Thoughts on John 14 in times of Loneliness

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the place where I am going...

I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you...

I have said these things to you while I am still with you
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid...

Oh Happy Day

Two years ago, after coming home from a champagne birthday celebration with two of my dearest friends, I opened my email, slighly tipsy and feeling warm and loved, to an email from a mysterious gentleman who said:

"I pulled your e-mail address off a comment that you left on the Quaker Ranter – hope
you don't mind! (I'm not a stalker, just a resourceful former journalist.)"

And then said a whole bunch of funny, balanced, and perceptive stuff about plain dress. And then emailed me nearly a hundred more funny, balanced, and perceptive notes. He lived in MA, and I was cosily tucked into NY. And then he came to NYC to fall headfirst into a caravan of my silliness, survived my attempts not to kiss him (I was DONE. WITH. BOYS.) and had me head over heels in love with him before he had to get on the next chinatown bus home. We took pictures, I cried, he got on the bus. And we emailed more. We talked on the phone late into the night, and often ended with periods of silent worship, faint rustling and powerful feeling coming over the line as we each sat and pressed our cell-phones to the sides of our bent heads.

Then a job came and I moved to Cambridge to be with him and to seek my fortune and my degree. In the past two years he has seen me through a tedious and wrenching legal process, a nervous breakdown, and countless tantrums and crises of faith (often the two are conflated.) He has prayed with me and joked with me and comforted me and challenged me. We have travelled together and watched bad 80s TV together. He has lent me his Pug and his unique point of view. We have brewed beer, drunk beer, and read about how to make better beer. He makes the most ridiculous silly noises and the most annoying silly characters. He is tolerant when I forget everything and remembers everything I forget. Also, he is adorable.

He's the best, and he loves me.

He was the best birthday present ever. I love you Jeff!

"Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe unto him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up."
--Ecclesiastes 4:9-10.

PS: I wrote this post two days ago and tried to post-date it for Dec. 15th, my birthday, but it didn't work. grr.

I do believe
the most of me
floats under water.
And men see
above the wave,
a jagged, small
mountain of ice
and that is all.
Only the depths
of other peaks -
may know my substance
when it speaks
and steadfast
through the grinding jam
remain aware of what I am.
Myself I think
shall never know -
how far beneath the wave I go.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Winter Trees

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

~William Carlos Williams

Belated Bloggiversary to me!

I have posts brewing, but in the meantime I just wanted to say Holy Cow! Two years!

And I am still kind of here. :)

A Very Long and True Sentence.

"All that each person is, and experiences, and shall ever experience, in body and in mind, all these things are differing expressions of himself and of one root, and are identical: and not one of these things nor one of these persons is ever quite to be duplicated, nor replaced, nor has it ever quite had precedent: but each is a new and incommunicably tender life, wounded in every breath, and almost as hardly killed as easily wounded: sustaining, for a while, without defence, the enormous assaults of the universe."

~James Agee

In other news, I crashed my bike again last night but got away with only an acre of immensely stinging road-rash and a pumpkin-sized bruise. (bah!) Everything hurts, but not in a for-12-weeks way. Also I need to write a response paper. Also the semester is almost over and how did that happen? Also things are still as tough as always (maybe recently a bit tougher) and I still need prayers.

The more often you say "doom" the less it sounds like a word.

So, maybe it is the weather or the season or the sleep deprivation, or the fact that many people are dying these days, but I've been suffering with a mundane but sticky case of existential horror. I was hauling a half-dozen water-logged barrels of dead leaves to the curb, and thought, "gee, why can't leaves be more durable? How come the tree needs to lose them and regrow them every year, and I have to rake them up every year? Inefficient! Grr."

Then in meeting, whenever I closed my eyes I was filled with images of everyone I love eventually dying, and their precious bodies turning to dust. And then I looked around the meeting room, and saw everybody there turning to dust. And then I watched a documentary about the 80's club scene in New York, and almost everyone featured in the movie was dead from some combination of drugs and AIDS. And then I was in my 100-student strong psychology class, and realized, "in less than 80 years, everyone in this room will be dead." Then I went home and read some bible out loud to my walls, including the part where God is solidly cursing Adam "you are dirt, and to the dirt you shall return." And I thought, what a waste. And then I realized that it's not exactly a waste, since all these someday-to-be-dead people are loving, reproducing, producing, etc, but then I thought well, what extravagance then. Imagine buying a new car each morning, driving it to work and back, and then sending it off that evening to the junkyard to be scrapped for metal for a new car. Imagine a whole new set of people every generation.

But I figure if God can afford it, then that's cool.

"We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand."
Jennie Jerome Churchill

ETA: I sound like a total materialist in this post and I don't necessarily mean that, but I haven't got any coherent information about the afterlife, so I'm just talking about the here and now and the dying part. I also mean this post in sort of a "woah" sense rather than a doom sense. Doom. Doom Doom.

Speaking of doom,

I am sitting here shuddering at the Monday before me. I'm much luckier than most, I don't have to face Mondays until lunchtime. But still. It always seems like you are going to go into work and find that the world has fallen down over the weekend. Eek!

Enough whining. I did have a very good weekend. Friday night I went to my friend Holly's house and we cooked a pseudo-thanksgiving dinner, and it was delicious. So was the company and conversation. On Saturday I went out and had lunch and a movie with another friend, and then window-shopped and toddled around the Square not doing much of anything until it was time for my hair-cut. It was kind of an expensive hair-cut, but it should last a while, and I like it. Then Jeff came home and there was much rejoicing. His mom is doing much better but still has a long road of recovery and enforced rest ahead. On Sunday we went to Fresh Pond meeting and were pleasantly suprised to see some of our friends were visiting there, too. It was a strange meeting for me, with a lot of fearful thoughts about death and decay that I was unable to banish, but I came out of it with a job: to read the whole bible to myself, out loud. This should be interesting. Perhaps I will be released from it before I get to Leviticus. Eek again. Then we biked back to Cambridge in the freezing rain, which was equal parts exhilarating and unpleasant, and Jeff went to business meeting while I went to bed. Bad Quaker!

Oh, Monday. Why must you have so much week ahead of you?

less doom

more cooking. I just found this blog and I am charmed and itching to make something:

http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/index.html

it is a little heavy on the meat for a grass and cheese eater like me, but I still really like it.

Also, more laughing. This little dude had my sides aching with sympathy. I love him!

my gosh

This blogging comes in spurts, doesn't it?

I'm on a couch with Jeff's pug. Jeff's mom is in the hospital, and so he's taken off or Texas to be with his family. As of the last report, things are improving, but still serious. Pray, please.

The pug is very happy for any company. He's here, sharing my lap with the iBook, dribbling on my arm and the keyboard in turns.

Last night Jeff and I went to the apple store to get a new computer that would better serve his burgeoning design and layout skillz. That means I get to inherit the old laptop, on an installment plan, even. Once this mac-baby is mine I will be so cool I won't even know myself. Ah, sweet consumerism.

(I kid, I kid. Even my computer will be second-hand. My shoes leak! I ride my bike everywhere? What do you want from me?! :) )

I've been thinking a lot about paralysis. There are times when I cannot rouse myself to do a single thing. There are other times, only marginally better, when I can only rouse myself to put on the outside trappings of life, and stumble through the day, week, month, waiting for something else to start, for some spout of energy to get me through. I coast, for shameful amounts of time. I hibernate, if only internally. I cocoon, but without any promise of metamorphosis. Sometimes I feel like I'm parked on the side of the freeway in the driving rain, watching cars shoot by, unsure if I can make it back into a lane, unsure of my courage to try, unsure if my car would even start if I tried. I hate freeways, and I can't drive, but it's a good metaphor.

Sometimes my whole life is like this, with only my close relationships spared. Work, school, daily eating/walking/breathing/doing can all pass in a blur, and the only time I feel anchored and present is when I am engaging one-on-one. I'm trying to branch out in my Quakerism, trying not to be a Quaker-In-A-Can, but I freeze at the thought of the expectations any group involvement might require of me. It's not that I fear committee work or community involvement per se, it just seems like I'd be adding a new group of people to let down, and there are times (too many times) that I can't avoid that letting-down. When it is just me and a friend, interacting, talking, sharing a beer, knitting scarves, I can be true, I can be real, I can be present, and sometimes I can even be on time.

The mantra my therapist sent me off with last week was "it's okay to make mistakes", and I am really struggling with that one. It is okay to put too much baking powder in the muffins. It is okay to put a red facecloth with the white sheets. It's alright if you overdraw your bank account by $3.58. But there are so many possible mistakes.

My mother quoted my grandfather: "Once is a mistake, Twice is stupidity." I guess my mind has always translated that as "if you can see ahead, if you have experience, and you still screw up, The End." Add to that a fear of outrunning one's guide, of assuming anything, of 'writing checks your ass can't cash' . . .

I know I am babbling, but sometimes it feels as if that's the best blogging for me. I'm so afraid most of the time. There are mistakes, and there are consequences for those mistakes. Hearts, minds, fortunes, lives, souls, happiness, futures . . . so much hangs in the balance. I could be careful, or I could be a coward, I'm never sure.

Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.
Say to those with anxious heart,
"Take courage, fear not.
Behold, your God will come with vengeance;
The recompense of God will come,
But He will save you."
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the mute will shout for joy.
For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the Arabah.
The scorched land will become a pool
And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.
A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for him who walks that way,
And fools will not wander on it.
No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious beast go up on it;
These will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk there,
And the ransomed of the LORD will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting joy upon their heads.
They will find gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35:3-10

Okay, nifty!

So, this is just a Meme, but it's a pretty good one. I wasn't tagged, I just grabbed it off another blog because it appealed to me:

1. Grab the nearest book. If you are currently reading something, that'll be fine too.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your Blog along with these instructions.

5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet I know that is what you were thinking!

6. Tag 5 people

Here is mine:

"And so, late last week, on the advice of his professors, he had packed up and left St. Louis. They had advised him to go home and look for a job that would not tax his moral sensibilities and maybe next fall he could resume his studies. They told him if he could learn not to be quite so hard on himself and on the rest of humanity, if he could learn to relax, then he would be free to develop into one of the most brilliant ministers that the seminary had yet produced. They said they'd pray for him"

--from Grand Opening by John Hassler

I've spent this week having conversations about seminaries (no, I'm not thinking of going!) and ministries, and praying, and being able to deal with jobs, and being hard on oneself. I am reading this random novel I bought at a book sale for 25 cents, and I haven't even decided if it is any good yet, but this snippet is pretty interesting, given all that.

As far as tagging people goes, that always feels wierd to me, (is it the chain-letter thing, or the popularity contest thing?) so I'll just say, do it if you want to, and let me know where to find the results.

Blogless in Cambridge

School and work have conspired with volunteering and exhaustion to just about kill every ounce of blogger-urge I once posessed. Every now and again, I'll have a thought creep in and I'll start mentally composing a blog post. This often happens, uh, in meeting for worship, when a message will stir but not rise up, or rises up, but the room is already too full of words. But I don't follow through, and the idea or message passes. This may be for the best, anyway.

Things were tough here in Amanda-land for a while, emotionally and mentally, but most of the bits seem to be sticking back together. I think maybe the anticipation of spilling my guts in a weekly therapy session has also curbed some of the confessional impulses I used to indulge in with the blog.

The best thing I have going on these days is volunteering with a healthcare for the homeless program at a veteran's shelter. My responsibilities are minor--I'm mostly just cleaning up the occasional bit of pee and taking vital signs, and filling basins for the weekly foot-clinic soaks, but on a selfish level, it feels like a tangible step towards medical school, and on a deeper level, it's humbling and grounding to work with these men who have given so much and gotten so little in return. For the most part there is only occasional bitterness, and disproportionate gratitude for the little services we can offer. Here's a bandaid, here's some antifungal powder, here's some socks. Have a cough-drop. Almost every single man I've come across there has a powerful sense of humour, and the friendships that seem to exist between most of them are fully of lightness and in-jokes. I feel strange whenever I try to write about it, because the homeless are so consistently sentimentalized, and there's a lot at the shelter that is bleak and painful. At first, I was a little embarassed to make conversation with the clients. (that's most of the reason I'm there: to set up the clinic and then stay with the men and talk to them while they soak their feet) It's gotten easier as I get to know the regulars, and the things we have in common, like halloween, can lead to fascinating stories of pranks and costumes past. Other subjects can get sticky in ways you never expected. When they find out that I want to be a doctor, there are lots of jokes about me getting rich and forgetting them. If I mention off hand that it's cold outside, I can be sobered by tales of being homeless in January and losing toes to frostbite. These moments, where the distance between us is underlined (namely, my relative privilege, youth, opportunity and wealth) are generally brief, but leave me sheepish and speechless.

But I always feel human and connected at the clinic. When struggling with depression, or even just the esoteric demands of homework, those feelings can sometimes be in short supply. I am glad I'm getting to do this.

I guess that's all for now.

Home

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mobtown sent me this poem in an email, which I know, but have never really owned before. I am back from the last leg of the harrowing journey to put an offical end to a terrible, hateful, grief-filled chapter in my life. Another thirty days before the weight lifts all the way off my shoulders but I'll never have to pass through this particular tunnel again. Now I can settle down to the task of rebuilding that I've already been at (with amazing amounts of support) for several years.

Amen!

Today was filled with unexpected blessings. Alone in a strange city, I was dismayed to find that I couldn't get to Meeting as I had planned--the train does not wake up until eleven in the morning on Sundays. I sulked in the lobby over lukewarm vending-machine coffee and a syrupy blueberry muffin, annoyed that I'd turned in my room key too quickly. But dear Mr. Mobtown Blues, whose blog is a favourite, still managed to make conact, and I was treated to a drive around Baltimore . . . it is a lovely city, and I found myself unable to harbour hard feelings against it despite the unpleasantness of my errand. Mobtown and his wife, the lovely Meerkat, took me to brunch in a colourful and funky cafe full of prints and paintings of the Last Supper and skinny hipster waiters with braids and messenger caps. We talked about Meetings and music and starvation over plates heaped with lox and fried dough. I talked a lot, and they listened a lot, and they had a lot to share. Meeting Friends in such a sweet and unexpected way warmed me to the core. I'd gone to bed expecting a few cold days of unrelenting dreariness, but woke up to find friendship and sunshine. It was a beautiful day here too, the sun was warm, and there was a steady, cool, clear wind. I got to listen to a tape of Shape Note Singing for the first time, and in that abbreviated taste of the sacred music I could already hear the space it contained for heartbreak and hope: music into which one may empty an overburdened heart.

After I took my leave of the Mobtown-Meerkats, I strolled through the streets. I scrolled the ipod to Johnny Cash and drank a fresh, bitter, expensive, and exceedingly refreshing gingerale and I walked, smiling at the strange film mundane city life made when watched to the soundtrack of "So Doggone Lonesome". I called up a friend I've known since I was fifteen. We've never been close, but we shared a love of ninjas and Diablo II and fart jokes, and stayed up way too late together with my brothers, playing Risk or Warcraft, back in the day. He and his wife have recently moved to Baltimore and they took me in for the night. I made them Mexican food and scones for dinner, and we laughed at all the stupid internet videos that have been making us laugh since 1997. I was afraid it might be awkward after several years, but I slipped back into old times like an old coat, and it was immensely cheering to be transported back to easier, sillier days. Other friends, and family, called and texted and emailed, weaving a solid net of comfort to hold these long intervening hours. Now everyone is asleep and I am on the couch, pondering what is to come, wishing prayer would arrive a little more easily. But today has been a prayer: a breath of thankgiving to find myself falling into open arms and a sense of awe when I realize the expected shock of hard and rocky ground has not reached me. I am afraid to pray about tomorrow, but emboldened by the blessings of today, I will try to face it with a clear heart and a measure of trust.

As usual I am trolling my poetry for comfort, and Emily Dickinson knows all about tomorrow:

A darting fear -- a pomp -- a tear --
A waking on a morn
To find that what one waked for,
Inhales the different dawn.

~Emily Dickinson

Sleepless in Baltimore.

Jeff lent me his beloved Ipod for this trip. It was a great comfort and an agile companion as I hurtled through the skies. Belle and Sebastian played on...

"I'm lucky, I can open the door and I can walk down the street
Unlucky, I've got noplace to go and so I follow my feet

A choice is facing you, a healthy dose of pain
A choice is facing you as you stare through the rain
A choice is facing you but I choose to refrain for today
Tomorrow we'll be back in trouble again...

Why is this happening to you? You are not a child
Why is this happening? You've too much on your mind
Things creep up on you when you are fast asleep
You are dreaming, you are sleepy
You are stuck to the sheets

In a town so small there's no escaping you
In a town so small there's no escape from view
In a town so small there's nothing left to do"

The sunset clouds from the plane were infinitely forgiving and welcoming, tipped with light: a pink and fertile field. Come to me, all you who are weary . . . I listed to The Postal Service sing a familiar song and realized with a sudden rush
of understanding and a flush of stupidity that it had always been about airplanes.

Knuckles clenched to white
as the landing gear detract for flight
My head's a balloon
inflating with the altitude

...

I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade into the ocean's arms
And from here they can't see me stare
The stale taste of recycled air
I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade into the ocean's arms
Calm down, release your cares
The stale taste of recycled air

I imagined the plane was going to crash, and I looked at the sleeping young man beside me who was shedding years with every moment he slept until he looked almost new-born, and I started to cry, and Sufjan Stevens sang.

"Oh the glory that the lord has made
And the complications when I see his face
In the morning in the window

Oh the glory when he took our place
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face
And he takes and he takes and he takes"

The clouds grew thicker and warmer and pinker, and I began to cry a little harder, good hot tears. I'd upgraded to first class, for the first time in my life and thirty dollars, so I had a lot of room to bury my face, and extra-deluxe napkins for my tears to go with my complimentary mint cookies. I woke up the sleeping innocent beside me and when he looked frightened I scoffed away my tears. It was Bright Eyes when I really wanted Simon and Garfunkle, but it did the job.

"if you swear that there's no truth and who cares
How come you say it like you're right?
Why are you scared to dream of God
When it's salvation that you want?
You see stars that clear have been dead for years
But the idea just lives on...

We are nowhere and it's now
We are nowhere and it's now

Like a ten minute dream in the passenger's seat
While the world was flying by
You haven't been gone very long
But it feels like a lifetime "

Now I am sleepless in my hotel. I floated in the hot pool in boy shorts and a tank-top, not having bought a bathing suit since my teenage years. The room was close and empty, and the heavily chlorinated steam stung my lately dried eyes. I went up to the cable TV and every channel was murder, save one, which had the Osbornes unintelligibly swearing at each other and dogs. I plugged my dying cell-phone into the wall and woke up a couple of friends and a sister for the company and drank a glass of wine. Billy Bragg sang.

"Thank you for the things you bought me--thank you for the card
Thank you for the things you taught me when you hit me hard
That love between two people must be based on understanding
Until that's true you'll find your things
All stacked out on the landing, surprise, surprise..."

And then I read my favourite poem again. (if you've been reading this blog for long, you have likely read this poem.)

The Only Animal
by Franz Wright

The only animal that commits suicide
went for a walk in the park,
basked on a hard bench
in the first star,
traveled to the edge of space
in an armchair
while company quietly
talked, and abruptly
returned,
the room empty

The only animal that cries,
that takes off its clothes
and reports to the mirror, the one
and only animal
that brushes its own teeth

somewhere
the only animal that smokes a cigarette,
that lies down and flies backward in time,
that rises and walks to a book
and looks up a word
heard the telephone ringing
in the darkness downstairs and decided
to answer no more.

And I understand,
too well: how many times
have I made the decision to dwell
from now on
in the hour of my death
(the space I took up here
scarlessly closing like water)
and said I'm never coming back,
and yet

this morning
I stood once again
in this world,
the garden
ark and vacant
tomb of what
I can't imagine,
between twin eternities,
some sort of wings,
more or less equidistantly
exiled from both,
hovering in the dreaming called
being awake, where
You gave me
in secret one thing
to perceive, the
tall blue starry
strangeness of being
here at all.

You gave us each in secret one thing to perceive.

Furless now, upright, My banished
and experimental
child

You said, though your own heart condemn you

I do not condemn you.

In gratefulness for the tall blue starry strangeness that is me, and gratefulness for Jeff and ipods and clouds, and turning my face to the morning, now I'll try to go to sleep.

Poem for a Hard Time

Someone sent me this poem once in a hard, frightening, and lonely time, and it found me again just in time for the three hard and frightening and lonely days that I am facing just now. (Long story. Sordid. Sad. Hopefully with a happy ending at the end of these three days.) I am very lucky to have so many friends who are carrying me in their hearts at this time, and also very lucky to have poems.

The Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
        love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I have not forgotten . . .

. . . about my promised post(s). I've just been waiting for them to ripen while I keep busy. I am not sure if I have time to finish a whole Important post before it is time to crumple into bed courtesy of the No Bad Dreams for Now pill, but I thought I'd type for a while anyway.

At some point I want to talk more specifically about what my NEYM experience has to do with the new shifts in my faith life, but I don't know if I have the attention span for a nice coherent post encompassing both NEYM and the new stuff haunting my soul. So for now I will name the two or three major things I (re)learned there, and maybe post a little about what I plan to do about them, and how they make me feel. And maybe then I'll post a whole lot of unrelated stuff about how I feel because I seem to have more feelings than I know what to do with most days. Poor Jeff and my mum absorb the bulk of them, other friends get the backsplash. I would like not to be so drippy and emotional sometime soon but I also know that's not entirely up to me.

So. What I've Learned.

1.) "Art thou a child of the Light, and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest, is it inwardly from God?"

So, since beginning my Quaker path I've had this strong beautiful and demanding phrase echoing in my head, but I've only listened to the last third, and only as it applies to vocal ministry. "Are these words inwardly from God? Hmm, yeah, it feel like it, I guess it's time to Quake."

But am I child of the Light?

Have I walked in the Light?

I don't know. It seems as though I've been claiming Quakerism for the Old-School Hicksite theology (short order form: I will be a Christian but I don't think God demanded Christ's death as revenge/atonement) but expecting all my spiritual life to take place on some other plane. It has been revealed to me that I've been extremely anti-community since becoming a Quaker. I still want my solitary mystic path, I just want to be a Quaker while I do it. God does not seem to agree.

What I am Going to Do About it?

a.) well, I was told inwardly that for a start I need to stop beign scared of YAFs. And that I should stop seeking the inward title of "Minister" if I am afraid to minister to my peers. I met some rising YAFs who seemed so ready for God and a life of Faith, and saw that maybe I have a part to play in helping create a community for them while they learn how. Yikes, scary. I hate people my own age. I spent my childhood being precocious and being admired for it every now and then. I clung to that admiration and I guess I still seek it. It is humbling to know that I've been rejecting things God might like me to do because I'm still seeking the thin rewards of a savant.

2.) A phrase from last year's YM:

"And you will be carried where you do not wish to go"

This is a translation (unidentified) of John 21:18. I realized that perhaps all of my blubbering about no leadings from God was shameful and that I might have valuable opportunities for service in places that are ultra-familiar and unpalatable to me at first (my home meeting, and also YAFs)

3.) Trusting the experience of others. It's a hard pill for an independent Quaker to swallow on the surface. Isn't this faith supposed to rest on the direct experience of God?

Maybe not always. The truth is, I can go long dark miserable stretches of time with no direct experience of God. And another truth is, the experience of God is available to me in those times, too, if I am humble enough to seek it in the testimony of others. When I am fretting over this or that moment, trying to decide if it's a valid experience of the divine, I could turn to the experience of those I trust and admire and recognize as faithful teachers/companions. I shouldn't be so jealous of my own experience that I'd rather sit around sad, lonely, and Godless, when there's someone else willing to share their experience with me.

There is more, but that's a mildly disorganized start.

Back from Yearly Meeting!

A new medicine made the first 4 days really, really, (really) hard, but the workshop I attended, led by Hugh Barbour and Brian Drayton (!!) opened a lot to me, and the last full day of sessions I had an unexpected and rather unorthodox first taste of clerking, which brought with it a strong taste of God. I hope to write more (and more regularly) after I have a little time to process. I almost tried to go home early, but it didn't feel right, and I am glad I stuck it out.

God bless New England Yearly Meeting!

Update on the brain!

So, I am tumour-free! It turns out that I had a very small (not arterial) blood vessel pop during a migraine, but the bleed stopped itself and is being reabsorbed with no sign of neurological damage. I'm on a few meds to control future migraines, etc, but this seems to be one time thing, and it's fine. It was a very scary few weeks while people figured out what had happened in there, but I wanted to thank you all very much for your prayers.

Ah gee

Lots of good stuff going on in the blog-world. I've been pretty absent from the rounds lately, but I did want to take a moment to say that Rich has had some really good stuff going up, and big juicy comments attending the posts. I'd also like to thank everyone for the comments you've been giving me. Liz Opp, most lately, has had some beautiful things to say and I'm holding them with me in prayer before I respond.

Okay, that sounds like part of an Oscar speech.

There's been lots going on with me. I've decided I want to try to go to medical school and become a psychiatrist, and this announcement has been greeted with such helpful and joyful enthusiasm from many of my friends that it's become a real source of joy and direction in my life . . . a big fat new one, and it's a pretty special time. "Look into Medical School" is the biggest loudest Leading I've ever heard, and whether it ends up in medical school or not, it's very exciting. I am reading what feels like thousands of books on the subject, and it's totally engrossing.

I wasn't going to post about this because it's probably nothing and so I figured when it turns out to be nothing, I'll feel stupid about having posted it. And then I figured, what better way to make sure it turns out to be nothing than to post about it, because the Universe does not turn down chances to make me feel stupid. Psych! Take that, Universe! So, I've been having some atypical migraines and other strange neurological symptoms, and the doctors want to rule out brain tumors and other nasties, so I'm going to go in to the hospital in a few weeks to get a bunch of scans and tests and MRIs and things done. I've been anywhere from mildly interested to completely terrified about it (I have an aunt who suffered from massive brain tumors and had a stroke) over the past week, which seems to have settled into a vague concern and an oversensitivity to my own mild symptoms. "Uh oh, I have a headache this morning! Headaches in the MORNING are a symptom of BRAIN TUMORS! Uh oh, I tripped over my shoelaces! Poor coordination is a symptom of BRAIN TUMORS! Uh oh, I can't remember the word I'm trying to say! Change in speech patterns is a symptom of BRAIN TUMORS!" Uh oh, I forgot why I went downstairs! Confusion is a symptom of BRAIN TUMORS! ad nauseum, etc.

I've been doing a little bit of spiritual flailing around about it too, like "Mortality, meet Amanda. Amanda--Mortality", and dealing with how my Catholic family would handle it if I decided to die a Quaker, what if a botched brain surgery turns me into a drooling, seizing vegetable and I want to be DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and dealing with differing ethics around that concern, is there life after death, (I don't want to be reincarnated as that slug I accidentally stepped on yesterday), what if I freaked out and started wearing the brown scapular to cover my bases just in case I'm wrong about all this hell stuff and would that make me a bad Quaker. Etc., ad nauseum. Blah. So prayers around this would be appreciated. Even though I am sure it will turn out to be nothing, it’s probably a good spiritual exercise.


Also, I went to Mass at the Paulist Center yesterday. These are some of the "heretic priests" that I scorned as a child. I have to say I'm pretty fascinated. Growing up, and in my one year of Catholic College, the message I heard over and over again from priests and parishioners was always "If you don't agree with what the Church says about X, get out!" The idea that liberals were/are "ruining" the church is widespread, and it's a very emotional issue for many people-- and one I can well understand, having been in the middle of it before, and watching my friends and family struggle with it. For a silly example--if I was a member of a club celebrating the colour pink, and people showed up who were convinced that the colour blue was truly the best colour, I'd be horrfied if they tried to change my Pink Club into a Blue Club. I'd probably ask what they were doing in the Pink Club to begin with, and I'd wish they'd go start a Blue Club, if they couldn't accept Pink as the best colour. Because of this, when it became clear to me that there were issues with the Church's teaching that I could not reconcile with my God-Given conscience and reason --in Quakerese: my current Light-- I did what I'd been told to do. I didn't agree, so I got out. I went and found a Blue Club. I couldn't become a "cafeteria Catholic". I worked hard to reconcile my differences, but the mental gymnastics my self-apologetics required led me to feel that to stay in the Church would be a big fat hypocrisy.

Now I'm curious. This parish was full of deeply worshiping people who dedicate their lives to serving the poor and the suffering. They disagree with the Vatican on many things, (ie: they think blue is a colour that really should be looked at by the Pink Club) but they've chosen to stay in communion with the Church, and so far the Church has not cut them off. This decision to stay, and this calm in the face of severe conflict and tension is remarkable to me. The attitude seems to be "Christ came and told us what to do. We're doing it. What's going on in the institution comes second, always, to feeding the hungry, welcoming the lonely, comforting the afflicted." The politics of dissent are present but not primary. Because I'd just spent the week feeling scared and conflicted and kind of spiritually lonely I cried a little when we sang this song:

Will you let me be your servant,
Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace to
Let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey,
We are travelers on the road;
We are here to help each other.
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping;
When you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow,
Till we've seen this journey through.

I know this parish would be looked on with disgust by any conservative Catholic, but I found it very healing to visit there. I didn't go to communion, and I didn't say the creed, but I still felt that my worship was valuable. I have an appointment to talk with one of their priests. I'm still a Quaker, but it might be nice to find a way to reach back and be "in communion" with the Catholic church. I want to know how they do in it the face of the anger and venom that is directed at liberals from some of the conservative quarters of the Church, as well as the anger and venom many liberals direct at the conservative factions. I mean, to be completely frank, the conservatives have the catechism and the pope on their side. If these liberal Catholics don't agree, why don't they leave? What's the point of being a "liberal Catholic" when it's kind of an oxymoron as far as canon law is concerned? I do believe in "one holy apostolic catholic church"--not in the way the creed means it, but in the other sense of catholic--universal. I believe in a universal church, which includes the Catholic church. So anyway, I'm babbling. But that was an important thing for me this weekend.

Patience

"Do not think time long, nor your sufferings long, for the Lord will lay no more upon you but what you are able to bear; yea, upon his faithful people. I know it, and am a witness for God in all my sufferings and imprisonments, and haling before magistrates about sixty times, about these thirty-six years.
George Fox ala Rex Ambler, again.

I am not a patient girl. I am a twitcher and a fidgeter and a ripper up of napkins. "Wait upon the Lord"? I can barely wait upon the email. Refresh is my favourite command.

I am beginning this post without much of a sense of where it is going, just a sense that I have a post and that little quote from George Fox. And the idea of impatience.

I spend a lot of time waiting, patiently or not. I am good in lines--lines do not bother me. There is knitting or reading or people-watching to be done. I am hardly at a loss to occupy my time in lines. But I spend a lot of time waiting for things to become clear, or to be revealed, or to happen.

Babble. I am impatient with myself and with my slow comprehension, apprehension of whatever bits of the divine are vouchsafed me.

And it's this: I am a Quaker who has a very hard time being still. Often this is not much of a hardship outside of Meeting for Worship. God is on the move and so am I. God is a movable feast, if ever there was such a thing, and no apologies to Hemingway because I've never been to Paris. I have little trouble meeting God on the run. In fact I would say that mostly I experience God as I walk and look out . . . walking in NYC is/was a distillation of that. There is a Presence, and it runs . . . runs through the world, and especially when one can apply a few moments of thought as one goes the Sacramental life sprouts up everywhere, (no waiting) instantly at hand to offer some glimpse of the Divine. But these glimpses of God remain that. I don't feel very far from God because God is always a glance away.

But a communion with God is a little further off.

I am waiting for some Big Things in my life. Events which (it seems from this perch in time) once I finally get to them will change everything, fix most things. My daily challenge and prayer is not to suspend motion until then, to keep living actively without holding my breath, and also not to fill up the interval with noise and nonsense to drown out the wait--to make this time matter, because it's just as real as the time to be, after the Big Things. And my spiritual life echoes the same pattern. I am waiting for some Big Thing to come from God, and it has become clear to me that until it does I am certainly either holding my breath or filling the time with noise, and that is not faithfulness.

"Wait" is a verb, and it lies somewhere in between those two.

Loneliness

"The loneliness thou speaks of I know. For do not think, darling, that it is confined to unmarried people. It is just as real in lives that have plenty of human ties, husbands, and children, and friends. It is the loneliness of this world life, the loneliness of hearts that are made for union with God, but have not yet fully realized it. I believe it is inseparable from humanity. I believe God has ordained it in the very nature of things by creating us for God's self alone. . . . Thee will accept it as a God-given blessing meant only to drive thee to God. Thy loneliness is only different in kind but not in fact from the loneliness of every human heart apart from God. Thy circumstances are lonely, but thy loneliness of spirit does not come from these, it is the loneliness of humanity. Therefore, nothing but God can satisfy it."
Hannah Whitall Smith, 1882

Last night nothing could make me sleep. I was staying the night with Pugsley at Jeff's house while Jeff was away at a retreat. Pugsley's dejection when Jeff is away is a terribly pathetic sight. His concept of time is limited. If Jeff is not home for dinner, Jeff is never ever ever coming home. A melancholy dog at the best of times, the pug spent his evening alternately staring imploringly at the door, begging it to let Jeff in, or imploringly at me, begging me to materialize Jeff, and draw him out of whatever hiding place I'd obviously stashed him. So I comforted the pug, who snuggled uncomfortably close to my substitute-for-Jeff form, and I stared at the ceiling, trying to sleep. I remembered believing when I was younger that insomnia meant you were needed, that you were being kept awake to pray for someone or something. I tried to pray.

There was a destructive and miserable relationship in my life, long severed, which has been brought into my daily existence again by unavoidable necessity and circumstance. This person injured me grievously, and I still feel the ill effects of that time in my life deeply and daily. They've simply been raised to the forefront of my consciousness and kept there, and can not longer be repressed at will (as they have been for years). All this time, I've hated them--not a big angry burning hatred, but a small, cold, quiet hatred, an almost invisible hatred--one that could pass most times for mere indifference.

But other times, I've accidentally found myself wishing this person dead, not through any direct malice, but just because I wish I could have the weight of them off my soul. I've repented immediately, but the evil thoughts have left their mark on my heart.

"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."
1 John 3:15

There have been times when I've been able to forgive a little bit, and times when the hatred softens and gives way a little bit. I pray about it when I'm able.

Last night I was given the gift of prayer, and I was able to pray for this person with sincerity, and that was good, and my hate receded again, further than it ever has before. I prayed that they would find healing and guidance and love, and I meant it.

Today I received a communication from them, which along with the necessary business contained an admission of their pain and their guilt regarding this history. And as soon as I was done reading it (it was very short) I instantly felt such a sadness that I thought my bones might break.

There can be no reconciliation with safety--the best to be hoped for in this case is a quiet absence of hate and a quiet hope for their well-being. But once upon a time this person, capable of such destruction and malice and fury, was the person I held nearest to my heart, the person all of my hopes and prayers were for, even as the abuse mounted. The whole affair was misguided and ill-directed and blighted and should never, ever have taken place. It was a terrible time.

I don’t think there are any tears left to be shed over this matter, and soon the immediacy of it will be over and I can lay it by again. But while I am being purged of my hate I am being left with the dregs of some different and painful emotion. Being forced to see your monster as human is to share in God’s own wound, formidably painful.

And I’ve been feeling so lonely since last night, and lonelier since I read that note from them--not because I miss this person--God willing when this present time has passed they will never be in my life again--but I am feeling very lonely. It is almost as if I had stuffed the hole this person made in my life with that quiet gauzy hatred and now that it's being pulled out I'm left with an empty space inside, needing God to fill it.

Signing up.

Well, look who's blogging two days in a row? (shock/awe/applause)

For the first time in my two years of Quakerness, I may be feeling a leading stirring to actually commit. A little bit. Perhaps.

I'd been doing a bit of complaining about the lack of leadings in my life.

In the summertime, when I was a kid, my harried mother (needing some quiet-time in a house brimful of children) would push us all out the screen door with a plate of peanut butter sandwiches, latch it, and say "Play in the yard! Entertain yourselves! Unless someone is bleeding or throwing up, I don't want to see you back here 'til supper!"

And beyond that, she would not tell us what we were supposed to be doing. In a way, this freedom was great. While we were outside we weren't being asked "please wash the dishes", "please change a diaper", "please clean your room", "please do four pages in your math workbook". But it was also a little unsettling. After running around the yard a few times, catching ants in the compost pile, lying on the grass until we were covered in grass-prints, and hitting each other with sticks, we would run out of things to do. Then we'd go sit on the porch and look wistfully at the screen door. We'd examine our scratches and pick scabs to see if any of them counted as "bleeding". We'd imagine ourselves into stomache-aches.

I was kind of at this point just a few weeks ago. Like, "God! Please! Give me some homework! I'll load the dishwasher! Just let me inside!"

So then God says, "Fine, then. Why don't you start thinking about membership."

So I am. By the time I'd been at 15th Street long enough to think about joining, I moved. I've been very resistant about joining my current meeting because it's so big. And Big Meetings come with lots of opportunities for grumbling and a bad attitude, so meeting for worship is always an exercise for me, even if I feel I've spent the hour of "silence" listening to a lot of talking and I haven't been able to hear a peep out of God. It's give me a lot of opportunities to see my own shortcomings and petty impatiences and preferences/prejudices. Sometimes I visit another meeting that is not so big, and I really love that meeting. But I live at the Big Meeting. And moving into the third floor of Big Meeting has been an amazing thing. I'd kind of hardened my heart a little against the Big Meeting when I first came to MA. I decided quickly that this was not the kind of meeting I wanted, and I'd attend, but I'd hold out for something better before I signed up.

Living in the middle of the meeting, I've had a lot of fly-on-the-wall experiences, and a lot of conversations, and I've been extremely humbled to see all the powerful things that go on in the Big Meeting, and what life and stirrings of the Spirit there are all week long--that the Meeting is more than the sometimes frustrating First Day MFW. And I've become a part of the community, whether I really intended to or not. And I care about it now as a part of Quakers, and I like helping to take care of it by washing its toilets, so why shouldn't I want to help take care of it in other ways? And, as arose in a deep conversation with Friends last weekend, why shouldn't I let it help take care of me? It's already lending me a physical roof. Why not a spiritual one?

And there's some big message in here about larger connected issues but I don't feel led to plot it all out right now.

I don't think I am quite ready for the clearness committee about becoming a member. I want to think and pray about it with myself first. Sometimes a clearness committee for membership just looks like a welcoming committee, and that's good and important, but I want something a little more searching and testing. After all, I've been waiting and waiting for a leading, and now that I might actually have one, I'd like to do it justice. I want to find out exactly what this leading is asking me to do and if I'm hearing it right. I don't want to join a meeting just because I get a case of the fuzzie-wuzzies at coffee hour one day.

So may I please hear stories from you guys about joining meetings, not joining meetings, and stuff like that?

Thanks.

Inner Light. Like, way inner.

Hearken to the light within thee, and it will let thee see the secret places...; and as a prison without thee, so there is a prison within, where the seed of God lies; and as there is a threshing without thee, it will let thee see threshing within thee; chaff without thee, chaff within...

For the Lord hath a seed...if ye in patience all of you wait, and not matter the weather, the storms, the wind, the hail, the rain, when ye are to sow the seed, nor the rough ground that is to be tilled. For the husbandman waits patiently after the seed is sown; there is a winter before the summer comes...

Keep your meetings, and ye will feel the seed of God among you all, though never a word be spoken among you.

George Fox, excerpted by Rex Ambler and then further exerpted by me.

I've been thinking a little bit about "letting your Light shine before all men" and about the differences between my given share(s) of Light at different times. Inner Light Vs. Outer Light. About the Seed that might be rattling around in a prison inside me, or sleeping in frozen ground, or in my hand ready to be broadcast, or sprouting all green and misty...about everything in its season, a time to sow, a time to reap, a time to settle back in an armchair with seed catalogs, a time to blaze and a time to glow, a time to put up firewood and a time to clear away brush...the differences between hibernation or gestation or stagnation.

(There is also a discussion to be had another time about the difference between "The Light" and "The Seed", because I have a feeling they are often confused in people's minds (including my own.) For the purpose of this post when I say "Light" I mean, The Sense of the Presence of God in My Life and the things that go along with it--leadings, learning, growth, inspiration, movement etc.)

But things I am thinking about:

Exhibit A:
The big sparkly campfire of my Light in my first days in Quakerism, where anything was good fuel, when the light would blaze up with every new addition, every new message, every new book, every new idea, roaring and crackling and visible and giving off a great heat and wonderful for making hotdogs and s'mores. It attracted people, and there was a great deal of fun to be had feeding this fire and watching it. It would take a fire hose to put it out.

Exhibit B:
The current state of my Light, which is more like a small glowing ember. I sit close by it and warm my heart over it, and I have to be careful with it--if I heap too much stuff on top, it gets smothered and starts to smoke, and then the smoke gets in my eyes and lungs, and I cough and sputter and can't see, and I have the fear that if I heaped even more stuff on it, it could be put out. If it begins to rain it is necessary that I crouch over it and protect it, or it could be put out. I need to clear away the ash on a regular basis, or again, it could be put out.
If I hold something close to it, that thing may ignite, and will either burn off in a flash or if I am careful and the thing is good fuel, it will start to smolder alongside the first ember and can be added to the fire. I might be able to cook a potato with this fire, but I'd have to wrap the spud up first and bury it with the embers--and be ready to wait a good long time. The glow it gives off is hidden. You need to get really close to experience it.

I am for the most part not disturbed by the change--in many ways is it a natural progression like the one from First Date to Long-Term-Relationship. I do wish that my current light was less fragile, had more of the stability and strength one might expect at this stage, but I think I am learning from the careful tending such a fragile thing requires. My lesson is to stay low and close to the ember, and love it, and wait to learn when and how it's to be used, and guard it, and share its warmth when I can, and not to envy other people's blazes and scorn my own measure of light. I do miss the campfire sometimes--I sometimes wish I was burning brighter and was better able to share my light with others. I don't want to keep the ember under a bushel. I want to make sure that I'm not hoarding it, and that I am open enough that the Spirit can blow it into flame at any time the Spirit's feeling into that. I feel the call to continue to increase my embers until I have a good solid bank that won't always be in danger of being extinguished, but I know I can only do this slowly and can't rush it. Giving into the temptation to rush it--to try heaping paper and pine needles on the fire because I miss the blaze and crackle (or, worse, because I miss the attention the blaze and crackle used to get me) would be deadly.

Good ways to spend a weekend.

Jeff's parents came for a visit and we went to the Cape. It rained and rained and until Sunday, and then we had to pack all the beaching into one day. But it was a lovely weekend anyway.


This is apparently a very common facial expression of mine.


She of little chin and he of much beard, and both of long legs manage to share the couch.


I bought a pirate kite and Jeff named it Prince Bonny Cutthroat. Our first attempts at flying him were not super successful.


I think this may be the beginning of a tantrum.


There was not enough water in the cove to float the canoe, (I told them boating at low tide was silly!) but it's a good picture anyway.


I decide to illustrate my point. No, the water doesn't get any deeper.


I rub it in a little more. Water still not getting any deeper! Also--safety first! Lifejackets in 4 inches of water! Go us! But seriously you guys, I would have had to lie face down and pay someone to stand on my head if I'd wanted to drown in this cove.


The Prince goes up!


And up!


I think we look a little too much alike in this photo. But this outfit seems like good default beach-wear for the plainish. I only got my face sunburnt!


Jeff shows Prince Bonny who's boss.


Backseat kite-flying is hard work.

Sanctuary

This poem's been haunting me:

"Heaven—Haven"
-A nun takes the veil-

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

-------------------------------------------------

It's G. M. Hopkins.

It's written by a Catholic priest, in the voice of a Catholic nun. I've been reading a book called The Burdens of Sister Margaret, which is based around a collection of letters writted from a troubled Dutch cloister in the seventeenth century. It's been reminding me that despite all romanticism, there really is no place like the one Hopkins wrote about. There is no permanent retreat from our storms, or from ourselves.

Last week's meeting for worship was hard for me. As I said to friends, sometimes meeting feels like a long time-out: "sit there and think about what you've done!" That's what I was doing . . . trying to open my heart to worship and to being led, and instead being visited by the memories of my troubles and failures. All in a row, Friends rose to speak of the peace and escape they felt in meeting. They said it was a blessing to leave behind their daily cares for an hour. I wrinkled my brow and read Hopkins in my mind. Never are my daily cares more near to me than in worship.

And out of the swing of the sea.

Jeff and I read Jonah together a little while ago.

Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.
Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous.
He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you."
Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them.
Then they cried out to the Lord, "Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you."
So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging

Am I fleeing the presence of the Lord? I'm certainly not trying to. But the storm rages in my worship. Or instead of my worship?

In his prayer Jonah says:

You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.

Have I been thrown overboard yet? Am I waiting for some fish to swallow me? I do know that to be "out of the swing of the sea" is not this Quaker's lot.

I don't think it is out of order that my daily cares are with me, on me, around me, in worship. My daily cares have nothing to do with schedules and budgets and to-do lists. I have easier ways to escape those than worship. My daily cares have to do with the state of my soul and the state of my faithfulness. I struggle not to let past mistakes derail present faithfulness, but these days I am tangled in the unavoidable messes of my not-so-distant past. I know that my best faithfulness right now is to dwell low and close to these issues. The shame and pain that I feel surrounding them are to be trampled down, but the issues themselves shouldn't be. It is hard to separate those two out. And I want a different task! I want a different ministry! I want a mission!

Instead I am asked to sit low and sort out my own soul. When I was younger I would sit in the barn and separate and sort a can of rusty old nails, and this feels much the same. Once taken apart and cleaned and categorized, the nails could be used again, for a bird house or a dog house or a stall, but as long as they sat in the can all tangled up with pennies and washers and bits of wire, they corroded. This job feels a lot like that, full of sharp points and tetnus and tediousness. Thing is, nobody asked me to sort out the nails. Probably no one would have noticed if the coffee can and the nails and the wire all rusted together into one big useless lump. And anyway, nails can be had for a few pennies a pound. This is different--these are the only nails I've got, and Someone needs them.

So right now I am carrying that rusty can around with me day and night, in meeting and out of meeting, into retreats and quiet places and storms and seas, all the same. I hope I'm making some progress.

Apostles of the Living Light

I just finished cleaning the meetinghouse after a late concert tonight. It was a wonderful accapella harmony group who sang many spirituals and some beautiful traditional songs. They also sang a lovely Wendell Bery poem put to music. They sang it as an Earth Day gift. The last time I consciously celebrated Earth Day I was cutting blue circles and wildly innaccurate squiggly green continents out of construction paper (1989?) but this gorgeous poem about trees lifted up my heart:

Slowly, slowly, they return
To the small woodland let alone:
Great trees, outspreading and upright,
Apostles of the living light.

Patient as stars, they build in air
Tier after tier a timbered choir,
Stout beams upholding weightless grace
Of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,
Uprisings of their native ground,
Downcomings of the distant light;
They are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,
Their life's a benefaction made,
And is a benediction said
Over the living and the dead.

In fall their brightened leaves, released,
Fly down the wind, and we are pleased
To walk on radiance, amazed.
0 light come down to earth, be praised!

In my childhood Canada spring was a time of mud and blackflies, and I didn't really understand the fuss about it. I am still an autumn-loving girl, but spring here is radiant, with blooming trees on every corner. This poem gave me a little breath of God.

Whine, Cheese, and a Girl Going Crackers

Well, I am sitting at the meetinghouse desk with a heating pad up my sweatshirt and nothing stronger than advil and tiger balm to staunch the torrent of my whinging. I’ll at least keep all whining parenthetical. (stupid patriot's day that makes things be closed!! stupid closed pharmacy! stupid prescription lying in the stupid closed pharmacy doing me not a bit of good! Boo hoo!) Everyone seems to be out/in for the night, so I could close up shop. But the internet access is calling me, and keeping me here. (Plus I'm feeling too lazy to find a new outlet for my heating pad. Waaah.)

I keep writing posts about why I'm not writing posts, but I haven't published any of them because none of them seem to be quite accurate. I'm not sure why I'm not blogging. I am not sure whether I'm more or less self obsessed than usual these days, nor do I know if my degree-of-self-obsessedness at any given moment contributes directly to the quantity or quality of my blogs. It's not that there's nothing interesting going on. Life continues to be lovely/catastrophic/mundane/annoying/nifty by turns. There are flowers everywhere.

(I miss my bike! Boo hoo!)

Sometimes I want to write a post because I have an urge to remind "the world" that I'm still here, I'm still questing, I'm still trying to be true, I still have things to say, I’m still cool. Sometimes I want to write because I want "the world" to remind me of these things. These don't feel like very good reasons.

Sometimes I don't want to post because I'm feeling too tired to worry about how perfectly faithful I'm being in this sentence or that. Sometimes blogging seems like one more way to mess up...a way that's easy to avoid. Sometimes I don't want to post because I wonder if this or that idea of mine is worth the headache it might bring me if someone disagrees or misunderstands. That's not very brave. And I don't know if not wanting to be bothered about something that sometimes feels very ethereal and optional is a failure of faithfulness. I can't tell if my vague guilt on this count is justified. It's never been that God's handed me some big message that I'm refusing to give to Pharaoh. This blog's never been like that, it's always been whatever I was thinking about at the time that I thought other people might like to think about, too.

(Should that last paragraph have been in parentheses? And do I need something to whine about in this parenthetical remark? That's easy--waaah, I'm out of Diet Coke and my sternum's cracked! Sniff.)

I’m not terribly interested in inulging myself in a long meta-think about why I’m not posting. It just sometimes kind of makes me sad that I’m not.

Things have been fairly quiet in my world these days, even before falling off my bike. (I was wearing a helmet! It didn’t help! Waaah.) I’ve been doing some reading that’s been useful, and some reading that's been silly. I’ve been knitting some sweater:



(And since I fell off the bike I’ve been lying in bed a lot! Poor me! But how can I really whine when I have such a handsome boyfriend who wears things I knit for him even when it's too warm for them and poses all cute while I stand on a table and take endless numbers of pictures of him? How? Like this: Poor me! Some of my torso is broken!)

One lovely thing that’s happened lately? When my friends heard about the accident, I think every single one called. One morning I had five phone calls within an hour and a half. For a chick that sometimes likes to sit in the garden and eat worms, or sit in my bedroom and mope about how I have no friends, it was humbling and made me thoughtful, and it made me feel less like whining and more like rejoicing. (Don’t rejoice with a cracked sternum! It hurts! Waaaaah! Boo hoo! Poor me!)

Thank you, friends! And thanks to everyone who left me loving well-wishes on here, too. (And now I am going to go find some more advil. For my poor broken bones. Sniff.)

Oof

So, I've had a few posts in the works, but some have expired out of their usefulness before I put them up, and one I really did like just disappeared into the ether.

But I just wanted to say hi and I'm alive(ish)... I crashed my bike yesterday and broke my sternum and a rib, so I'm laying pretty low. Prayers for fortitude appreciated! It is probably too hard for me to stay in one position long enough to attend formal worship tomorrow, and I'll miss it, so company in spirit will be very welcome.

God bless you all!

Hello

So I am really not blogging much, am I?

It's not that there's nothing going on...just that most of it is very internal. I am struggling, but not in a bad way, I don't think. Since I miss blogging and all, I thought I would take a clue from Rob and just share tidbits.

1.) In my thrilling life I have nearly weekly dates with the dentist. After years of no insurance, I'm finally wrestling what's left of my teeth back under my control. I keep having this reccuring image of my mouth as a monstrously expensive, prodigiously ugly Faberge Egg, all enamel and porcelain and precious metals. Just wanted to share that.

2.) I am taking a class on evolutionary anthropology and it is HARD! I thought I would mostly be looking at pretty fossils and chimps and coming up with neat explanations for why humans do this or that. Instead I am soaking my head in terms like Australopithecus habilis and trying to write a paper that is due any minute now. Instead, I am sort of blogging. With zero deep thoughts. About protohuman hominids or otherwise. In fact, this is the scariest paper I have ever had to write, since it's not really asking for my opinion. In the past every paper I have ever written was only asking for my opinion. Me = Big on Opinions, Small on Facts. Ay.

3.) Much of my inward work has been in the arena of opening myself up to fellowship and friendship. While in moments of social desperation and an excess of company I can look like an extrovert, I'm really not. Sometimes laying an army of insecurities down one at a time feels like a fulltime job, especially since they often spring back with little warning. I would rather be lonely than risk ridicule or rejection, and not a lot gets accomplished from that place of fear. This is a slow process with lots of backsliding that is complicated by things like depression and stress, both of which tend to trigger the isolating reflex.

4.) I love to knit. I really do. This is the best thing that's happened to me in a while, this learning to knit.

5.) My family is having a really tough time, and it's hard for all of us. Please pray for them. And me, that I can be supportive and loving and helpful from so far away.

6.) I read some good Quaker fiction, for the first time: Impassioned Clay by Stevie Davies. I found it a beautiful, painful book that caught me into its world and kept me there even when it was an uncomfortable place to be. I have a small stockpile of Quaker Nonfiction near my bed too, but cannot seem to pick up anything but the bible (not exactly non-fiction, but you get the point), so I am letting that be for the moment. I have zero pangs of conscience about continuing to read good novels even when I cannot bear to so much as blink at Bownas et al. It is amazing, some of the soul-snarls that I have had worked out me in the past, just by the reading some good, life-filled fiction.

7.) And poetry:

It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.

--Emily Dickinson

8.) Jeff is home from the FWCC Section of the Americas Gathering. I managed to go to pick him up at the airport twice. For one trip. Because I do not do well with details. Or itineraries. While he was gone it was cold and dark and windy and it even snowed. Now it is sunny and warm. Coincidence? Well, probably. But welcome home, Jeff! He said I could share his pictures with you. They are pretty great.

Serenity

There was a shortlived but wonderful show on Fox some time ago called Firefly. It must have corresponded to one of the many times in my life that I've been without a television, because somehow I missed it entirely. When I was finally introduced to it on DVD, I fell instantly in love. It was a silly space-bandit sort-of-sci-fi series by Joss Whedon. I never got into any of his more famous shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this one caught my imagination in a special way. When a movie based on the series came out last year, called Serenity (the name of the space bandits' ship), it was a great event. I found myself looking forward to the movie with childlike anticipation. I could hardly remember ever being more excited to see a film. *cough*travestyofstarwars*cough*

When we saw the film, I was enraged and horrified to see my favourite character die a stupid, senseless death right before the end. His death didn't move the plot forward, he didn't die in any heroic way, it was just...

Well. It's become a running gag among the friends who went to see the movie how upset I was about this. For weeks *cough*months*cough* after I saw the film, I'd blurt out non-sequiturs about this character's death. Other people praised the death scene, saying it was just like life, that it pointed out how senseless most death is, that it was the way things worked in the real world.

"Not my world." I'd think. I leaned into the joke, becoming a caricature of indignant grief. I railed against Joss Whedon in a way that most people reserve for an unjust creator. If I was Joss Whedon, this would never have happened. If I were Joss Whedon, I would do things very differently. If I were Joss Whedon, I would change things. Stupid Joss Whedon.

Why am I blabbering about defunct sci-fi?

This morning I was in the kitchen of the Friend's Center as the weekly A.A. meeting was winding up. People had moments of revelation over donuts. They cried at the drop of a hat. (or, more like it, at the drop of crumbs all over my freshly swept floor). They hugged each other constantly. They were so intense. They spouted slogans at each other without irony, and what was worse, they accepted being sloganed at without irony. Someone would lean in, fix the other's gaze, and repeat a well-worn phrase. The other person would react with shock and awe as if they'd just been offered a new and profound truth that would change their whole life! I found myself unreasonably annoyed. I didn't know what it was that was triggering such irrational irritablity and ill-nature. I was suprised to find so little compassion running in my bloodstream at that moment. As I washed dishes I lectured myself and tried to turn my attitude around, reminding myself how good and brave and strong these people were to be working so actively at improving their lives. From the other room I could hear them recite another slogan in unison. I cringed. Finally, the Serenity prayer. I cringed a little more, involutarily.

In my childhood I spent a lot of time around people in Recovery. I read most of the A.A. canon before I was ten, just because it was around, and I read everything that was around. I've seen the twelve steps help people make amazing changes. So what was my problem this morning? Why the sudden anger and distain for something so overwhelmingly positive?

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Okay, let's take the middle part first. I'm cool with the middle part. I've got lots of courage. I will change any damn thing I can. If I can change a thing, I'm there. Look, I'm changing it right now. No problem.

But I hate the first part. (And I hate the third part.) I have no serenity. I claim to want serenity. I checked out Zen--they are supposed to have lots of serenity. But I it turned out there was one thing I didn't like about Zen. They didn't want to change anything. Or something to that effect. I didn't stay long enough to figure it out.

And now I'm a Quaker. Once again, serenity. Serenity/Peace, Peace/Serenity. Really?

serene
adj 1: characterized by absence of emotional agitation; "calm acceptance of the inevitable"; "remained serene in the midst of turbulence"; "a serene expression on her face"; "she became more tranquil"; "tranquil life in the country" [syn: calm, tranquil] 2: completely clear and fine; "serene skies and a bright blue sea"

Etymology:

serene
1508, "clear, calm," from L. serenus "peaceful, calm, clear" (of weather), of unknown origin. Applied to persons since 1635. Serenity (1538) is from O.Fr. serenite, from L. serenitatem (nom. serenitas) "clearness, serenity," from serenus.

Hmm.

The things I cannot change.

Oh my God, I hate the things I cannot change. There are so many things in my life that I hate, that I want to change, that I work very hard to change, that I pray for God to change. I do not want the wisdom to know that there are things I cannot change, things that God cannot change, things that God and I cannot change.

I can't be serene in the face of that.

I had a little nervous breakdown, realizing all of this today. I realized I was angry at the A.A. people for the circumspect way they were going about changing, for their firm belief that if they applied a certain set of proven principles, rules, and slogans to their life, things would change. I saw the futility of so many of my own efforts at change. I saw the seemingly immovable things that are in the way of the life I want to have. I saw how my faith in rules and slogans has been betrayed, and how I've had to let go of so many of the things I was sure would change my life for the better. I resented the placid faith that I was projecting onto the A.A.ers, because it is one that I have lost, for better or for worse.

I've been purged this year of so many of my ideas about an omnipotent God. I have no hands but thine. So often I look at my hands, or worse...at other people's hands, and I think, well then, if that's the case, God is totally screwed.

I've learned how small and diffident God can seem. I've finally come to understand the gruesome side of "free will" and seen that actually, yes, my almighty God can be thwarted. We can thwart God. We thwart God every day. I can thwart God. God knows how often or in how many unimagined ways! Or worse, other people can thwart God, and I won't be able to do a damn thing to change it.

It burned me up.

Jeff listened to my tantrum, not unlike the one I'd had when my pet character was so ignobly impaled in the film. He pointed out that everything I said was true, but that the important thing was that God isn't thwarted in the end. In the end, God wins. Love wins. Life wins. Things change. Believing that=faith.

Crucifixion/Resurrection et al.

Argh! Bah! I always want to read the last page first. I read articles backwards.

In meeting last week I gave a message. A psalm rose to my mind:

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your waterfalls; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

My message was about desert, and about rushing water. About manna from heaven and not turning stones into bread in your impatience, but waiting to be fed. About how the landscape of your soul is transformed by the flood of the spirit, fixtures and buildings and earth washed away, and new features arising.

And I think I ignored every word of it after it came out of my mouth. Where is this living water? Where is this living God? The movement of God at times feels like water-torture, one slow drip at a time, slowly wearing away stone, s-l-o-w-l-y changing it. Over eons.

I am not afraid of the torrent. "I pant", says the psalmist. "I thirst", says the Christ. "Me too!" I whine. I'm not afraid of the flood...I long for it.

What I fear is the waiting.

Oh, ironic Quaker Amanda!

And I wonder, do I need more Water, or do I need to be softer Stone? Neither? How do I change? How am I being changed? How long do I have to wait? How on earth can I find serenity when there are things outside of my power to change, things that desperately need changing, things that must be changed? And I'm not even talking about the Big Things that need to be changed--things like war and injustice and poverty, at least not yet. I'm talking about horrible little banal internal things that I can't seem to change. How can I accept that there is a difference between what I can and cannot change? How can I remain peaceful, clear and calm?

I am finding shocking comfort in the old testament. For every jubilant shout of praise there is an equal and opposite cry of longing and pain.

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.

There is little serenity in the psalms. There are moans and supplications, there are wishes for vengance. There is gloating and grieving in equal, gorgeously human amounts. But the serenity, when it is to be found, always comes tagging along at the end, and it always comes paired with the word "trust", "hope" or "faith".


Sigh.

So

I've been reading some Isaiah lately. Today at meeting while I was reading Isaiah (I often read the bible a little to settle my mind into worship), some words triggered a memory, and the chorus of this song rose up in me. It's a very beautiful hymn that I used to sing with the nuns when I was discerning my vocation with them. I got home and looked up the rest of the lyrics:

I will come to you in the silence,
I will lift you from all your fear.
You will hear My voice, I claim you as my choice,
be still and know I am here.

I am hope for all who are hopeless,
I am eyes for all who long to see.
In the shadows of the night, I will be your Light,
Come and rest in me.

Do not be afraid, I am with you.
I have called you each by name.
Come and follow me, I will bring you home;
I love you and you are mine.

I am strength for all the despairing,
Healing for the ones who dwell in shame.
All the blind will see, the lame will all run free,
and all will know my name.

I am the Word that leads all to freedom,
I am the peace the world cannot give.
I will call your name, embracing all your pain,
stand up, now walk, and live!


Here is the reading from Isaiah 42:


But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour...

...you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you...

...do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, 'Give them up',
and to the south, 'Do not withold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth--
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.'
Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes,
who are deaf, yet have ears!
Let all the nations gather together,
and let the people assemble.



I don't know that I have much to say yet beyond sharing those with you...

For God is a God at hand

I've been having a lot of trouble blogging lately. Things are well in my world, but the blog's been pretty quiet. The Young Adult Friends' gathering last weekend was powerful. At some point I'd like to write more about our experience there...soon, maybe.

Well, like I said, I'm feeling quiet. But I wanted to lift up some extracts from George Fox's letter to Lady Claypole, Cromwell's daughter. Phrases from it have been rising up in my mind all this week. They seem perhaps relevant to the weekend past...as well as to life in general.

I am separating the closest approximations to paragraphs that I can make out, for easier reading. Sometimes I find the thick blocks of text from George a little hard to dive into.



"Keep in the fear of the Lord God; that is the Word of the Lord unto thee. For all these things happen to thee for thy good, and for the good of those concerned for thee, to make you know yourselves and your own weakness, that ye may know the Lord's strength and power, and may trust in Him. Let the time past be sufficient to every one, who in anything hath been lifted up in transgression out of the power of the Lord; for He can bring down and abase the mighty, and lay them in the dust of the earth. Therefore, all keep low in His fear, that thereby ye may receive the secrets of God and His wisdom, may know the shadow of the Almighty, and sit under it in all tempests, storms, and heats.

For God is a God at hand, and the Most High rules in the children of men. This is the word of the Lord God unto you all; what the Light doth make manifest and discover, as temptations, distractions, confusions, do not look at these temptations, confusions, corruptions, but at the Light which discovers them and makes them manifest; and with the same Light you may feel over them, to receive power to stand against them. The same Light which lets you see sin and transgression, will let you see the covenant of God, which blots out your sin and transgression, which gives victory and dominion over it, and brings into covenant with God.

For looking down at sin, corruption, and distraction, ye are swallowed up in it; but looking at the Light, which discovers them, ye will see over them. That will give victory, and ye will find grace and strength; there is the first step to peace...

...So in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty strengthen thee.
"G.F."

I just got a phone call

from my mother. My grandfather has died. I never met him, but he was somehow always a presence in our life. I remember being very small and watching my father's slide-shows of his visit to Argentina, and how fascinated I was by and how loving I felt towards the stern, noble face of my Abuelo in the pictures, and how much I have always wanted to meet him. I am grieving for my father, who can't go home to Argentina for the funeral. I am grieving for the long separation he has endured from his family, and I am grieving for all of us who did not have the chance to know this grandfather. I beg Friends to please hold my whole family in the light. This is really really hard for the family in North Carolina, and for the family in Argentina, and for me out here in MA, all of us unable to comfort each other except by long distance.

My mother wrote more about it here:
Mum2Twelve

I was lead today to this beautiful prayer from The Authorized Daily Prayer Book, a book of Jewish prayer. I don't care how much my particular theology meshes with it, it is a prayer of great majesty and comfort. And before I give you the prayer, I will give you a tiny snippet from The Candle, The Lantern, The Daylight by Mildred Binns Young (which I have a lot to blog about, later.)

"And I am no longer reluctant to use prayers written or spoken by others and learned by heart. They begin in others, but by using them we root them in ourselves. We make them our own and when the heart is unable to open towards God, these prayers can act as keys. Once the heart is open, it finds its own words until that moment comes when it needs none."


’O Lord and King, who art full of compassion, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all flesh, who killest and makest alive, who bringest down to the grave and bringest up again, receive, we beseech Thee, in Thy great loving-kindness, the soul of our brother who hath been gathered unto his people. Have mercy upon him, pardon all his transgressions, for there is not a righteous man upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not. Remember unto him the righteousness which he wrought, and let his reward be with him and his recompense before him. O shelter his soul in the shadow of Thy wings. Make known to Him the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Vouchsafe unto him of the abounding happiness that is treasured up for the righteous, as it is written, Oh how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the children of men!

’O Lord, who healest the broken-hearted and bindest up their wounds, grant Thy consolation unto the mourners: put into their hearts the fear and love of Thee, that they may serve Thee with a perfect heart, and let their latter end be peace.

’Like one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and in Jerusalem shall ye be comforted. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

’He will destroy death for ever; and the Lord will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.’