flights tonight

today I've been listening on and off to the album "Blue Trees" by the band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, some songs from "From the Lion's Mouth" by Nedelle, some Raffi and some Brazilian music. I think sharing this stuff is a strange way of trying to get other people to enter my head without having to actually explain what's going on in it. Which, of course, will not work.

This week studies have been focused on the beginning of Time, the Creation event, the appearance of life. Amazing, amazing, amazing. So much we don't know. So much that God did in ways that we have never conceived of. Not as simple as we are often led to believe... and yet I think the greatest scientific law He set in motion was Love. And that element was most important to Him, too, even though He is the mathematical genius who set up all that thermodynamics, cosmology and geology discover about the universe. Otherwise Jesus wouldn't have lived the life, and died the death, that He did. Remind me to write something on here about the ten pre-Creation dimensions and how they relate to the presence of God. Very amazing stuff.

Longing for a beautiful place, for mountains, oceans, beach, sky, magnificence.
Made a t-shirt today.
Wondering why I don't really fit into the church as I continue to encounter it in the States;
knowing that much of it is my fault but not sure how to change myself.
Saw Polanski's Oliver Twist last night. Not bad.
Finished Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Enjoyable. Especially the chapter "December 2001: The Green Morning." Perhaps just because I am a treelover.
Quote from delightful little girl at daycare on Friday as we talked about the many countries in the world... "Why do they call them crunchies? Maybe because there's so many people and they get all crrrrunched."

drifting, dreaming, in an azure mood...

I'm learning over time what my heart-language is... it's the poetry of little things.

last night playing rummikub with my mom, wittily insulting each other as we have made our rummikub tradition (I took the cheese-approach, e.g. "Cheeseface". She took the leech angle, e.g. "leechlips.") ... and suddenly Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" came on and we inevitably broke into muppet-dancing. You know, arms outstretched, puppet-style, head back and mouth wide open, whole body bouncing. Man, that's a great song.
So these are the moments that sparkle. And they hurt a little in their magicalness, because everything passes...

Well, I think it’s time for another Voyage through Musical Space, courtesy of ye olde Archos Jukebox and its random mp3 selection capabilities.
Today it seems to be in a very relaxed and magical mood… let’s see what it comes up with.

1. Rufus Wainwright – I Don’t Know What it is
I must start with this one today…and as I listen, the reasons reveal themselves like happy surprise fireworks (that sounds like a Japanese product – happy surprise fireworks) .
This song captures perfectly the feeling of the last dream I had this morning…my friend Bonniemunchkin was in a wheelchair, and was leading a parade (at Disney World, Bonnie! :-) )… and a group of evil people were trying to find her and claim her. I had to reach the end of the street and get to her first…flinging myself through buildings and under railings, with the help and support of some guy whose face I never saw…I did get to her first, and all was well. I woke up with a sense of adrenaline, purpose, companionship. Strange.
My favorite line…”is there anyone else who has slightly mysterious…bruises…”
And then there’s the line that I hear dear, wise Melissa in… “Is there anyone else who is through with complaining about what’s done unto us…”
And then it makes me smile to hear Rufus sing “chugging along”…because my dear brother has recently used that phrase to refer to himself, and it makes me laugh because it’s such a stolid, proletarian phrase for philosophical Popo to use…
And of course, I will always, always hear you, my Melanie, in this song. It’s one of our songs…that line "you gotta be there"...that's about you.

2. Claude Debussy – Nuages
Beautiful. I should read more about Debussy. I think I’ve read about him before but probably have blocked it all out of long-term memory in favor of my imaginary vision of someone who could write such delicate, breathtaking stuff as this cloudmusic.

3.Mary Poppins soundtrack – Stay Awake
Though the world is fast asleep…though your pillow’s soft and deep...

4. Cliar – The Para Handy set
This is a group I heard live in Edinburgh, Scotland. They sing in Gaelic and they are quite magical. Like elfincreatures singing, but after a draught of ale in a warm pub. Maybe. Or maybe just like really talented Scottish people.

5. Carousel soundtrack – What’s the Use of Wonderin’
What’s the use of wondering if the ending will be sad…

6. ‘Wonders of China’ narration from the Circlevision360 movie at Epcot, Disney World.
I love these things!! They are the experiences that first made me believe that the real world could be magical, and though they make the world of travel look like a comfortable dreamworld, still, still, they are right in some way—maybe it’s what travel should be. “The Li River winds like a silver snake/through scattered dragon’s teeth/Whoever looks on this loses himself in eternity.”

7. Lawrence Welk orchestra – South Rampart Street Parade
Enjoyable as ever, Mister Welk and his strange, cultish little happy family of pleasant singers and dancers clad in bright orange gowns in flammable fabrics.

8. Styx – Fooling Yourself (the Angry Young Man)
Don't you feel kind of embarrassed for the Styxguys when you hear this song? it’s so naïve and innocent and...sweet. Did they intend it to be tough and rock-ish? “How can you be such an angry young man…when your future looks quite bright to me…”

9. Beach Boys – Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
Oh Jukebox. You are in such a charmed mood today. :-)

10. Gustav Holst – The Planets: Saturn
I love this suite.

11. Bert and Ernie – Upside Down World
I hope you’ve seen “Follow that Bird.” I think it’s really cheap on dvd. Go buy it. Now!
“It all looks so funny that I’ve got to frown…’cause a frown is a smile when you turn upside down…”

12. Gone With the Wind theme
13. snippets of Satie and Stravinsky (Rite of Spring), respectively. Short ones.

14.Willy Wonka (the original one) soundtrack -- Wonkavator (End Title)
I think this is pretty much the most happifying track on my whole jukebox. “Hold on, everybody…here it comes!” CRASH… and they’re soaring over Charlie’s village. Perfect.

15. Jim Croce – Time in a Bottle
“I’ve looked around enough to know/That you’re the one I want to go through time with…”

16. Lauryn Hill – Oh Jerusalem
Good, good songs on the Unplugged album. This album is such a unity, I don’t like listening to the songs when they come up on random. But for today I’ll make an exception.

17. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – They Can’t Take That Away From Me
I think this song is pretty much permanently etched on my musical memory, in every detail.

18. Allison Krauss – Jewels

19. Audra McDonald – Come Down From the Tree
The songs she chooses for her albums are lovely meldings of lyric and melody. And her honest singing makes them even better.

20. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Submarine Voyage full ride audio, from Disneyland… man, this is good stuff. That all-knowing Captain Nemo voice speaking to you through the speakers as you press your kid-nose up to the cold, foggy round window, fully believing that you’re about to be submerged miles below the surface…“Dive! Dive! All ahead full, steady as she goes…on our voyage through liquid space.”

21. Tangerine Dream – Fairies
22. Cat Stevens – The Wind
23. Ella and Louis – A Foggy Day
The Archos is sort of limited in its selections today, but I don’t mind…the last time I sang this song, I sang it with an Icelandic girl, bumping along a dirt road in Ghana in the dark, with a 7-year-old Ghanaian girl with a German name on my lap. Oh, world. And oh, the little ways God reaches into strange places with bits of Home that he knows we need.

And on that note, we’ll shut down for now. No, wait, there’s a certain song we have to end with…
24. The Jam – A Town Called Malice
Go, Billy!
And Mel, I love you forever.
Always be yourself.

Every burden shall be lifted...

So I'm not sure how to communicate what God gave me by taking me to Ghana, at least not on a blog. But I can't imagine just skipping over that here, odd and inconsistent outlet for random thoughts though this has been... so I am just going to go ahead and post a copy of the letter I just wrote to thank the people who have blessed me with support and prayer to make the trip happen and flourish... it says what I want to say.

I am listening to the Innocence Mission album "Befriended." Do give it a listen. Especially the song "Look for Me As You Go By." All of it, though... this music speaks peace into a confused and tired mind tonight.

Anyway...Here's the letter. Some of you may get it in the mail, too. :-)

"Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28b-31)

Red dust coating my sandaled feet; the feel of a child’s hand in mine; bright-heat days and cool-breeze evenings. The musical sound of a laugh from the throat of an otherwise silent little girl. The whispers of fifty people praying at once merging into a wave of God-focused sound. The rustle of sleeves as a deaf woman leads a signed song of worship with graceful hands, her eyes closed, her smile radiant. . . These moments will never leave me. And as I thank God with all my heart for them, I also have you to thank, dear family in Christ.

Thank you for your financial and prayer support of my trip to Ghana with Handi*Vangelism Ministries International (HVMI). God has blessed me immeasurably by taking me to Ghana and letting me see Him in His people there. He multiplied the blessing by ten thousand by sending Melissa McDevitt with me; I wish you all knew her, and I hope you, too, have the blessing of such a steady, patient, inspiring, funny, wise and God-loving friend in your life!

Over the past four weeks, things have not always been easy—are they ever? J But through all the challenges of interacting cross-culturally, through our frequent confusion about what was going on and what our role should be, through every low and high moment, Melissa and I felt the love and presence of God. I know that your prayers were being constantly answered. He carried us through by infusing us with simple, inexpressible peace—and He gave us one another to lean on.

The first ten days of our time in Ghana were spent at Handi*Vangelism Ghana’s annual Deaf Camp Meeting, held this year in the rural Volta Region, at the Volta School for the Deaf. The camp included daily Bible studies, teaching and discussions, as well as local outings, sports and lots of dancing (the deaf campers and staff were amazing dancers! It was so beautiful to watch them express the rhythms and joys God has put within them, as they participated in Ghana’s very musical culture regardless of their “disability.”)!

After camp, we returned to the H*V Ghana ‘Rehabilitation Center’ in Accra. Over the next 11 days there, we were introduced to the various key areas of H*V Ghana’s ministry. We participated in services at Hope Community Chapel, the church H*V Ghana has established in the Center to serve as a beacon of Christ’s love in the community. We played with the children who are living at the Center (all children of parents who live on the street, usually children of people with disabilities) as they wait to be placed in foster families or reunited with estranged family members. We went to the streets and met some of their family members and many of the people who participate in H*V’s weekly street fellowship service. We saw H*V’s new land, where they plan to build a newer, larger ministry Center, with space for on-site vocational training and disability training for churches and individuals from all over West Africa.

At a gathering of H*V Ghana staff in Accra, I shared the verses that appear at the top of this letter. These words of Jesus are my favorite verses because of the hope they give me: hope about who God is—He is love. And hope about my life on this earth—when the busy, title-focused world overwhelms me with its to-do and should-be lists, I cling to the words and example of Jesus: to love is enough. These verses have come alive to me over the past year as God has proven to me His unconditional love for even me. As I began to believe in that love, He began to fill my life with opportunities to learn to love others as He does. This trip to Ghana has been for me a culmination of so many lessons and so many dreams. To love is the greatest thing. It is what Jesus did—and does. And it is how I will spend my life.

In the ministry of the men and women of H*V Ghana, and the staff (composed of both deaf and hearing people) of the Deaf Camp, I saw the same heart that God has given me. I saw people ministering with their whole lives, in the everyday, not just through official jobs and scheduled events. I saw a place that people are drawn to because there they find truth, acceptance and unconditional love.

How can I put in words for you how happy God has made me in and through this trip? I can tell you that I am praying to return to Ghana and the ministry of HVMI, if it is His plan for me. A big part of my heart is there; maybe it always has been there, waiting for me to come find it. There is such a clear need—children who have no one reaching lovingly into their crucial growing-up years; this is work for the Body of Christ. I don’t know what God has in mind for me; but as I’ve seen His plan so far, just a step’s worth at a time, He has proven over and over that He knows and loves me better than I ever could. So my eyes are on Him…not on me.

For now, as I go back to work and studying in the States, I want so much to thank you for your love, your support, your encouragement. God has used you to answer my prayers in ways better and deeper than had ever asked or imagined. I pray that each of you will experience the blessing of loving others more and more this year—and that you will know what a blessing you have been to me.

In Jesus,
Kate.

dreaming of Africa...

Just wanted to let folks know I've arrived safe and sound. Back in the States yesterday, back to Texas this afternoon. It may be awhile before I get caught up on email...
Thank you a million times over for your prayers and encouragement. My time in Ghana was deeply wonderful, a colossal gift from God. I can truly say that I love it there-- as Keith Green would say, "you put this love in my heart"... and I am praying to go back.
More to come, either here or in emails.
love to you all.

"I am not looking to be understood anymore...I want to understand."

Have you seen the movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon," about St. Francis? Recommendation of the day. I am eager to read some good stuff about Francis when I get back.

I am leaving TX on Sunday afternoon, headed for PA for one night, then flying out of NYC on Monday night...with a (too-short) stop at London Heathrow, then a landing in Accra, Ghana.
Thank you for your prayers; a priceless Christmas gift they are to me. Pray that I will listen and obey the Holy Spirit in all things at all times, and that I would radiate the goodness and love and truth of God in ways beyond anything I could ask or imagine or generate. With openness to learn and a mind following Jesus' track for it.

Please pray for the kids I'll be meeting, too. And the dear kids I'm leaving behind!
Merry Christmas and happy new year, one and all. God's peace and the the riches of poverty be yours until we meet again.

Particularly for a girl in the Ukraine who digs music...

So I'm going to turn the venerable old Archos Jukebox mp3-er on and set it to 'random' and see what it sings...I shall just let it run till I have to leave for work.
let's boogie.

1. Town Called Malice (The Jam) -- any good session has to start with this, no?
2. Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat (Mozart)
3. The Phony King of England (from Robin Hood)... and down with that scurrrrrvy Prince John!
4. I'm Troubled (Flatt & Scruggs). Good banjoing.
5. Rain Must Fall (Queen)... oh, Mel, I could just see you tapping your feet Billy-style to "Don't Stop Me Now" on a Ukrainian bus. Delightful.
6. Someone to Watch Over Me (Chet Baker). Chet Baker, James Dean and my dearest brother are somehow linked in my mind.
7. Free--Take My Life (Jill Paquette)
8. Here with Me (MercyMe)
9. Limes (Little Women ST)...from you, Mel! :-)
10. Mr. Yunioshi (from the Breakfast at Tiffany's ST)... have you seen the movie? Mr. Yunioshi is a staggeringly embarrassing part of it. :-)
11. The arrival of Tinkerbell (Hook ST; wow, we're on a soundtrack roll)... also from you, Mel-o. You know, for many years of my childhood I could not fathom that Captain Hook and Dustin Hoffman could possibly be the same person.
12. It is Well With My Soul (Hymns in the Vineyard)
13. When Summer Ends (ST of Lewis & Clark documentary). I love PBS documentaries that pick you up and make you an invisible participant in another world within the world.
14. We Are What You Say (Sufjan Stevens). This man makes good music. First song I heard was "Holland" while on a roadtrip with Popo; we went to Holland, Michigan, where we were born. I think Sufjan takes the title for best Holland, Michigan song of all time. I'm not sure he has any competition there, but even if he did, he'd take the title.
15. As I Love You (Carmen McRae)
16. Playmate (Willie Nelson)...what a great album 'Rainbow Connection' is. Willie's voice is like a homey shed to live in. The best of forts.
17. When You're in Love (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ST). Tak...
18. On the Road to Find Out (Cat Stevens)
19. I Love to Boogie (T. Rex) Okay, so I cheated and picked this one on purpose, but it's almost time for me to leave for work and the Archos missed the boat on this one.
Goooo Billy! Spin it!

Okay, I'm off to "work," or as I like to think of it, "chatting with two-year-olds."
keep dancing.
i love you forever; always be yourself.

where the treetops glisten...

what. on. earth. Snow. Are you kidding? So it's more like a sheet of glazed snow coneage. More ice than snow. But it is officially snow. It is making driving impossible. And it is here. In Texas. I didn't think it was possible for snow to fall anyplace I call home. This is new. Apparently I am not a human heat wave. Merry Christmas!

One of the coolest people I know.

You meet the greatest souls working in a daycare.

He's always been faithful.

I saw somebody this weekend that I hadn't seen for a long time; just ran into him at Starbucks. I won't bore you with all the details but it rattled me somehow, made me look back at the last five or six years and I suddenly got scared. This guy is in his first year at Harvard med school. He was wearing the Harvard t-shirt and everything--the whole 9 yards. :-) We were old school rivals in a way, back in the day, and we've taken such different paths since then. It was weird to see somebody 'grown up' after several years, yes, but something more than that shook me up inside and I couldn't shake it...

It's not that I'm ashamed of the path God's taken me on since high school. Working for Wycliffe in Canada and the U.S., traveling North America and Europe, Bible school at Capernwray in England, time in the Philippines with God and my grandfather, precious time with my family, cementing my best-friendship with my brother, counseling at Handi*Camp and now going to Ghana for a few weeks to minister to kids with disabilities there, my job here working with kids I love profoundly... there are so many things I wouldn't have missed for the world, and some very, very precious people that I would never have given up meeting. And I'm happy with the distance-ed program I'm doing now to get the infamous degree.
I used to struggle with feeling inferior because I didn't take the "normal" path. But now I think of who I would have been if I had kept my nose in the textbooks and gone straight from academic pressure in high school to academic pressure in college for four incubatorial years (is that a word?)... and I know it wasn't the right place for me. It wasn't God's place for me. And it wouldn't have made me more like Him or showed me what I was supposed to see of Him. Which is all that matters.

Back to the guy. Running into this guy scared me not because I'm really ashamed of the last five or six years, but because I am aware (and ashamed) that I have not been living up to those years recently. It took me some serious reflection to figure this out.

I don't have a 'field' yet. I'm not three years from becoming a surgeon. I'm not sure what I'm here for specificially. But I know WHO I am here for, and I have not been living up to that with all my heart and soul and passion. I was unsettled by this encounter because I suddenly felt unambitious and sedentary. I have been passionless and robotic lately. Meeting up with this guy and looking back on my past five years helped me to realize once again that I am excited about God, and that is who I am. That is who He has made me through the odd variety of things He's taken me through. And I need to express my gratitude for the gifts of the past five years by being unashamed and living out the lessons with joy. With all the energy and excitement and strength that other people pour into their goals.

Just because I don't have a specific earthly goal of my own to be ambitious about doesn't mean that I can't be just as alive, passionate and confident as superstudents...I can be MORE so, because I get to be passionate about the Living God who is worthy of receiving ALL the combined weight, color and noise of ALL the earth's passions.

I'm not sure why I'm writing about this here, really; it's kind of personal and I'm still in prayer and thought about it. But for whatever reason, here it is. I guess I just want to shout that I'm AWAKE again (!) because God is worth shouting about!...God has given me some amazing lessons and experiences and people and places and trials and joys over the last few years, and I want to live up to them, seize them and share them and live out what I DO know, even though there is so very, very much that I DON'T know. It's time to stop focusing on my weakness, real and true though it may be, and begin focusing on His strength again. It's a fine balance, isn't it, remaining aware of your own weakness yet not wallowing helplessly in it? The strength of Jesus Christ is in me, and I am proud of that. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses...I think I ignore the words "boast" and "gladly" there too often.

So running into this very nice future surgeon helped to shake me awake from a stupor I've been in for weeks...God has some amazing and unexpected ways of working. I can be excited about and proud of what He's done in my life and where He's taken me.
This is long. And wordy. Shall I toss it out into the great unknown? Sure, why not.
God is so good. He is so forgiving and so beautiful and He is love and He is mystery and He is justice. I will live in the bright orange joy of that forever.

in celebration of the completely undeserved grace of God to me over the past five years; a quick fly-over...(with way too few pictures of important people and places...I don't have a lot on my computer :-) ):

the point.

do you fail all the time, spiritually?
I do.
do you disconnect with God and start living on autopilot, like a sleepwalker? I do.
do you sometimes just want life to be like your dreams, bizarre though your dreams may be, just because it's easy and there you just are, without choosing?
I do.
Are these necessary cycles? Am i "doomed" (destined?) to repeat them forever, just so I can come to Jesus freshly again? Maybe. Sort of.

Do we make a big enough deal of the fact that this is the POINT? The point of Christianity? That we fail and fail and fail again and are loved and forgiven and loved and forgiven, ad infinitum...?
Do those of us who are passionate about Jesus get so caught up in being 'revolutionary' and passionate that we forget to talk about this? So caught up that we forget to tell everyone at the rallies and the worship sessions that when they go home, they will fail? Have "passion for Jesus" and "vision" replaced "works" as the words that blind us to grace?

Maybe we should talk about our failing, acknowledge it, and spread the word that it is forgiveable, that it is forgiven every day, that it is taken into account in God’s mind long before He gave Himself up for us, and long before we decided to get ‘revolutionary.’
Revolutionaries weeping in miserable repentance…are there more of them out there?

Repentance is good. Conviction is from the Holy Spirit.
Hopelessness is not. Self-hatred is not. Giving up because you didn't live up to your own vision-- giving up to sink into a sleeplife--is not of Jesus.

How often do we really hear and get that this is the whole point: we will fail and God knew that and He loved enough to pay for it so He could forgive and we could live joyfully...over and over again. See, that makes me want to come back.

That makes me want to wake up: The father running out to meet His son, His daughter, not to scold, but to embrace and say "let's go on. I love you." This is the message we're spreading, this is why we can be joyful, not militant, in our passion for Jesus.

I keep learning this over and over again in a million different ways. Maybe someday it will sink in permanently and become the fiber of my being. We're all "disabled," folks. And no one's hiding it from God.

GOD talks about Himself.

"Am I only a God nearby,"
declares the LORD,
"and not a God far away?

Can anyone hide in secret places
so that I cannot see him?"
declares the LORD.
"Do not I fill heaven and earth?"
declares the LORD.

-Jeremiah 23:23-24

cottongrass in greenland

east of eden

I saw the Elia Kazan movie 'East of Eden' this afternoon. It's a film interpretation of Steinbeck's novel, which I haven't read; I imagine if I did, the people and atmosphere I would picture as I read would be very different from the film.

But that doesn't mean this isn't an excellent film. It really is. I'd say that's mostly because of James Dean, though the whole thread of thought about Cain, Abel, acceptable offerings, and the dangers of self-righteousness...that's pretty important as well. . . . . But there's something about James Dean. I found a commentator that I think captured it pretty well. (Does anyone care about this? It doesn't matter. I'm sharing it anyway... Maybe you've seen a James Dean movie and maybe you've been drawn to him. )

So the commentator (Rosey Golds) writes:
"...with traditional Hollywood actors or those from the British theatre tradition (Lawrence Olivier for example), you feel … safe. As if nothing can go wrong. You feel you're watching great art through a great 'performance'. And, oddly enough, this distances you from the performer. You simply don't have to worry about them. You know that even if something disastrous or humiliating happens to their character, they'll still manage to retain their dignity. Not so with James Dean.

Dean is authentically awkward, authentically demoralized. . .To watch the Method actor is to engage in voyeurism. To watch the Hollywood actor is to watch a 'presentation'. The Method actor's spontaneity, his deep introspection and vulnerability, the fact that he has drawn his character from his own life experience results in an audience genuinely flinching at what they see. James Dean was one of the best actors at making people flinch — and one of the best at being humiliated. It is this humiliation that is the key to his charisma."

I think that is a very good attempt at capturing the man and the character(s) he plays in words. He does make you flinch. Like real people do. People shouldn't be easy to 'figure out.'

Maybe if I am easy to figure out, I'm putting on a stock character instead of letting my unique and God-created character out. Like Hollywood acting vs. Method acting.
Sometimes I try too hard to make myself 'understandable.'

Toledo

from the Elvis Costello/Burt Bacharach song "Toledo"...

But do people living in Toledo
Know that their name hasn’t traveled very well?
And does anybody in Ohio
Dream of that Spanish citadel?

I like this bit o' songage; all the things it gives little glimmers of--the discrepancy between ancientness and history-forgetfulness, between Europe and America, the absurdity of things, the whole "would a rose by any other name smell as sweet" question...shifting identity and wistfulness for something else. Lots of stuff in a little paragraph about Ohio. Good job, Elvis 'n' Burt.

Go saddle the sea

Go saddle the sea, put a bridle on the wind,
before you choose your place.





















(I found this little quote in a book for young folk called 'Go Saddle the Sea,' by Joan Aiken. I've read a couple of her kids-ish books on the side for amusement and general non-televised entertainment lately. Anyway, back to the point. I don't know if this is a real proverb or one invented for the book, but it caught my imagination and my experience and clothed them in imagery. The whole idea of widening perspective in order to be able to see where and whom you truly are. It also makes me want to cross an ocean in an open boat with magical people.)

louis and lions

As I sit here with Louis Armstrong sailing through the air, hot coffee in my belly, the glow of a lamp against a gray and windy evening, and the joy of Jesus in the room...
A couple more thought-inducements from Charles Williams's 'The Place of the Lion,' before too much time elapses and I forget the spirit of the book:

Anthony considers going to the little club of dabblers in metaphysical philosophy, to talk to them about combating the descent of the Archetypes upon the world:
“Some of them might help: they couldn’t all want Archetypes coming down on them, not if they were like most of the religious people he had met. They also probably liked their religion taken mild—a pious hope, a devout ejaculation, a general sympathetic sense of a kindly universe—but nothing upsetting or bewildering, no agony, no darkness, no uncreated light.” (P.74)

How often is that me? Wanting the reality, the truth of God, of Jesus, to come in a watered-down, gentle sitcom-with-a-laugh-track form...something smaller than me... when really it is so much greater; really it is something than can swallow me whole. Something where I can finally lose myself in the beauty of my real purpose--worshipping the Greatest.

Anthony to Damaris about the REALITY of the situation, the REALITY of “ideas”:
“What I think is of no matter,” he answered. “Have I pretended it was? It’s the thing that matters: the truth is in the thing. Heart’s dearest, listen—the things you study are true, and the philosophers you read knew it. The universals are abroad in the world, and what are you going to do about it? Besides write about them.”
“Do you seriously mean to tell me,” she said, “that Power is walking about on the earth? Just Power?”
“Yes,” he answered, and though she added before she could stop herself, “Don’t you even know what a philosophic universal is?” he said no more.
(P.106)

Damaris is so sure that "ideas" are containable, are different from Reality. She will find out in a terrifying way that God is not just an 'idea.'
For now we see through a glass darkly...
face to face someday!!!

points of communion

places on the earth where God lifts the veil of everydayness from your eyes and you are stunned into silence by the way things really Are.

night after night
alone under a pink mosquito net
but not alone at all.
There You were.
And here You are.
(southern Philippines, October-November of last year.)

Charles Williams

have you read any Charles Williams? One of the Inklings--you know, "the C.S. Lewis group." I guess it could just as well be called the Charles Williams group. Anyway. His book "War in Heaven" has been an answer to prayer for me. Continues to be. Challenging and terrifying and wakening. Now I'm reading his "The Place of the Lion," which is more excerptable, so I want to share bits.

There is a character called Damaris; she's a scholar working for a Doctorate in Philosophy who plays around with ideas endlessly, writing papers and making diagrams and having discussions...but with no sense of the Reality behind those ideas. Until the Truth begins to break in on the visible world in a whole new way. Amazingly, there is someone who sees into the innocent, ignorant heart of this woman and loves her, even as she treats him very callously, as an 'idea'... These are his (Anthony's) thoughts on her at this time of incredible change in the universe:

“But she wouldn’t, she would go on thoughtfully playing with the dead pictures of ideas, with names and philosophies, Plato and Pythagoras and Anselm and Abelard, Athens and Alexandria and Paris, not knowing that the living existences to which seers and saints had looked were already in movement to avenge themselves on her. “O you sweet blasphemer!” Anthony moaned, “can’t you wake?” Gnostic traditions, medieval rituals, Aeons and Archangels—they were cards she was playing in her own game. But she didn’t know, she didn’t understand. It wasn’t her fault; it was the fault of her time, her culture, her education—the pseudo-knowledge that affected all the learned, the pseudo-skepticism that infected all the unlearned, in an age of pretence, and she was only pretending as everybody else did in this lost and imbecile century. Well, it was up to him to do something.”

from p.73 of The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams

eat a brownie, wear a cape.

When the weather changes, something goes funny in me. Does this happen to you? After months and months of feeling heat envelop me when I step out the door, suddenly--very suddenly--there is cold, and it seeps into the house and makes me wear socks and borrow a polar fleece cape of my mother's.

Something about the change...first it's exciting, a little unsettling but exciting...makes the world feel like something completely new. Knocks me off balance. Reminds me of Canada, of England, of Europe, of Pennsylvania. Places that I just pass through. It shocks me that the feeling of these places can penetrate where I live. Surely I should expect it by now, the switch from hot to cold. Yet it shocks me deep every time. Suddenly I can't seem to just get on with things as I normally do; I'm stumped. I wander around aimlessly. My hands are cold. That's weird. Basic questions about my own existence take the place of specific concerns and plans. I look at things that I'm supposed to do, or am planning to do, and I think 'what??' What are these things?

Cold makes me feel like there should be a special event tonight. A concert or a party or a family get together. Must be that Christmas instinct. On the planet Winter, I feel like an alien.

...And all this because it's dropped below 80F.
Don't laugh at me, people from cold places. It's been in the high 90s and the 100s here since forever.
time to eat a brownie.

happythought

I never thought that I could fly
Over the moon in ecstasy
But nevertheless, it's there that I'm
Shortly about to be...

I've got a golden ticket,
I've got a golden ticket,
I've got a golden chance to make my way...
and with a golden ticket, it's a golden day.