Dear Keats

You say touch has a memory.
How to exorcise it?
You think on a good many things.
Sit and think. Sit and think.
How, do tell me, do I move on on on
On on on
And still think myself capable of loving ever?

Love was not a game to me,
Or was it? Of course not, my mouth tells me:
nothing tastes sweet.
Only the bitter things draw me,
and people not at all.

Beer, and shoveling this unbelievable mass of
snow that has graciously transported me
from my home planet to one resembling Hoth.
And all its beasts are in my head
as I shovel on on on on on
the pile topples.

I miss you, dear. And the idea of you, and
your hand on my back, your shoulders
such a sweet place to rest my head.
Your slow kiss on top of my hair, the
kind of kiss reserved for babies,
whose heads need kissing, you know.

Re-Entry

I went through the pains of what I have heard missionaries call "re-entry" when I returned from my first short-term mission trip to Arizona at the age of 12. What was it? Everything was different; home wasn't home. As I re-entered my old world, I recognized that it, too, was new. Those losses had to be mourned.

I didn't experience it to any great degree when I returned from Honduras, nor upon my return from any other foreign country.

But I've found myself experiencing it this summer, those aches of loss, now I have moved out of the life I've known for the past three years. I haven't always phrased my work as a missionary assignment, though my availability to friends and family has been that of an ex-patriot. (Besides, why would I call myself a missionary? Our lives are ours to use how we will, and if you're a Christian, your life is yours to use how God wills. So we live out our mission. All Christians are also missionaries.)

Yet... aside from rarely being available to hang out, I've been surrounded by people of a different culture and language, and I've been a spiritual mentor. And I guess those are what I have always thought of as a missionary's callings.

Now that I'm living outside of the residence hall, here's what's been on my mind:
1. I have to cook. What is "to cook"?
2. I just did a lot of packing and downsizing: my classroom and my apartment were all placed or displaced in the house I now share with three other women. And most importantly, I don't miss any of those items. Maybe possessions are silly.
3. Is it time to move to another country in a few months? No.
4. Aren't all jobs supposed to be full of purpose? Or are some jobs editing copy, making coffee, and praying that God would receive glory in that? Yes.

William Stafford Makes Sense Today (Whereas Yesterday Was a Different Story)

Poetry is about more than the right word. It's about more than keeping interest, or using intricate and precise metaphors.

Poetry is about timing. You may read a poem, and not know right away that you need it. But later, when circumstance has caught up with you, you go searching about in your mind for those precise words, like a spell; because someone already said it, and said it deeper than you can in that hard moment. Maybe they understand what is happening to you.

Today, I was grasping for "that poem about how we're all in darkness, and we need to communicate better. Something about the darkness around us is deep." Thank you, William Stafford and the Internet, for this poem and access to it. It is not quite what I thought it was. But I grasp it tightly anyway, understanding today what would have been impossible yesterday. Even the elephants.

A Ritual To Read To Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

Forming a Philosophy of Life

I have recorded my college experiences here, and my first few years of teaching and advising. And now I wonder what comes next. Because, unless I die accidentally, there will be a next thing. And more people. I realized recently that I have been forming a life philosophy, and I am as disturbed as you are that these are not verses from the Bible.

1. People are the same everywhere. 
That's not to say that individuals are not special to me. Individuals are irreplaceable in my life. But so far as I can tell, people present the same problems and the same solutions, the world over. People are going to be petty, ridiculous, overly-serious, and suddenly-political no matter where I live or what job I have. And people are the answer to that particular lonely feeling I get, and that disheartened loss of faith I know so well, and that cluelessness I feel in new places.

2. We can do no great things, only small things with great love.
Ken gave me a bracelet with this inscribed on it, and Mother Teresa, apparently, said it. I have longed to make a difference in the world. I have longed to use whatever is special about me, my sensitivity, my ability to say words backwards, my peculiar family background, whatever I am, to bring some good to the world, to really get the ball rolling toward this goal of bringing people to Jesus, all in their own languages, at the same time, yes, thank you. It's not gonna happen like that. I'm not gonna do this alone. I'm not even at the center of Jesus' plan of salvation. He's assembled a vast team that spans time and space, in which I'm a pinprick of His light; to think that I could do anything greater than small, daily deaths to self as I look for His face in this world of loss, is ludicrous and possibly idolatrous. Thank you, Jesus, for this freedom! May your Kingdom come!

Judging Journeys to God

Prompt: Go off on a rant

Today, a friend's Facebook status said something about the existence of God. She said it with little punctuation, with spelling errors: three or four vicious lines about how obvious it was that no God ever did, does, or will exist.

I am generally annoyed and disappointed with public thoughts that reflect the same self-evident approach to the existence of God, usually focusing on some piece of creation and then insulting atheists.

They have no idea how long and hard the other has looked, only to come to the end of their ability and finally hit the ground in despair, usually at the edge of the faith leap. Those who see God there must realize how distinctly close they were to the edge of unbelief. And others arrive at the edge, and cannot lift their heads because of shame.

Who is either the atheist or the believer to call the other ignorant? The journey is treacherous. They may have arrived at either decision with only the faintest of guiding lights, and with great pain and sorrow.

Self-evident, indeed.
The way is narrow.

I Rock Your Baby Son to Sleep

When you announced that you would be married instead of going to college, I felt giddy with joy. Not, mostly, for noble reasons: it was putting together a wedding at such a young age; I must have seen a hundred movies with weddings and flowers, and rings, and kisses. Part of me was sad, too: we had planned to be college roommates; we would have made friends and histories that entwined forever.

So what would our lives look like at this distance? Occasional visits, always something shared deep down: separating histories, but a wire that kept our hearts moving in the same direction. Praise God! I have not lost you, friend. And I have gained a whole family of friends because you chose so bravely:

--------

I rock your baby son to sleep
Slanted light from the hallway
A CD plays a lullaby
Mellow-sweet, a gentle moment.

Suddenly, a pang tells me
how blessed you are among women;
that even to endure a thousand
crying, up-and-down nights,
bottle-or-no-bottle nights,
is worth his trusting, sleepy heart,
his fingers twirling his cropped, blond hair.
He snuggles into my arm and my side.

If I remain single and childless,
tonight I felt I’d miss
half the stars in the sky.

Never one for greed, I hope,
I delight in seeing your faces as
the skies unfold new grandeur before you:
the word “dog,” learning to run,
then the rock-step, snapping fingers,
sharing toys with his new brother.

It's Wednesday. It's February. We're going to be fine.

I just finished reading The Hunger Games. I'm devastated and worthless after finishing a book. Time to go outside for a walk in the dark. Sure, it's melancholy, but not as much as looking at pictures from my high school graduation which I happened upon today. What a windy day. And whatever, Kelly wasn't the only one in National Honor Society. The rest of us returned our hoods immediately after the ceremony to avoid incurring a fine. And it's anyone's guess as to why Sly just can't behave in any of these photos.

The Twins Across the Street

Transition.

(oops! Did I just drop that word? How clumsy of me! And nowhere to put it. Maybe I'll just throw it up there, high on that shelf that I can't see or reach with a ten-foot pole, right next to "fasting" and "jihad"--out of sight out of mind.)

Across the street live two elderly couples. Already, communal living in the U.S. is odd enough. But even stranger, they always dress as twins. The men dress exactly alike, and the ladies dress exactly alike. Every day. I just saw the ladies leaving their house in dark blue elastic pants and light yellow sweaters. They had their basket on wheels, going to a store downtown. They brought so much order to my disheveled spirit. I thought, "their lives have continued past the age of 22. Now there is a feat. I can do this."

It is strange, the comfort I have taken in just seeing elderly people recently. In the high school where I was student teaching, most of the teachers were rather young, and of course the students were 18 or under. The university is comprised of many young people. Even my church is primarily under 35. I simply have not had a diverse range of ages in my life over the last four years. How sweet to see these two couples living in unity as though never perturbed. I wish I knew them. I wish I could see up close what thoughts come with being over 70.

My grandparents are now looking toward 80, and with it has come a marked change in their lives. My grandmother is looking after my grandfather, caring for the home, the expenses, the driving, the doctor's appointments. He is not allowed out of her sight for extended periods of time. They are downsizing: packing, selling, trashing, and preparing to move into a retirement community. My thought: major suckfest. But for what it's worth, it puts my own transitions into perspective.

I need less stuff. I need more Christ. I know the response post for this one, in three or four months' time, will be something to do with not knowing where I have put my hangers. They always seem to be lost in the shuffle. I know that uncertainty regarding a job will not be the determining factor of the age I live to see.

Maybe, one day, I will even marry a man with a twin brother; and I will walk to the store with this twin brother's wife, dressed exactly the same: a show of solidarity: we have lived long, and no amount of living can drive from us our sense of humor!

Así Son las Cosas

Señor del universo,

Yo confío todo al cuidado tuyo. Si yo no te pueda confiar, ¿en quién puedo esperar? Ya me ha fallado mí misma. Fine. Take it all.

Voy a tomar el consejo que dí a una hermana esta semana: voy a contarte como me siento a tí. Si me siento que me has equivocado, y me debes a algo, voy a decirlo a tí. Pero, por ahora, sé que lo que me falta es la descansa. Aun todavía, mientras que yo no este bien, puedo descansarme en tus brazos.

Hijacked from my Journal: September 10, 2010

On my way to the bus, I saw a man carrying a giant green duffel bag on his back.

(Maybe it mattered solely because I've been reading Kerouac, and maybe it was the disheveled hair and three of four days' growth of beard on his chin that made him look travel-worn.)

He turned the corner of Lemon and College,

several yards in front of me.

A few houses down, he climbed the steps slowly, to the front door of a nicely-kept house.

It was a place where a family, maybe older, certainly rich, would live. But his door was the smaller front door, where he was probably renting from the nice family.

No stir was perceptible as he entered, late morning.

I thought, "he is coming home after a long journey. And I am the only one who knows."

Something Old and Something New

The New comes first:

I just finished the Praxis II test. It was so dang easy that I shouldn't even devote time to it in even this most casual of published media. However, it marks a movement forward in time for which I am very, very grateful.

I may not always be in search of part-time jobs. One day I may have a classroom where challenges will take place on a different level than those which I have faced this week. I just got a new job. Did you know that? I started this week. And it's over this week, too. They are closing. I'm back on the hunt. But the real tragedy has little to do with my job search. I may now be in competition for the same part-time job as the people who paid me just two days ago. Disappointing. But not a strange tale for our times.

Now, for the old. These are some poems I had written and first published on my xanga. (I haven't linked my xanga to this blog. I don't think I will.) I occasionally revisit it to see where I've come from.

Modern English

Fragmented.

Or poignant?

To Our Father in Heaven:

From what depths You cry!

Have cried to reach me!

Suddenly I am awake.

I have been crying too!

Awareness crashes in.

A child crying after a great fall.

And You. Emerge out of the darkness,

Calling my name.

It is my name because You have called.

I have heard it.

You have taken me in Your arms

And You have spoken it. Are You crying

With

Me?

Such tidings You bear!

Comfort and joy!

When Cat Fell Out of the World

Cat sat at the window inside the world. She looked at the picture that changed.

But today the screen was up. Cat was suddenly out of the world! The ground smelled like living bugs. The air was achingly close, in her fur, through her whiskers.

The neighbor's calls and sirens and carhorns could touch her pricked ears! Her tail dipped and touched the grasses moved by the wind. She crunched leaves under her paws.

Cat gave a cry. She missed sitting under the table and dodging moving legs in the world.

Notebook Exploration

These are from fall of 2007, my one semester at Houghton College.

I found this haiku in the front of my notebook for advanced composition with Dr. Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb:

If at first you

Can't count to five syllables,

You're probably me.

I found this letter to God in the back of my notebook for English literature survey with Dr. Wardwell. That was the best class I have ever taken. During finals, I was pacing the lengths of the bookshelves memorizing slices of poetry and their authors. When I wrote this letter, I had just taken a long look at Gulliver's Travels and was about to move on to The Rape of the Lock. But my mind stopped. So I began:

I want to tell You all about it by a shimmering stream, beneath a cerulean sky. But I have a light brown study carrel with a light that hums next to a window and a heater. And I have a very serious amount of studying to do for my final in two days. But, God, I'm just so SO--! I want to tell You under a starry sky, with the world beneath You and I together. We'd watch each star as it watched us, and You'd tell me a secret and I would make You laugh.

But I have a hundred (or two dozen) goodbyes to make. And who knows for how long it will be? One year? This lifetime? All eternity? Jesus only You could know... I'm just so--! So mad and clueless, expectant and helpless. So scared and tired, excited and weary. And not busy. Like I should be.

Even though I walk the shores, all the mountains, town after town, one city, then another, even though I see Your creation right beside all that of man, I will always listen for Your voice. It always calls me here. To begin again at the beginning, while I'm in the middle of everything busy, getting ready to make a change. I'll start with You. And I'll end with You.

Reality

is boxes lining my left wall. Time for moving.

I will be spending this summer at Black Rock Retreat as a senior counselor. The first time I saw the place was the day of the interview. As I described it to the camp director, it was my "last-ditch effort at being obedient." I would be glad to see you if you decide to retreat there this summer!

Hebrews 10:39

"But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."

So persevere. It's a matter of identity. We are the kind of people who believe and are saved. Just like runners first have to think of themselves as runners before completing a marathon, or an artist must call herself an artist before completing a masterpiece. We are perseverers. Holding out and fighting through is what we do.

Where I'm From

(This was an assignment based on the poem by George Ella Lyon: http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html )

I am from Waynesboro,
Pennsylvania,
the United States
of America,
the Central Mountains,
specifically the valleys.
I am rural
but not boots
raised on a farm.
Instead, sneakers
worn down from sidewalks.

I am from Nancy and Ralph,
Helen and David.
Babysitters who were family,
and family who were strangers.
From teachers and nurses

people trying to be faithful.
From church seats to pews to folding chairs--
One Jesus.

I am from early mornings and toaster breakfasts,
mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade chicken soup,
leftovers, and no recipes. Mismatched dishes, a
cluttered kitchen table, a TV on in another room.

I am from the cinema in winter, park in summer--
sunburns and freckles, chapped lips and runny noses--
snowfights and long walks to school with a delay.

I am from the sunset, quiet evening, iced tea,
prowling cat in the bushes of a fading day.
From the back porch overlooking a slanted field;
the field filled up,
now it's Crown Circle.

I am from tears and hope,
shouting and laughter,
trial and defense,
discord and peace.

Everything Natural

I have a hole in my vocabulary: I don't know how to describe landscape. It may be the result of a lack of nature reading. But I am more prone to believe that it comes from a lack of nature. What is a rill? A hummock? What exactly is an escarpment? It sounds like a place where fish might be bred. It gets worse when we're talking about specific types of herbage. As I read James Herriott, a Scottish author, I found myself at a blank when I tried to imagine his environment. I finally gave in and web-searched what peat moss and heather looked like.

My vocabulary hole is even more apparent when I try to write about my environs. I don't even know the name of the tree outside my window. In the summer, its greenery is vibrant enough to obstruct intrusive eyes. In the wintertime, said tree drops its leaves onto our porch from which they are swept into the road to be removed by the street cleaners (which I never see, but know exist, because they are religious about ticketing vehicles). Even after discarding its leaves, long green pods remain on the branches. Throughout the winter, these pods become more and more translucent, revealing small black seeds inside, which obligingly take up the office of the leaves and scatter themselves about our porch, to be swept into the road and then removed by the unseen, yet fastidious, street cleaners. Through my long and fervent commerce with this tree, I have yet to learn its name, or any of its virtues as a plant. As a city-dweller, it merely gets in my way; much like the tree a few houses down which excretes a sap that smells like vomit, and has accordingly been dubbed the vomit tree.

I'm out of touch, you see.
I don't know nature,
and she doesn't know me.
I haven't felt the earth with
my bare, soft feet
in I-don't-know-how-long!
...It may be getting to me.

I remember living in smaller towns growing up. I wasn't so far removed then. I could hike in the woods, and did often. I knew the smaller parks and hiking trails nearby with an almost shameful intimacy. I didn't often feel hungry or tired there. Sometimes, it was a marvel how deeply I lost myself in sunlight and trees. I wanted to be a part of them. Some force would pull me off the trail, to know the outside of the trail, and maybe actually know it... nature, something. Once off the trail, my desire would only grow. There was more, where was it? Knowing tree names wasn't enough, I had to be a part of it, get inside. I would climb a tree, or stoop to the mosses, inspecting the insides of logs. But that tugging does not just go away. Sometimes, in fact, my dissatisfaction rose to anger.

Not long ago, I was visiting Longwood Gardens with my grandparents. While there, I compared it to my first time to Longwood, ten years ago. I had felt that dissatisfied longing to be in nature. I remember how awful it was to be in such an achingly beautiful place, and somehow not really know it. But something was different this trip. As I walked through the conservatory, I felt like singing to God! I felt as though I had to worship and adore the Creator, or I would burst all over the lovely orchids. I smiled dumbly, room after room of incredible colors, each representing a vast framework of design. The longing was still there, but smaller. As I thanked God in prayer for His unrestrained, immoderate beauty, I knew that I was a part of it.

Future Self: have mercy. All is done except
today. Look not so harshly on the person
of your youth, of your middle age, of your
elder years. Understand ignorance as a
seed, a sappling, a living thing pushing
up and letting change blow over it,
around it. Only you can understand the
journey to now. Sever not this tie!
Call me you! I am! I am!
Own me as you own yesterday, as I
own tomorrow, even owning myself.
And look to Him for the mercy I have
not. Look to Him, self, for the grace to
own the journey.