.  Then, with a swish of movement, they flipped the vessel, and suddenly, somehow, we all stood atop the belly of the ship, trying to maintain our balance as the whales rocked the sinking ship. Those who could not maintain their balance fell into the water and swiftly swam for the safety of shore.  I managed to discover a technique that easily left me the last man standing on the boat, whereupon I leapt into the water, victor of a ridiculous game. 

Once on shore, we had a tiny canoe that appeared from nowhere and everyone thought was our original ship (though a canoe of that size would have held only 3 people, and we had ten or fifteen on shore). It quickly became apparent that night was coming, and if we did not find shelter soon, we would all freeze to death in the arctic temperatures of night. We began looking around for shelter, and I hurriedly let everyone know that I did not remember to bring my blanket. I would die once night fell, for I would freeze to death. I asked Matthew if he would share a blanket, and he said he had but one, and it was a tiny blanket.  The captain decided we should hasten and visit the hotel on the hill, and ask for blankets there. We ran up the hill and entered into the hotel, and a lady was cleaning the floors with a large brush. 

"Can we have some blankets?" Matthew and the Captain asked the girl. She looked at them gravely, angrily, and said, "No, I will not give you blankets. You'll have to freeze to death."

We implored her for blankets, knowing she had extras as the inn appeared empty. We even asked her for a room at her inn, and she refused us everything, even when we offered money for our stay. We decided that we were going to have to steal blankets, and left the hotel to formulate our mischief.

Then I woke up, just as we were about to return into the cold of night.

Words from Winnie the Pooh

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.

~ AA Milne - Winnie the Pooh

I'll admit a certain fascination with Winnie the Pooh as a child, though the Heffalumps and Woozels terrified me. There is something positively frightening about every ignoble character in every childhood movie I watched that forced me into watching from around corners. I couldn't watch the flying monkeys from wizard of oz, or stick around for the cheshire cat (still creeps me out, even in the book a bit), or numerous other baddies that rattled my bones with fright. Luckily, most childhood movies provide easy musical and visual cues (thunderstorms and minor chords) for indicating a scene wherein the villains are present: "time to hide behind mom" cues.

But I was looking through some Winnie the Pooh and stumbled across these gems. I love rivers, the snaking waters slithering down hillsides and mountains and stretching lazily across the plains on an adventure into the seas. Sometimes I remember these when playing Pooh-sticks on long hikes, or just when running along the riverbanks, or crossing the Columbia into Oregon or Washington, or when canoeing or kayaking, remember that I know everything needing knowing. It is like Keats said, though nature speaks fewer words:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all  

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

~Keats - Ode to a Grecian Urn

In those moments of beauty, watching the rivers and the mountains and the trees, all at peace, do I need know anything else? The Lord is near. 

And the second quote, which shames me sometimes in my busyness or impatience. It is like Abraham, when promised a son that is not forthcoming in many years, loses patience with God and goes in to his wife's maidservant. Sometimes that same quality of impatience is upon me, and I, without waiting on God's timing,  make a fool of myself and miss the mark. ...there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. Paulo Coehlo (author of the Alchemist and Veronika Decides to die - the latter is where this quote comes from) writes, "The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter." I'm forever leaping too early, or too late, and rarely listening to the whispering and shouting, beckoning and patient voice of Yeshua.  Wait. Listen. Leap into the arms of God.

I conceived a sunrise poem this morning, which I've temporarily named, "The dawn of day in beauty". In it, I discussed some of these ideas in verse, and I rather enjoy how it came out. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, a glad morning of fellowship and friends. I'm ready for the week, though patiently so. Let's go.

Lyrique

Thunderstorms rage outside as I listen to melancholy musique, tearing up at the somber poetry and its symmetric outpour. Do not decry those tears; rain seeped through the window into my soul. I pen, in the silence that is the storm.
Where I stay up all night / And all that I write is a grey grey tune
Even the dim light of this laptop screen draws moths towards the window - night creatures eager for light. The bats soon swoop in for the feast. A great silk moth latches onto the window, and in my fright, I thought it a bat. Are they here for the light or the shelter beneath the eaves?
Are you looking for answers / to questions under the stars?
Dimly, the street lamps flicker through the valley beneath, illuminating needles of heavenly weeping falling onto unyielding asphalt. The souls of a thousand faces, spread across countless spaces, struggling, fighting, praying. I imagine a web of intersecting colors, illuminated by the cracks of lightning splitting this sky, a network of all our spiritual supplications. I read the Genesis, I read Psalms 23, I read Philippians 4, and I read Revelations 22. Listen, the storm is a song.
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Dreams collide, dreams of balloons and skies and transparent goodbyes, but distant, distant, as though a painting of a photograph of someone else's lives. It is a speculum of silver and stained glass, showing clearly nothing of love and hope and love, and the drums of the stormy night rage unending, though it is not rage, but the humming of bass strings.
All I ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
Small rivulets burn their whispering paths down the hills into the valley, into the creek in the hammock of the hills. I suspect the salmon leaping upstream to love and death, inextricably bound, mind this not. I can hear their splashes, a counterpoint. A coyote howls, an owl shrieks, the creatures stand still. But not the rain. I smile, and wonder what whispers the wind to comfort the clouds. May those words be carried far and fair this night.
Won't you come away with me tonight? /  We can fly past the moon and the starlight
What the water wants is hurricanes,  / and sailboats to ride on its back
And I ride the storm into slumber to swim with the salmon, gallop astride the lightning, and follow these rivers unto the vastness of the ocean, so I may gaze in its reflection and witness the sky.

And then, there are no words. Only the weeping of violins as bows breathe across silver strings.

Ghosts of Faces

ghosts of faces are passing by
past they fly
could they be your friends, or mine?
or I theirs? - it's fine
for on streets or trails there's no goodbyes
for passersby living their own lives
rarely intersecting lines

and what of friends in different places
gone ten million paces
witness distant times
sharing but a moon and stars
of the sky's -
not ours
mountains here, desert there
forests and valleys
or dunes and seas

our times may meet but never, or twice
And your eyes say,
I love
I fly
my spirit's a dove
you'll never watch scrape the sky
nor the tears,
it cries,
of the endless phantoms you never meet
never treat for cups of tea
or campfire retreats
where rivers run besides
and their stories, well
you can never tell
they might have changed your life
might have loved, too
if only you, they, had chanced to say
who are you?

-----------
We celebrated my mother's birthday today. Surprisingly, the weather held. Here's to hoping it lasts a couple more days, so I might hike along the ridge or up a mountain on Wednesday. It does not look promising. We drove to the beach and went to a restaurant that mother dearly loves, and we all glanced out the windows over the ocean and into the water as the ducks paddled by, the jellyfish bounced their way through the waters, the seaweed drifted in its soggy swirls, and kayaks drifted by in the amiable waters. The sun gleamed off the waters and the windows of passing boats, fishing, drifting or sailing in the brine with sea breeze gently pushing at the waters.
Matthew is going to Korea, tomorrow, which is my last outside-the-house friend in Washington that I'm aware of (currently in the area discounting his family and my family - sorry if I forgot you). It will be quiet, perhaps, though I've long needed a little quiet. And how quiet is it really when the word games get crazy? When the card games with the family get joyful? Not. So. Silent.
Or when the coyotes howl with the distant neighbors huskies or when the wind races through the valley, stirring all the trees into frenzied whispers and wooden groans. It is a good sort of silence, and loudness. A restful set. Maybe I'll finish a few more books this week, too. Time for some creativity, time for some art, time for story magic and myth.

Homeward Bound

We played soccer tonight, and I managed to hit a girl in the face almost immediately. I felt TERRIBLE. So I played defense for half the game. Following the game, Peter and I raced for the swings and the ginger beer (no alcohol content, thankfully), and discussed our weeks. It was, perhaps, the hardest day of work I've had in some time. I had such a simple task, but could not seem to get anything to work. I basically had 10 hours of poor excuses for my boss today, because I may as well have been not working.
And tomorrow I'm going home (family's home).
I think I spent an hour thinking about what books I wanted to bring with me before I realized I should probably pack other things, too. Hopefully labor-day weekend traffic isn't abysmal. Anyway, when we finished soccer and swinging, Peter and I walked back to our respective vehicles, and Peter asked if he could have his keys back from my tote bag. However, his keys were not in there. It was getting dark (8:15? 8:30?) and was nearing nautical twilight. We scampered back out to the field and carefully perused the grass. I even took off my shirt and rolled through the grass, because we couldn't see anymore, hoping I might roll across his keys. I just got incredibly itchy. Frantic, we called D and asked if anyone else had picked up keys, and he said no, so we checked the cars again. D mentioned that sometimes smart phones have flashlight apps, so we could try that. I found a flashlight in my car and we used one of our phone's flashlight apps and began searching in earnest once more. It was astronomical twilight at this time. Without the flashlights, we saw nothing. We strafed across the field and eventually, on my way back, we found the keys.

We were both, in a sense, at the edge of our faith. We shared an extra ginger beer and prayer of thanksgiving before each driving home. It was near 10. Still, I'm thankful so much for friends that will roll about in the grass with you to find keys, and friends who will pray and share their deepest fears with you while swinging and drinking ginger "beer" while sitting on the backs of cars. It was a gentle reminder of rest and a difficult week finally finished. And now, in the morning, I'll be homeward bound.