recent comings, recent thinkings.

" But I do not say stay well. I do not care if they stay well or ill. And nothing goes well with me. I am tired and lonely. Oh my husband, why did we leave the land of our people? There is not much there, but it is better than here. There is not much food there, but it is shared by all together. If all are poor, it is not so bad to be poor. And it is pleasant by the river, and while you wash your clothes the water runs over the stones, and the wind cools you.
Two weeks from today, that is the day of the moving. Come my husband, let us get the planks and the tins and the sacks and the poles. I do not like the place where we are. "

(Cry the Beloved Country. Alan Paton.)



the following poem is by Naomi Shihab Nye. from the book Come With Me: poems for a journey.

MAD
I got mad at my mother
so I flew to the moon.
I could still see our house
so little in the distance
with its pointed roof.
My mother stood in the front yard
like a pin dot
searching for me.
She looked left and right for me.
She looked deep and far.
Then I whistled and she tipped her head.
It gets cold at night on the moon.
My mother sent up a silver thread
for me to slide down on.
She knows me so well.
She knows I like silver.


[that poem is supposed to be shaped like a moon. i can't get it to line up that way here.]
do you think, with me, that those last lines speak rather powerfully about love? do they help remind you what it feels like to be really, quite and completely, loved? oh, I hope so.


I must tell you
that Alan Paton's book (Cry, the Beloved Country)
is a wonderwork! I'd not read it since high school. And it is a favorite,
not for fanciness or word-dancing, but for being so very complete. Such a whole. A whole story. It fits together perfectly. And it is so simple. Subtle about saying its say. You hardly know what themes you've been hit with until you're done with the whole book. (or maybe I'm just slow) but suddenly you see that there have been grand weavings done through all the small things,
and you've experienced something miraculous,
this interweaving of story into one big meal of redemption.
A son given; and then people may step outside of their own limited spheres, must take off their blinders, come together. And a new son, who is a hope.
Broken situations, big and small, national and local and very personal, all redeemed via suffering.
: "lovely beyond all singing of it."


if anyone's there reading this, can I ask you: What reminds you of what it feels like to be truly loved?

radiant pieces, pieces that glow.

I have this file, called 'Catching Written Bits,' in which I hammer out with my fingers, and mull over, and treasure special pieces of things I have read. Words I have met. And do you know, it's high time I scattered and spread the joy of them, time we shared the profundity captured in sentences crafted by sharp spirits; these nuggets are so valuable and precious,
and so now this treasure is to be yours too!

Here is today's,
from The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams ; a simple start ,
a good example of small paragraphs becoming wide windows all of a sudden.
I've bolded my favorite bit, but all of it contributes and matters.

“She would not go to bed, certainly not, but hot drinks—yes; and a hot bath—yes; and a complete change—yes. Drinks and baths and changes were exquisite delights in themselves; part of an existence in which one beauty was always providing a reason and a place for an entirely opposite beauty. As society for solitude, and walking for sitting down, and one dress for another, and emotions for intellect, and snowstorms for hot drinks, and in general movement for repose, repose for movement, and even one movement for another, so highly complex was the admirable order of the created universe.”

isn't that a lovely way to look at change? and at the simple changes that fill this day? one beauty exchanged for another,
again and again.
One of my favorite songs says :
"All the days of my struggle,
I will wait for my change,
I will wait for my change to come."

We are being changed -- "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory..."

We will be changed .
one loveliness for another, for a better and truer,
is the story of the world
do you think?



( image from artist Olafur Eliasson's exhibit, Minding the World. )

free!

the me is like a leech
that squiggles and screeches and screaks
p u l l i n g and p u l l i n g


oh the chipper, golden glory of even glimpsing
FreedomFromMe,
a life lived new-ly


-- Let's begin!