Who has seen the wind?

This little poem was introduced to me by someone (I don't remember who) when I was very, very small, maybe 4 or 5. It might have been at my Episcopal Montessori school. Poor Christina Rossetti. Nobody really likes her that much. Her poetry pales in comparison to her brother's creation, and it's true that much of it is infected with some of the most cringe-worthy attributes of Victorian sentimentality.

But this little poem stays with me. I remember the slowly dawning understanding as I took in what may have been my first experience of metaphor, as well as what might have been my first intellectual "understanding" of God.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Today, we've got a wind advisory. My office has a huge window - so tall that if I stood on the sill and raised up my hands I still couldn't touch the top. Through the opaque blind (I'm not really supposed to open it) I mostly see a bus stop. But there are two trees with their trunks out of my eye line, one on either side of the window. Their branches meet right in the middle of the frame, and the wind is rattling them pretty briskly.

It's fairly common knowledge that the etymology of "Spirit" comes from words for "wind" "breath", etc, from several languages. So it's not new. Wind is a good, old, tested metaphor for God, the Spirit. The bible's bursting with it.

"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
John 3:8

At least, before meteorology. Now we sort of know where it's coming from, and we sort of know where it's going, and we kind of know why it's doing what it does. But the physics of wind are fascinating and opaque to me. Where does all that energy come from? even if I understood the physics I still lack a Prime Mover.

Wind is very good for me. As soon as it starts up I feel better. That little Rossetti poem starts to hum in my head - it's like a spiritual lullabye. I always hear it and feel a little more okay about dealing with the existence of God. If I can believe in wind, I say to myself, then I can believe in God. And it's easy to believe in wind. I am not the least bit conflicted about it. As soon as it's windy, every moment I spend in it starts morphing into a small Sacred experience. Or at least, everything that happens to me in the wind transforms without protest into a metaphor for some part of the spiritual experience, and so I understand and experience things spiritually much more naturally than usual. I like watching what it does to trees, and to water, and to street trash. I love to stand in the wind. I love especially wind that's strong enough to make me doubt for a second my ability to stand upright. I like to lean forwards and backwards into gusts, and feel myself slightly buoyed up. I like fighting it for my clothes and papers and hair and umbrella. I like it when it wins, and snatches things away from me. I've never forgotten a bit of G.K. Chesterton I once read:

For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to have to run after one's hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running, and running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in games and sports. The same people run much more eagerly after an uninteresting; little leather ball than they will after a nice silk hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one's hat; and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic. It certainly is comic; but man is a very comic creature, and most of the things he does are comic - eating, for instance. And the most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most worth doing - such as making love. A man running after a hat is not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.

Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for certainly no animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to believe that hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the upper classes in the future. There will be a meet of ladies and gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning. They will be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in such-and-such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term. Notice that this employment will in the fullest degree combine sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that they were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people who were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily attitude were at that moment giving to the crowd.

At the risk of being crass, having never suffered horribily at the hands of a tornado or hurricane, I appreciate that the metaphor continues there, in the awesome, fearsome, old-testament ferocity and mercilessness of a Yahweh -- how the very same phenomenon that lightly ruffles a baby's hair, that's described as "caressing" is the same one that shatters lives into splinters. I appreciate that it's easy and natural to anthropomorphize the wind. I used to talk to it, and think it was "playing" with me. As I said, poems talk about the wind "caressing" something. Reporters talk of the "angry" and "punishing" winds. We name storms. I appreciate that this process helps us to deal with the phenomenon in ways we can understand, that it's the human way, irrelevant as our psychology may be to the wind itself. I don't necessarily like it, but it's true, in a solid, undoubtable way, and that's hopeful and comforting to me.

The metaphor doesn't properly account for the personal relationship with God part of the Sacred experience. One I talked about here and with which I have struggled constantly through my journey. I've seen it work too strongly through many deeply grounded people to dismiss it entirely as "naming hurricanes". It always comes down to the conflict between the tender personal relationship-having God (Jesus?) and Yahweh, the seemingly irrational, unfathomable phenom-like force of nature that blows through the Old Testament. Job shudders at his power:

"Indeed I know that this is so; but how can a mortal be just before God?
If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand.
He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength-- who has resisted him, and succeeded?--
he who removes mountains, and they do not know it, when he overturns them in his anger;
who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;
who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea;
who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number.
Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
He snatches away; who can stop him? Who will say to him, 'What are you doing?"

Again and again, Yahweh thunders "Don't even TRY to understand me!" Are these warnings setting us up for the important lessons I soaked my head in here and here?

I dunno. And I've entirely lost track of my metaphor. For us to actually have a "relationship" with wind, (ie, wind power, etc) we do have to be able to understand it. I think I could pick up the thread here a bit. Something to do with practical understanding, a social gospel, etc, but by now you are thoroughly bored with it. In the meantime, it's windy. And I'm taking every opportunity I can to stand in it and mutter Victorian doggerel to myself.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you.
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I.
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

Say a little prayer for little Emma

Emma, (the monkey in the middle of this photo) is almost 3, and she's pretty sick with a kidney infection. I'm worried about her, and wish I could give her a hug. (but she's far away in NC with the rest of the kidlets) I hope she feels better soon.

"Funky little fifth sentence meme"

I got this from Badger who tells you where she got it.

Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to it).
3. Find the 5th sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.


My sentence:

I cried anyhow.

Oh dear!

Some Walt Whitman

On the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.



From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky—shall devour the stars only in apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge—be patient—watch again another night—the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal—all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again—they endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall again shine.


Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter,
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

A quiz!

Oh, you know you love them. I found this one on Kate's blog, and I got the same score as she did. It's a little transparent, but then maybe I just know a little too much about saints. Anyway:


You are Julian of Norwich! It's all about God, to
you. You're convinced that the world has a
happy ending. Everyone else is convinced that
you're a closet hippie, but you love them
anyway.

Which Saint Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which is cool. Except, generally, it is all about me. ;)

Julian of Norwich is just about my favourite female mystic, anyway. If you click on the link you'll find a brief biography and a few snips of her writings. One in particular that always moved me is:

Because of the great,
infinite love which God has for all humankind,
he makes no distinction in love between the blessed soul of Christ
and the lowliest of the souls that are to be saved . . .
We should highly rejoice that God dwells in our soul
and still more highly should we rejoice that our soul dwells in God.
Our soul is made to be God's dwelling place,
and the dwelling place of our soul
is God who was never made.

Also, there is a little song about Julian's message that always makes me smile.

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go
Here by the Tower of Julian I tell them what I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow.
Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

Ring out! Bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.

It's interesting to be reminded of her today. I was just thinking of posting a little something about the ways I try to escape the worst feelings and moods of my depression, when they come. There was something fuzzy there that I couldn't quite explain, but it boiled down to a little Zen-and-Christ-and-Daisy stew which sounds a lot like Julian's idea that nothing has any true existence but God's love, and that gosh darn it,

All shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well.

Sometimes to me, faith, and the requirement to be like a little child manifests in a strange way, almost a stubbornness of optimisim, a pig-headed refusal to "face facts" about the world being a great big mess. Instead, a simple-minded "it'll all be okay" goes a long way.

I don't mean being an ostritch exactly, but something else. Oh, bah, this is not making sense. I mean, in a spasm of unhappiness or grief, sometimes you just need to cover your head with God's blanket. There's a disclaimer I should paste in here somewhere about this not being the only way or even a very good idea most of the time and that yes we've all got chances to pull up our bootstraps and do what needs doing, indeed, and we'd better do it soon.

But other times what's right is to close our eyes for a minute and think about daffodils. I remind myself that this wave of bad emotion is entirely unreal and has no substance when compared to the love and power of God.

And later I will roll up my sleeves and pull up my bootstraps and go about making sure that all of this unhappiness and pain is even less real.

Hello...

Lunchtime, and I'm alone in the office, keeping an eye on the front desk while some departmental meeting or other goes on. I work IN the department, but I'm not OF it, so that means I get to miss departmental meetings. Yay.

I haven't been posting...I haven't had many urges to post, and those that I have are soft and weak and usually crumble by the time I log on. But I've gotten several kind and concerned e-mails, and I "miss" all of the interaction of the Quaker blogging circle, though I'm still faithfully reading my ever-growing list.I have yet to do the blog-rolling thing, which would make it all a little more streamlined. Either I am lazy, or I kind of enjoy the moment of suspense when I click a link...will there be a new post, or won't there?

My struggles with depression have lightened somewhat, with a little help from Big Pharma. It's an industry I loathe almost as much as Big Oil, but there are some compromises you have to make, and a Christian Scientist I am not, even if I find Mrs. Eddy's tomb a peaceful spot for reflection. It is not perfect, and I still feel a bit weighed down at times, but the debilitating, crushing feelings have become much more rare, and that is a huge blessing.

Spiritually, things are quiet. Meeting has been difficult lately...the usual war between the sacred and the profane, and the profane is winning. Remarkably, I've been unable to get worked up about this. Normally I could participate in any number of overwrought conversations and posts about the struggle, but lately I just feel quieter about it, with a strengthening of my feeling that I must become as tender to members of the meeting as I can.

I've started studying ballet, the long-belated continuation of a dream that was put on hold by family circumstances a long, long time ago. It turns out there is a very good school a block from my work, and they have a generous work-study program, so I can take class for free, in return for a once-a-week shift. Once upon a time, I was fixated on ballet with the same sense of religious fanaticism that I brought to church. Idolatry? Certainly. But maybe more.

I'm afraid of tumbling into cliches, but I'm noticing the thousands of parallels between ballet and religious practice. Moreover, I'm learning a lot about the way I relate to the world, and especially to the spiritual world, by observing the way I am reacting to ballet. The metaphors of religion have often been used to describe ballet, and it's a familiar dichotomy, so I was somewhat aware of this going in. However, I have been surprised to see how personally these parallels have come into play for me.

There's a part of me that wonders if my embracing ballet is a bit of a substitute for the sense of sacredness that I am missing in meeting. Coincidentally, my ballet studio is housed in an old church...a huge, famous stained glass window makes up most of the back wall of our studio. But even the plainest serious ballet studio has obvious similarities to a sacred or holy place. You take off your shoes before you go in. There are vestments and habits...clothes reserved for this one activity. There are earnest acolytes. There are Masters. There are rules, and rituals, and routines. Dedication, discipline, perseverence, humility, fortitude...so many classical virtues are required to advance along the path. The perfection of a classically trained professional dancer seems as unattainable and desirable to a wobbly beginner as the perfection of a great saint and mystic seems to a humble sinner. There is no question about it. Ballet is High Church.

And in my passionate, bumbling love for it, I am learning a lot about my relation to Church and Sacredness.

If you asked a ballet dancer if the list above "was" ballet, they'd say, I am sure, "no." They would talk about how it was so much more...about the transcendence of movement, of becoming one with the music, of speaking the unspeakable through gesture. But if you asked them next, "if you took away the list of rules, etc, and left behind just the becoming one with the music, transcendence part, would it still be ballet?" I think the answer would also be "no." It might be dance, but it wouldn't be ballet.

And so I sit and stretch and think, do I love dance? Or do I love the legalistic formality of ballet? Or something else?

I don't know, exactly. It is this part of the metaphor that starts to get very uncomfortable for me. It requires more reflection. Many dancers will speak of the relief they feel in coming into the studio, a place that is literally sacred--"set apart" for one this thing of beauty and effort, where all the petty problems of "outside" melt away. And yet the same dancers will tell you how much they bring out of the studio, back to the world, when class is over.

There is no reason that sacredness need come only from forms. I believe this. But I've been in a "free movement" class where everyone was there for a different reason, and doing a different thing, with different levels of dedication, and it didn't have the same feeling of sacredness that a formal ballet class has for me.

Which has me examining how much I am relying on outside things/people for my sense of "sacred space". I can't seem to find the words for it, but what Liz wrote certainly has something to do with it. As I said, there is much more reflection to do.

But in a more micro-sense, I find it's not only my attitudes and thoughts about religion that are mirrored in ballet class, but also my experience in striving for faithfulness. As always, the spirit is willing...sometimes achingly willing, but the body remains pitifully weak. There are so many things to keep track of at once. Eyes front, chest up, shoulders down, knees stretched, hips turned out, elbows up, wrists down, heels forward, toes pointed, thighs pulled up, ribcage held under, stomach in, tail bone down, foot rotated...and every time you fix one thing, the next one breaks.

How many days do I start out with a similar list? Be kind. Be strong. Open your mind. Guard your lips. Follow the Spirit's leading. Don't outrun the Spirit. Don't say No to God. Don't say Yes to your self. Ego in. Heart out. Be humble. Be gentle with yourself. Don't let yourself get away with anything. React with wisdom. React with tenderness. Be discerning. Be open. Keep your brain quiet. Proclaim the Good News...

And yet in both cases, the minute you begin to strain to do all these impossible things at once, it all becomes twice as hard. And as soon as you can let go a bit, things begin to fall into place.

When I'm struggling to get a pliè right, I think, why do I want this perfect? Am I doing this for its own sake, to seek perfection and faithfulness in this one movement? Am I doing it because I want to be noticed by the teacher? Am I doing it because I feel insecure next to the girl in front of me, who does it better? Am I remembering that mastering this movement will lead me on to hundreds more, which all build on the perfection of this one "simple" bending of the knees?

When we move across the floor, and I've pictured the motion a thousand times a thousand times, but halfway through I turn the wrong way, why do I stop with shame and waste time berating myself? What am I getting out of a little performance of apologizing? Does it really help the class, or my improvement as a dancer?

And stretching...a good old Quaker metaphor. You lean just a little farther, lift just a little higher, and it hurts, but bearably, and it makes such a difference in everything else.

As I sweated and trembled through class last night, full of mixed feelings and deep concentration, these were some of the things that were dancing in the back of my mind.

Praying for New Orleans

I read a National Geographic article detailing this hypothetical stuation just a few weeks ago:

Gone With the Water.

A quote from the article:

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great."

I'm not a big one for intercessory prayer--I don't pray in the hope of divine intervention against nature, but I do pray for the peace of mind, hope, strength, and courage that residents of Louisiana are going to need, and for a response of love and generosity from the rest of us.

A treatise on Plain Dress.

With a wink, I give you one man's reasoning for plain dress:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black;
Why you never see bright colours on my back;
And why does my appearance seem to have a sombre tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down;
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town;
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who've never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity;
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak-of-lightnin' cars and fancy clothes.
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought to be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold;
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been:
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believin' that the Lord was on their side.
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believin' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go.
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK.
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Til things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

--Johnny Cash

:)

I wanted to lift up...

...this post.

That is all.

More about Yearly Meeting

It's been a while, and some of the things I was intending to talk about were discussed on other blogs (notably) the NEYM Young Friend's Minute about the quality of worship. However, I have a highly anecdotal mind, and the things that stick out from the sessions for me were not really connected to big "issues" or "questions". They were all very personal, in the context of the larger gathering.

Strangely, one of the more spiritually gathered and important moments for me was the one session where I was a "microphone spacer". They used to call the position "microphone runners", but realized that the name gave the wrong idea. It was a complete accident - I didn't even sign up. Someone cancelled, and I stepped in. Basically, the job is: when someone stands to speak in open worship, or in a session, you wait for acknowledgement from the clerk, and slowly and measuredly walk up to the indicated person and hand them the microphone. The end. There were a couple of things that were great about it. First of all, showing up at sessions without feeling "a part" of things was stressful for me. I always want to be behind the scenes - involved in the "real thing", not a spectator. I hadn't helped to plan it or anything, and being able to volunteer on the spot, even for something so minor made me feel like a part of the community. Deciphering who the clerk was indicating, and trying to move respectfully without hurrying when I saw the waiting speaker looking impatient, or feeling awkward when I passed someone who clearly wanted to speak but hadn't been recognized was a gentle challenge, and a reminder of how people-pleasing ways can sometimes get in the way of faithfulness. Also, eveyone did a great job of making me feel valued afterwards. It was such a little thing, but no less than 5 people came up and thanked me for it afterwards. It's not that I needed to be thanked or anything, but their acknowledgement made me feel a part of the group.

Meals were very important to me, as well. I found it daunting to try to start conversations just out of the blue, but every meal brought at least one new face and fascinating conversation and fellowship. Over the course of a few dinners, I became fast friends with a plain woman named Anna. She exuded warmth and joy and good humour, and we had conversations that burst at the seams with spirit. We discussed a lot of things close to our hearts and she told me some things about her journey to the Society of Friends and her plain conviction that hit very close to home and shed new light on some of my own thoughts. I have a standing invitation to visit their homestead in Maine.

I hadn't signed up for any worshops, since I was only going to be there a few days, and didn't want to start something I couldn't finish. On Monday, as I was wandering around thinking what I should do with myself during the worshop time, I checked the board and saw that there were a few 1-day workshops. I wandered over to Peterson Toscano's workshop and was moved to giggles and even a few misty-eyed moments. It was wonderful.

I went for a few late-night walks with Jeff. The stars were very thick - I've been living in cities for several years now and forgot how homesick I can get for a sky crusty with light. You could see the milky way and there were even meteors. It was perfect, very condusive to awe and worship. Lying on the grass and staring up, I felt some things knit together inside me.

Those are the main things I brought away with me from those three days of NEYM.

Muppet Lust

Yes, yes, yes, I will write more about yearly meeting...I know you're all clinging to that faint hope with great anxiety.

But first....just last night, as I was having a little goodbye dinner with Jeff (who is up in the air right now, so say a little prayer, please) I was thinking how well this plain thing has been working out, even if I still struggle with parts of it. There used to be all this stuff I wanted, and suddenly I realized that I wasn't being heroic anymore in not buying it...I just didn't think about it! I was cured of wanting stuff! Hooray.

And then, oh, then...

Must. Consume...

and, then...

Must....buy...

Since I know that most of you read this blog hoping against hope I will someday drop Amanda-Gift-Giving-Hints, and since I know that since it's already August, many of you are frantically trying to finish your Christmas shopping, well, now you know.

:)

Hmm

As I sat in Max Carter's first bible half-hour on Firstday morning, I was reading chapter 7 of Luke, from where the theme text of sessions, the parable of the seed, was taken. I am crazy about context, and I wanted to see what had happened just before this story was told. I came across this passage, which I had not read in a long time, and had never thought about it. I'm trying not to wrestle too hard with the Jesus question, knowing that I need more quiet than I do a surplus of new thoughts, but this spoke to me deeply, and set the tone for the rest of my experience at sessions. This is Luke 7:16-23

And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.
And this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judaea, and throughout all the region round about.
And the disciples of John shewed him of all these things.
And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?
When the men were come unto him, they said, John Baptist hath sent us unto thee, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?
And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight.
Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.
And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.

My abbreviated NEYM post about my abbreviated NEYM experience

Oh gosh. I have a lot to talk about. I was reluctantly torn from NEYM this evening after three days that were huge, unexpected gifts. (I say torn..I only planned to attend Sat-Mon because after a month on the job it seemed a bit much to ask for a whole week off. In reality I was given the blessing of staying much longer than I expected today through the generosity of a Friend who drove me to the train station after dinner.)

I went to Yearly Meeting full of fear and doubt, closed up and unprepared. As soon as I woke up on Sat. morning and gathered my things for the trip to Bryant college, I felt I had made a terrible mistake. Here I was, about to barge straight into the business and fellowship of a corporate body I had no experience of. My dust has hardly settled from my arrival in New England. I just felt absolutely terrible. There was lovely conversation in the car, with Jeff Hipp, and two wonderful Friends from Cambridge meeting, but my unease continued. When we got to Bryant college, I checked in, and feeling lost, went to hide in my dorm room for some quiet, worship, reading and peace(read - naps). I spent several hours there, unable to force myself into the community. I spent some time in Worship with Jeff, and finally felt scaffolded enough to venture out.

And when I did, I found so, so, so much that lifted me up and gave me a boost over the wall of my own small sufferings, at least for long enough to refresh me and gird me up for the next push.

And I'm very tired, so I'll share more of these things with you soon. In the mean time, Friend David Colleta is blogging live from the rest of yearly meeting.

Love to you all.

A reason to rejoice...

"BALLYCUMBER (n.)
One of the six half-read books lying somewhere in your bed."

....taken from The Meaning of Liff

The introduction reads:

In Life*, there are many hundreds of common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all know and recognize, but for which no words exist.
On the other hand, the world is littererd with thousands of spare words which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts pointing at places.
Our job, as wee see it, is to get these words dow off the signposts and into the mouths of babes and sucklings and so on, where they can start earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive contribution to society.

Douglas Adams
John Lloyd



*And, indeed, in Liff.


I needed a new dictionary.

I am making a special meal tonight...

...and I'm so excited. I am playing housewife today, catching up all the laundry, getting rid of the dust weasles (not bunnies, mind you), folding and drying and ironing and putting away, and planning a really nifty dinner. I love to really cook...the kind of cooking where you need to make a list and go out on a quest for ingredients. The first few times you do this, it's easy to feel a little overwhelmed at having to get whole bottles and jars and bags of things you need only a teaspoon of this time. But then it occurs to you that you're not just preparing for this meal, you're preparing for any number of future, as-yet-unimagined meals, and when the time comes to make them, your pantry will be well-stocked and sufficient unto itself, until you come across this one esoteric ingredient you're missing, and only need a teaspoon of -- this time.

Perhaps it's all very banal, but I find this thought very familiar, warm, and comforting today. Off to track down some rare and precious chutney...

" We must love one another or die." - W.H. Auden

I have to thank all of you for your love, warmth and upholding in this time. I am muddling through, with the huge support of my friends. I got all of my health insurance paperwork in, all the while aware of the huge privilege I've been given in having that resource. Though I still feel that there is some "soul-sickness" for me to minister to, I will not turn my nose up at doctors and what they might offer me. If a pill could help place me back on the plane where I can experience things unfiltered by the weaker parts of my neurophysiology, then I'll take it with thanks. I’ve had the feeling that I can’t attend to the deeper parts of my “soul-sickness” until I have some of the symptoms under control.

One of the good things about having "all stripped away"...(worship is dry, prayer is dry, spiritual reading is dry)...is that I find the one well that never goes dry is Love.

Duh. I know, there is a part of me that squirms, too. But it's true. When everything else burns away, I am left with Love. It is the one thing that can reach me, it is the one thing I am still motivated to communicate, it is the one thing that I don’t ever doubt the existence of. When I am fussed about the existence of God with a capital “G” and a personality and a will, and the ability to “love me personally” or whatever, I suddenly realize that if it turned out that there was no God but Love, and even if that Love existed only in our ability to Love one another, things would still come out okay in the balance.

Of course this Love is indefinable, but that worries me, as there are so many lesser and harmful things masquerading around under that august title. There was a time when I thought that "all I needed was love" and then things would come out right, but it turned out, dreadfully, that I had no idea what I meant when I uttered the word. Or, what I meant was not what I needed to make it all come out right. And things most certainly did not come out alright.

Pilate can have his question. These days, I am not so concerned with "what is truth." Nowadays I think maybe I have a better idea myself, but I want to know, from the experience of my (f)Friends..."What is love?"

Kate asked in a comment for more clarification of what I was looking for. I began to write this in a comment but decided to ammend my post.
------------
I don't know if I am looking for a definition of Love - once a friend set me the OED entry for Love, and it was overwhelming. I know there is more than one sort of love, all informed, to some extent or another, by the underlying fountain of Love.

So maybe not a definition, but a discussion.

I want to go father than a pat "God is Love" and far beyond the cliches and cuddly bits of "the world's love. A big theme of my life has been misinterpreting "Love Hurts" and "Love is Hard Work" and "Love Bears all Things". Perhaps, ironically, I've been too much of a puritain about love.

How do you love without counting the cost, without being destroyed? How do you love "a selfish object" unselfishly, without harming your soul? I know so many people who struggle with this in their family, in friends, in dealing with the dysfunctional and harmful, who inspite of their dysfunction, must be loved.

Do you cling on, and sing "As long as he needs me..." and trust that God will give you the strength to go on in the friendship or relationship, that if you do your loving part, God will make up the remainder? That's what I thought at one point. Eventually, I had to let go. And though the fruits have shown me that I made a good choice, my mind often teases me with the question "did I just lose faith?" When I read about how God is "well able to perfect all things concerning us", and I look at the disasterous parts of my life that I managed to leave behind with my last shreds of self-preservation, I wonder if a Saint could have stayed and watched God mend the tatters. Then I think about the way God helps those who help themselves. When I have left destructive friendships and relationships, I didn't feel it was a vote of no-confidence in God's ability to heal...it was because I knew that I myself was in physical, emotional, and/or spiritual danger, and that I did not have the ability to withstand it, and even if God could have helped me, I had not been given the ability to recieve that help.

So anyway. I want to hear what other people have to say about this crucial subject, so I'll go back into some silence. I want us to dig deeply, and get beyond "common knowledge". I am beginning to feel that these questions of Love are the most important ones we can ask. It is our greatest commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you." and some say He loved us right to the Cross. There is that in me that does not feel unfaithful because I was unwilling to be crucified for a "selfish object". And yet, in truth, I myself am a "selfish object". This is weighing on me very, very heavily. Thomas Kelley said "We are not called to die on every cross, nor are we expected to".

But is the cross of love universal? Can you sacrifice yourself, your life, your happiness, and your sanity, to Love? I don't feel that God calls us to love to the point of our own mutilation. To pain, perhaps, but not disfigurment. And how do you know the difference?

This is an exercise I can't escape: Think of the most foul human, historical or living, that you can, and know that in their core, they carry the seed of God in them, and for that seed, MUST be loved, ("love one another or die.") if the world is to be healed. Think of them as a 2 month old baby, smiling for the first time, unblemished, and know that this is the truth about them. And know that you are called to love them unto death. And then, think of the people in your life whose presence and actions harm you deeply.

I do this, and I see the image of my baby sister..(just a few posts below). I would die for her. If every human is as precious as this (and they are), why am I not willing to be "deeply harmed" for someone, let alone dive under a truck for them? Why does it feel wrong to allow myself to be "deeply harmed" by someone for love of them, when it is supposedly the greatest love to "give your life"?

It keeps me up at night.

I should add that at this moment, by the grace of God, I'm not in a position where I need to make this choice. I am surrounded by loving and healthy people. But I have been in that situation, several times in the past, and have never come out feeling right. And I know people right now who are struggling with facets of the same issue. It seems so important.

The Girl Ain't Right

Well, it's been a while, and I haven't had FGC or anything like that for an excuse. Not sure what I am going to write about tonight. I've had a number of possible posts floating around but haven't felt led to write until this spectacularly un-programmed evening.

It has been an intense little while here in Somerville, with both the literal and emotional climate raging back and forth from cold and stormy to steamy and stifling. Stepping out of a training session this morning, wherein I was oriented within an inch of my life, I walked into a wall of heat and breathed in the thick mixture of mud and honey that was passing for air. The torpor of the atmosphere this weekend has been mirrored, not entirely negatively, in my spiritual life. I feel an enforced stillness, as if I've been swaddled tightly in cotton wool. As I said, this isn’t all bad.

My first week in MA, I was paralyzed in a very different, and much more painful way. The transition of the move and new job hit me unexpectedly, exposing weak spots I’d effectively camouflaged with the tons of concrete and company available to me in NYC. Catastrophic depression and anxiety, which had marked my life pre-New York, returned for the first time in two years. I had come to the conclusion that this pain was all situational, entirely caused and sustained by destructive relationships and unhealthy emotional environments. It was deeply disturbing to move into what promised to be the healthiest, most stable, and comfortable position of my life to date, only to be ambushed by old enemies I’d left for dead months and months before. Even while battling the old bad feelings, I was overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal. How dare this happen to me now? Did this mean I would never be safe?

It brought up an old and miserable worry about the difference or connection between one’s soul and one’s psyche. Since Job, it’s been instinctual to connect suffering and sin. Though we’ve been slowly and surely moving away from equating physical suffering and privation with moral depravity, it’s much more difficult once you move into psychological waters. Even to the sufferer, it is easy to “see” that an emotional disturbance must be caused by an imbalance on the spiritual plane. I’m not sure anybody has ever resolved this – I certainly haven’t. Far from being a patient martyr, when my mental health wavers, my faith shudders and stumbles. I’d like to think if I broke a leg or came down with a serious illness I could find a way to use my pain to bring me closer to God. (I almost met Him once while raving with a Chicken Pox fever). But when dealing with psychological pain, and worst of all, the corresponding sense of being out of control of my own emotional responses, it’s a lot harder. How can you be virtuous if you feel as though your free will is gone? When you fight and fight against impulses towards thoughts and actions that must be unholy by their self-destructiveness, but lose, despite your most valiant willpower? Very often I won’t be good, but paradoxically, I’ve never felt more damned than I do in those times where I really, honestly, and truly can’t “be good”.

I’d hope that this frightening loss of control would teach me something about surrender, but in these cases it’s hard to think of it as a matter of trust. It is not God that has control of me at these times, but something that once upon a time we might have cast into a bunch of pigs. You don’t need to believe in a sentient devil-being to have experience of demons. I can't imagine that you are supposed to just lie still and give yourself over to them - they can and will and do destroy people all the time. That doesn’t seem like trust or holy submission. But at the same time, you can't seem to fight them off. What do you do? How are you supposed to react? What is happening?

My literary wanderings often shoot me off into strange inter-disciplinary alleys (that’s how I ended up stumbling into God again, for one thing) Once, peeking into psychology, I came upon the “Theory of Positive Disintegration, by the Polish Psychologist Kazimierz Debrowski. When I first ran into it, I’d been following a quote from Aeschylus, which continues to find me, over and over again:

"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God"

It’s hard to find an overview of this theory that doesn’t dissolve into hopeless jargon, but the basic idea is that the person moves through different levels in the development of their personality, from the base, which is determined largely through hereditary and social factors, through the second, where they first begin to realize that “life can be higher”, that there is a disconnect (both in the world and in themselves) between “what is” and what “could be”, and construct an idealized self, and finally to a third, “actualized” stage, where the personality is autonomous, no longer controlled by outside forces, operating in harmony with the "self-aware, self-chosen, self-affirmed, and self-determined unity of essential individual psychic qualities". (Think: in the world, but not of it) Transition through the second level into the third is marked by a crisis involving the breakdown of the former, lower, personality. The disconnect between the newly developed "idealized self" and the reality of the present self causes deep psychic pain, which spurs the individual to change and creates the necessary conditions for the transformation. Dabrowski argued that breakdown, depression and psychoneurosis were not illnesses to be treated, but rather, crucial doors through which the individual must pass in order to develop both psychologically and morally. In the good doctor’s own words:

" "The propensity for changing one's internal environment and the ability to influence positively the external environment indicate the capacity of the individual to develop. Almost as a rule, these factors are related to increased mental excitability, depressions, dissatisfaction with oneself, feelings of inferiority and guilt, states of anxiety, inhibitions, and ambivalences - all symptoms which the psychiatrist tends to label psychoneurotic. Given a definition of mental health as the development of the personality, we can say that all individuals who present active development in the direction of a higher level of personality (including most psychoneurotic patients) are mentally healthy" (Dabrowski, 1964, p. 112).

"Intense psychoneurotic processes are especially characteristic of accelerated development in its course towards the formation of personality. According to our theory accelerated psychic development is actually impossible without transition through processes of nervousness and psychoneuroses, without external and internal conflicts, without maladjustment to actual conditions in order to achieve adjustment to a higher level of values (to what 'ought to be'), and without conflicts with lower level realities as a result of spontaneous or deliberate choice to strengthen the bond with reality of higher level" (Dabrowski, 1972, p. 220).

"...This is a process in which the individual himself becomes an active agent in his disintegration, and even breakdown. Thus the person finds a 'cure' for himself, not in the sense of a rehabilitation but rather in the sense of reaching a higher level than the one at which he was prior to disintegration. This occurs through a process of an education of oneself and of an inner psychic transformation. One of the main mechanisms of this process is a continual sense of looking into oneself as if from outside, followed by a conscious affirmation or negation of conditions and values in both the internal and external environments. Through the constant creation of himself, though the development of the inner psychic milieu and development of discriminating power with respect to both the inner and outer milieus - an individual goes through ever higher levels of 'neuroses' and at the same time through ever higher levels of universal development of his personality" (Dabrowski, 1972, p. 4).

Honestly, this is the most hopeful thing I’ve ever read in relation to “mental illness”. In a way it is a secularization of the old “Dark Night of the Soul”. Honestly, when you feel really, really bad, a clinical description of your suffering can be more reassuring than a mystical promise. And is that wrong? Many of us are scarred by the fetishizing of suffering as an end in itself by misapplications and mischaracterizations of the crucifixion, and it’s hard to understand suffering as redemptive outside of this context. Removing it from the trappings of Western religion and the associated concepts of punishment, payment, and penance, maybe we can come to an understanding of redemptive suffering (or at least, a realization that maybe suffering is not senseless)that is deeply healing, cleansing, and constructive.

In this last painful period, I certainly wasn’t “good” or “holy” or “patient”. I was not behaving myself emotionally or spiritually. I didn’t feel like I was developing emotionally or spiritually. I can’t claim any virtue in this past week. The only thing I can say is that a few times, when I was feeling blackest, I made a weak application of those parts of my soul I could locate, to God, who at that moment I didn’t really believe in at all. What helped most was the love, acceptance and comfort of my dearest friend, even when I had a hard time believing in him, too.

Right now, I certainly don’t feel “good”, but I do feel stilled. Centering came this past First Day with more sureness and ease than ever before, and though prayer did not follow in any recognizable way, I did feel the Presence.

”Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.
He answerth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him: and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.
And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire; and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.
Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him: and he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose.
Mark 9:17 - 27

Oh I cannot stand the cuteness, I will die.  

At this rate, nobody will ever be able to find and read my last post, but I cannot help inflicting you with all these baby pictures. And I'm just the sister! God help the world if I ever become a grandparent! 

Somebody get this kid an agent!