living through our season of consequences: part one

Nearly every morning as I am drinking strong hot tea, I read the daily reflection posted by the Henri Nouwen Society (see @ https://henrinouwen.org). Not all of his words speak to me at any given moment - a lot depends on my head, heart and body - but that is equally true for poems and Scripture, too. How often have I waded through the Psalms before a long ignored passage comes alive - and then becomes a cherished source of authentic wisdom? Different translations and settings matter, as do the seasons of the year, and the state of the world around me. For decades I missed the blessings in Psalm 131 only to experience them again some ten years ago through the poetry of the Book of Common Prayer: 

O Lord, my heart is not proud; 

my eyes are not raised in haughty looks.
I do not occupy myself with great matters,
with things that are too high for me.
But I have quieted and stilled my soul,
like a weaned child on its mother’s breast;
so my soul is quieted within me.

Over the past few days these reflections have felt potent and full of insight. His words stand on their own, of course; Nouwen knew how to speak to the human condition. Appreciating his story, however, adds another layer of intensity to a wisdom hard won. Nouwen, you see, wrestled with depression and anxiety for most of his adult life. Further, he often felt restless, incomplete and inadequate as he moved from Yale into Latin American liberation congregations and then Harvard. Reading his books and letters from this era shows a sensitive and tender man who struggled to be at rest with himself. His heart had not been quieted nor his soul stilled. His academic colleagues at Harvard Divinity School exacerbated Nouwen's insecurities when they withheld their welcome and judged his professional value to be inferior because he had not followed the Ph. D. track. Thanks be to God for Jean Vanier of L'Arche who reached out to a despondent friend and offered him simple hospitality. In time, Nouwen found his true home and deepest calling within L'Arche. Learning to live in the moment with love was essential. Keeping his heart open in a safe and gentle home was how he came to commune with the holy. Even the hell of his emotional break down at L'Arche Daybreak led Nouwen to a deeper trust of God's grace and presence. No wonder he was able to write:  

When productivity is our main way of overcoming self-doubt, we are extremely vulnerable to rejection and criticism and prone to inner anxiety and depression. Productivity can never give the deep sense of belonging we crave. The more we produce, the more we realize that successes and results cannot give us the experience of “at homeness.” In fact, our productivity reveals to us that we are driven by fear.

There are not many places in our culture where we can live openly beyond the cult of productivity. Not the church. Not our schools. Certainly not the market place. And rarely inside the institutions of the not-for-profit realm. Our culture and economy are defined and driven by an obsession for more: more wealth, more space, more toys, more entertainment, more energy, more individuality, more sex, more power. Even the way we speak about the inner, spiritual journey is infected by this obsession: spiritual growth, church growth, the gospel of prosperity. In the introduction to Cynthia Bourgeault's small masterpiece, The Wisdom Way of Knowing, she reminds us that at this moment in time, our addiction to acquisition has come when most of our religious institutions have been discarded:

As the pace of modernity seems to leave mainstream Christianity increasingly in the dust, many younger seekers are simply no long interested in a religion that strikes them as doctrinally calcified and culturally antiquated; they have bypassed the church altogether. Whether their disillusionment is justified or unjustified, the bottom line is that the baby tends to get thrown out with the bath water... (but) without the basic ethical and devotional orientation points of religious practice, it is very hard to escape the powerful gravitational pull of contemporary cultural materialism, with its myriad attractions and seductions. "The one with the most toys when he dies wins" - that cynical bumper sticker I spotted one day while hurtling down the Los Angeles freeway - speaks to the anguish of a whole generation hungry for meaning but alienated from the spiritual containers in which meaning has traditionally been conveyed. (Bourgeault, xviii)

The consequences of this crisis are clear: climate change, the intensification of nativism around the world, the on-going war against women, race hatred, fear of the stranger, an epidemic of addiction and even suicide, mass murder. The current regime in the White House personifies our dilemma in staggeringly ugly ways nearly every day. For we have become a culture, a nation, a generation unmoored and unhinged. Former US President Jimmy Carter wasn't kidding when he told us that "America gets the leaders it deserves." 

To be clear, human brokenness is not new: the old preacher of Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth, taught that "there is nothing new under the sun. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again." Much of the wisdom found in this fifth century BCE text was borrowed and reworked from the older wisdom traditions of Babylon. "To everything there is a season and a purpose to all things under heaven: a time to be born, a time to die." My hunch is that we are now living into the season of consequences. We are experiencing, feeling and coming to grips with what we have created by our excess. Some will always remain in denial for there truly IS nothing new under the sun. But incrementally there are more and more people of every race, creed, color, gender and class who know that life is destructively out of balance. You can see clues like Wal-Mart changing its practices of selling weapons and ammunition. Or Dick's Sporting Goods quitting the sale of guns. Or the popular will of Americans turning against the National Rifle Association. Or the #Me Too and #Black Lives Matter movements. There has been a culture of death born of our addictions. Now a culture of new life is stirring. To everything there is a season.

One insight from the ebb and flow of life and death in culture is that during the season of consequences - a time of sorting and reordering priorities - many feel helpless to advance real change. I believe that this feeling is important as it is another layer of addiction dying within us personally and collectively. We must fully grieve the consequences of our obsession with productivity if we are going to learn a healthier alternative. That's what the blues are all about. That's what anguish and soul searching evoke. A cleansing. A renewal. A repentance and change of direction. Until our grief is complete, however, we will continue to feel hopeless. Walter Brueggemann's take on the prophet's of ancient Israel is clear: renewal and new life will not come until we are emptied of our addiction to the status quo. This requires our world being turned upside down, grieving both the loss of what was good and what was broken, learning to sit in silent emptiness until God's spirit - not our initiative - sings a new song within and among us.

So what I have been thinking and feeling over the past few months - and  I could be way off on this, ok? - but what keeps coming back to me from within the emptiness is this: during this season of cleansing and grief could we use a 21st century version of the Celtic monasteries of the Middle Ages? They were both centers that preserved the wisdom and literature of previous cultures - what all those monks were transcribing besides Scripture were the buried classics of Greek culture - as well as outposts of radical hospitality and safety in a world saturated with danger and fear. Small communities of equality, often with both men and women, scattered about a day's journey from one another that welcomed the stranger, protected the vulnerable and kept the light of wisdom burning when darkness was the rule of the day. In his essay, "Monasticism: the Heart of Celtic Christianity," Paul Cullity of the Northumbria Community writes that the pre-Christian Celts:

...maintained “bardic schools”, “Bards” being that class of the Druids who carried on the history, music, and general knowledge of the culture. This learning was completely oral, and often took decades to complete. The value of these schools in Ireland and Northern Britain was such that Celts from Gall, Spain, and Southern England would often send an oldest son to train there. These schools and their dedication to learning was to be adopted by the Christianised Celts, and later be responsible for such works of art as the Books of Kells and Durrow, and the Lindisfarne Gospels. It would also be responsible for preserving almost all that we know of the Classical World, by copying the texts of Greece and Rome, in addition to religious texts, and keeping these manuscripts safe during the tumultuous Middle Ages.

(see https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/articles/monasticism-the-heart-of-celtic-christianity/)

In a follow-up blog post, I will share a few thoughts about what the reclamation of this tradition might mean for our current season of darkness, consequences, grieving and emptiness. The practices of the Celtic monastery were informed by the experiences of the Desert Mothers and Fathers where the wisdom traditions of the Middle East were preserved and nourished. In time, some of the practices of the desert were formalized into a commitment to ora et labora according to the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia. We, too require guidance into the now lost traditions of wisdom. We, too could benefit from small communities of safety. We, too are hungry for sensual, practical and intellectual insights into living with tenderness and trust. Another quote from Bourgeault's book puts it like this:

I want to speak about Wisdom and specifically about the recovery of a genuine wisdom dimension to our individual lives and to our common life... Beneath the surface of our well-being, a malaise - perhaps a crisis of meaning - as long been brewing. For all our affluence, stress and anxiety seem to be higher than ever, family life is in disarray, and the rushing to keep up leaves us empty and exhausted. The Old Testament prophet Haggai sounds like he could be speaking directly us in these words, which are more than two thousand years old: "So now... think; take stock; what do you REALLY want? You eat but still hunger; you drink but still thirst; you clothe yourselves but can't get warm, and your wages run out through the holes in your pockets." (pp.3-4) 

She continues with what I believe is an important clue: "When the center starts to wobble, it's a pretty sure bet that what is lacking is not means, but depth." Not more, not greater productivity, not more things, but life that goes deep into love.

learning to listen to the wisdom of our flesh...

A recent post from the Henri Nouwen Society addressed the pressure of competition.

One of the saddest aspects of the lives of many students is that they always feel pressured... The word school, which comes from schola (meaning “free time”), reminds us that schools were originally meant to interrupt a busy existence and create some space to contemplate the mysteries of life. Today they have become the arena for a hectic race to accomplish as much as possible, and to acquire in a short period the necessary things to survive the great battle of human life. Books written to be savored slowly are read hastily to fulfill a requirement, paintings made to be seen with a contemplative eye are taken in as part of a necessary art appreciation course, and music composed to be enjoyed at leisure is listened to in order to identify a period or style. Thus, colleges and universities meant to be places for quiet learning have become places of fierce competition, in which the rewards go to those who produce the most and the best.

Nouwen's insight from the 90's is even more true today: competition and our addiction to bottom-line thinking is killing us. It shrivels our capacity for wonder while feeding both shame and anxiety. And not just in our schools, but in our places of employment, our families, and all too often in our houses of worship. Over time we lose our capacity to hear and trust what our own flesh is telling us about our existence. The North American opioid epidemic is not an aberration, but one tragic sign that many of us no longer know how to listen for God's grace and presence in our bodies. Not only have we forgotten how to consciously let the Word become flesh within and among us, we have banished it from both our memories and culture. I sense that Fr. Richard Rohr got it right when he posted:

In the United States today, white dominant culture prizes competition, urgency, individualism, niceness (or avoidance of conflict), and logic. Other values and ways of being, such as cooperation, appropriate self-care, community, and vulnerability, are often seen as inferior. We cause so much harm and lose so much possibility by fearing our differences. 

I recall being in therapy some 30 years ago trying to understand what my body was telling my heart and soul. To say that I was disembodied would not be overstating the case. I lived, moved and breathed in the realm of ideas. This is true for many of us who experience life first through our minds - the 7, 8 and 9s of the Enneagram - but doubly so for those who have known physical abuse. In acts of self-preservation, we learn to radically move out of our feelings and flesh so that the consequences of our wounds can be managed. Separated from our daily lives. It is a winning strategy for a spell, but like all acts of compensation, there comes a time when what worked once has now outlived its usefulness. To everything there is a season. 

In this particular session, I was describing how powerless I felt in the face of another's anger. Not only did I feel like I was a vulnerable five year old, but my fears fed my shame. At which point my counselor said, "Wait. Stop. Look what you are doing with your arms." Apparently, I had raised them both in front of my face and was shaking them powerfully. "How do you feel right now," he asked, "with your arms up?" Eventually I realized that I felt empowered, still vulnerable, but able to defend myself and even push my aggressors back. And that became my embodied prayer for over a year: every time I felt shame and fear in the face of another's anger - or felt myself slipping into old traps - I would find a quiet and private place to raise my arms with my hands in a fist and shake them vigorously. In this I shook away the shame. I shook away my powerlessness. I became grounded in my true strength. And I began to learn the wisdom of my body so that the Words of God's grace could became flesh within me again. As one old Celtic aphorism teaches: A warrior must first learn to dance before using the sword. Tenderness and compassion in community guides the warrior archetype - he or she acts on behalf of others - never out of selfishness, greed or physical advantage. The warrior archetype is a protector not an aggressor.

Reclaiming the wisdom of our flesh is vital: our bodies were created by God with wisdom that can help us advance peace, faith, hope, trust, tenderness and love. But we must know how to listen and respond. It takes practice to listen and trust the holy within our humanity that will help us disconnect our hearts, minds and flesh from the unhealthy habits of competition. The dominate story of our culture is all about competition, winning and individual gratification. There are other stories all around us - from the wisdom of singing in a choir, being a tender-hearted parent or a wisdom keeper and teacher for young people who ache for alternatives - but we must nourish and practice them so that we know they are true from the inside out. I smiled in affirmation this morning upon seeing Joyce Stuphen's poem: "Things You Didn’t Put on Your Résumé."

How often you got up in the middle of the night
when one of your children had a bad dream,

and sometimes you woke because you thought
you heard a cry but they were all sleeping,

so you stood in the moonlight just listening
to their breathing, and you didn't mention

that you were an expert at putting toothpaste
on tiny toothbrushes and bending down to wiggle

the toothbrush ten times on each tooth while
you sang the words to songs from Annie, and

who would suspect that you know the fingerings
to the songs in the first four books of the Suzuki

Violin Method and that you can do the voices
of Pooh and Piglet especially well, though

your absolute favorite thing to read out loud is
Bedtime for Frances and that you picked

up your way of reading it from Glynnis Johns,
and it is, now that you think of it, rather impressive

that you read all of Narnia and all of the Ring Trilogy
(and others too many to mention here) to them

before they went to bed and on the way out to
Yellowstone, which is another thing you don't put

on the résumé: how you took them to the ocean
and the mountains and brought them safely home.

noticing some of the small things as a blessing in autumn....

With the risk of sounding like a broken record, as I take in the wonder of autumn this year, I am noticing how nearly everything around me seems to be getting smaller. Well, almost everything. My tomatoes continue to grow (and hopefully ripen) and my solitary pumpkin is getting a bit bigger, too. But just about everything else - the shrubs and flowers in the front yard, the trees and their shedding leaves, the wetland foliage, the sunlight, and even the grass - is diminished. Smaller. And, I am stunned to confess, all of this feels like the first time (cut to the MTV clip from Foreigner.) 

I know, of course, nothing on the outside has changed; this is what happens every year at this time. But it seems new to me. And, in fact, it IS new - to me. In a blog post entitled, "Little Details," writer Andy Otto observes:

How often our own routines become mindless. Perhaps the little things can remind us that God cares about those as much as us, and maybe it’s why God places them in our lives... Detail in life is oft overlooked but isn’t it the tiny things that make things whole? Isn’t it the little nicks and scratches and experiences and talents and histories that have contributed to what makes me me? God’s universe is designed in this way, that the whole, the larger, is made up of smaller details – and when we reverse by looking back at those smaller and smaller details, we find delight and wonder in them. How boring life would be if we weren’t aware of the little details in relationships. For many, a lack of awareness for one’s own details makes self-image bland and makes life bland. On the contrary. Go deeper into the perceived blandness and you’ll find that there are thousands of fantastic blessings that cry out for you to notice. (https://godinallthings.com/2013/06/24/the-little-details/)

Noticing is one of the small practices spiritual directors are encouraged and trained to experience and then share. It is a process that is rarely monumental. Or grand. Or even special. Rather, noticing simply calls attention to the little things of real life and wonders aloud about the deeper truths they might be pointing towards? Or what insights and/or feelings they evoke? It is a bit like giving a camera to a five year old and looking at the pictures together: not only do they show a reality that is smaller and much closer to the ground, but they give adults a whole new perspective on what goes on everyday in the life of a small person. Back in seminary, we gave our five year old an old camera and were delighted as well as baffled by the pictures she took: there were fire hydrants we never noticed, candy strategically placed at the eye level of a child in the local NYC bodega, friends who seemed to exist only from the thighs down, and familiar land marks cut in half that took on a surreal and even upside down significance. 

That's how I felt when I noticed the golden rod in the field behind our neighbor's home. It is a wild sea of yellow with a few hints of red from the gladiolas in the foreground: a resting place for a simple statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We've lived here for 12 years and I only noticed this beauty yesterday. Where have I been? What has been going on inside that kept me from seeing? What's changed? Noticing, I think, is a way of seeing, living and comprehending life from within the wisdom of the little things. "Consider the lilies of the field," Jesus said. Or "I thank you, Holy Creator, that Thou hast hidden these things to the wise and powerful,  but have revealed them to your little ones. And in this we know your gracious will... so come to me all ye who are tired and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I am discovering for the first time another level of being blessed by God's first word in creation: nature. This poem by Shari Wagner called, "The farm wife turns off the TV evangelist," rings true to me:

The Jesus I grew up with
likes to be outside.
If he's not fishing, he's picking figs
or showing us his mustard crop.

He prefers dusty roads, the common sparrow,
and lilies of the field.
When he knocks on your door
holding a lantern, you know it's time
to buckle on overshoes
and go with him to feed the sheep.

But this preacher, who looks straight
into the camera and claims he knows
Jesus, says what he wants
is for me to believe in him
so he can come inside.

That sounds shifty to me.
Like a wolf with his paws dipped in flour.

Jesus who heals the blind
said we will know a tree by its fruit.

embracing autumn intentionally: going slow

It was an errand kind of day: shopping, picking up the dog, sorting bills, cutting back the brush in the wetlands, planning the week's menu, spot painting the house in anticipation of fall and winter, and learning the melody of a tune I'll play at the wedding of some friends at L'Arche Ottawa. The light at eventide here is magical as patches of late sun and looming shadows fill the field.

Increasingly, the wetlands are all muted browns, gray-greens with a hint of red or yellow sneaking into view. I helped our tomatoes today as they had fully overwhelmed their initial cages and trellises. We have hundreds of not ripe tomatoes waiting on the vine, but they need another few weeks of sunlight. All bets are off whether they'll make it as the temperature dipped into the low 40's Fahrenheit last night. To give them a fighting chance, however, and to savor their potential sweetness, I wired them to 6 new birch saplings - and now we'll see. With 21 more days left in September we might luck out and get a bumper crop. Otherwise, there will be a ton of green tomato sauce in the making. That would be fine, too. Seems that I engage my vegetables and herbs this autumn much like Bruce Weigl does his deer.

I watch the woods for deer as if I’m armed.

I watch the woods for deer who never come.

I know the hes and shes in autumn

rendezvous in orchards stained with fallen

apples’ scent. I drive my car this way to work

so I may let the crows in corn believe

it’s me their caws are meant to warn,

and snakes who turn in warm and secret caves

they know me too. They know the boy

who lives inside me still won’t go away.

The deer are ghosts who slip between the light

through trees, so you may only hear the snap

of branches in the thicket beyond hope.

I watch the woods for deer, as if I’m armed.

And then there are the red chili peppers. Jalapenos to be precise. They keep on keeping on; there are another 12 or so ready for picking with four or five green ones about to pop. So I'm going to try to make a mini-ristra: a hanging display of red chili peppers. I saw some at Marché Jean-Talon last week in Montréal and took a few pix so that I might give it a go. I have another dozen sitting on the cutting table from earlier in the summer. It will make a great splash of color and flavor for our autumn and winter kitchen. When we lived in Tucson - and went to Northern New Mexico to camp - we would always return with two or three huge ristras that hung on the back porch filling the air with their indescribable aroma. NOTE: if you ever get the chance to go to Hatch, NM in late August or early September, take it! The smell of roasting chili peppers saturates the town in the most heavenly way.

And then there's my pumpkins - or more honestly my one pumpkin. The vines are huge. The blossoms are beautiful. But only one little pie pumpkin has arrived to share its beauty. There is a fungus from too sandy soil that has probably wounded the fruit that might have been. Its virulent and hasn't yet responded to any of the sprays I've tried. It also looks like the deer have visited and munched away some of the flowers while we were away, too. Next year we will have a very different pumpkin patch with much healthier soil and lots more mulch and water. Over the fall/winter we will be doing research and sketches re: the next steps to take in our small garden for peace. I want it to be a place of serenity and fun, a place our grandchildren can join me in as we learn together about the bounty of Mother Earth.

I am thinking a great deal about those two precious children today: earlier this summer Anna turned two and just last week Louie started first grade. In a month he will be six. It hardly seems possible, but I know it is true; as I watch and listen to the garden and the fields it is clear that everything is ripening and moving on - my little ones as much as the plants, trees, fields and sky. And yet it still feels like just last week when I sent their momma off for her first day in first grade in her green tweed coat, red corduroy jumper and Army green backpack. I saved this poem by Olivia Stiffler because it hit hard and rang true.

While I Was Sleeping by Olivia Stiffler

my daughter's hair
turned gray.
Great nieces and nephews
returned from college
some with degrees
some with babies
some with the same bad habits.
My granddaughter
wore a boyfriend
handcuffed to her wrist.
My husband grew cataracts
and seemed confused.
As was I
waking to this drama
having skipped whole scenes
afraid
of the set-change crew.

In the on-line wisdom school class with Cynthia Bourgeault she is leading us into

the practices of the Benedictine tradition: ora et labora. Prayer and work. She considers, "The Benedictine tradition (to be) the strongest tradition we have in Christianity on which to create a template of conscious awakening leading to what we would call in the West or in the East today, non-dual attainment or enlightenment—full presence." It is the practice of being in solitude and community, prayer and activity, worship and action, contemplation and engagement. Those in my spiritual direction cohort used to say that contemplation is taking a long, loving look at what is real. And that long, loving look not only sorted out what could and must be changed, but what was truly beyond the realm of possibilities. The way of St. Benedict is a direct link to some of the wisdom that was distilled by the Desert Mothers and Fathers of the fourth century. Our study material notes that: The balance that is found between prayer and work and between being alone and in community is the balance of a whole person. With that balance, identity exists at a deeper level than, for instance, what one does for a living. (Wisdom School, CAC)

My body is excited that fall is coming. The air feels crisp. The apples have arrived. Soon the pumpkins will, too. The trees are teaching me again about the beauty of letting go. Ora et labora is part of the wisdom of God's first word: creation. Tomorrow there will be more small chores to share. Conversations and prayers, too. May I enter them all with slow intentionality and savor their gifts.

welcoming the feel of fall in the berkshires...

We are home from a few weeks of wandering mostly in Montréal. It feels good to be in this place again. There are still bills to be paid, of course, and grass and gardens to be tended to as well. I need to up my game and get cracking on two contre-basse numbers I've been asked to play at the wedding of two friends and colleagues at L'Arche Ottawa, too. Di jumps back into a full online teaching schedule tomorrow morning and I have a variety of local commitments to address this week including two gigs to play this weekend. We had a restorative holiday away from our routine: a chance to explore new places, rest deeply, as well as spend quiet time together in silence and conversation. And it will be settling in a different way to sleep again in our own bed or sit on the deck and watch as the wetlands incrementally move towards autumn.

Driving home from Quebec and upper New York State made it clear that fall is hovering just over the horizon. Already there were red tips on the maples and the hint of yellow and orange everywhere else. Eating sandwiches on our deck at 3 pm, our own vista is turning a rusty gray-brown as greens fade in response to the new angle of the sun. It is a gentle surrender right now - and that is one reason autumn is my favorite season. Grace Paley evokes the subtle ache of this beautiful time in her poem, "Autumn."

What is sometimes called a 
  tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
  is only the long
red and orange branch of
  a green maple
in early September reaching
  into the greenest field
out of the green woods at the
  edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered tired
  of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer re-
  minding everyone (in
our family) of a Russian
  song a story
by Chekhov or my father

What is sometimes called a
  tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
  is only the long
red and orange branch of
  a green maple
in early September reaching
  into the greenest field
out of the green woods at the
  edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered tired
  of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer re-
  minding everyone (in
our family) of a Russian
  song a story by
Chekhov or my father on
  his own lawn standing
beside his own wood in
  the United States of
America saying (in Russian)
  this birch is a lovely
tree but among the others
  somehow superficial

We'll eat simply tonight as we ease our way back into the comfortable truths of this house. I'll get Lucie from the kennel in the morning so she can sleep contentedly for five days straight on my side of the bed. Di has reset her studio/teaching room so that she can share new conversations with her online students in Japan. Five or six dozen tomatoes are waiting for their vines to be staked to new trellises before sunset tomorrow. And a few weeks worth of laundry is now churning in the basement. One season has come to a close as we pulled into our driveway and a new one is starting to take root. I am grateful.

montréal reflections: day eleven

NOTE: We are on holiday for rest and reflection in Montréal before a new year of engagement, teaching and creativity begins. This is the tenth in a series.

My yearnings have long been for a unity or embrace between my spirit, flesh and mind. Incarnation, in all its manifestations, has mattered to me since I was small. Same with the mystery of the Holy Trinity. When my abstract-thinking, intellectual Unitarian grandmother asked me why I was so interested in Sunday School, my fourth grade soul blurted out: "Because I want to meet God face to face!" What did that even mean to a fourth grader? Who knows except to say my heart, mind and soul ached for something more profound than conversation. As time ripened, my participation in Eucharist and beautiful, liturgical common prayer - chanted Psalms, incense, candles - became the way I best experienced something of my longing. For decades I have found nourishment in these words from Psalm 85:

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts...
Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
and will make a path for his steps.

Biblical scholarship teaches that this song of worship is post-exilic - most likely from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah - after ancient Israel's bondage in Babylon. What energizes me is the radical marriage of heaven and earth, spirit and flesh, justice and compassion. It evokes the realization of my deepest prayer. The Rev. Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault suggests that such unity and integration is at the core of all spiritual quests. She calls it the universal school of wisdom that exists in each discrete religious tradition with surprising parity: Buddhists, Sufis, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Hindus and every other seeker learn that the blessings of the holy are to be experienced now (in addition to later) and can be encountered through disciplined work, prayer, silence, song and instruction. The essence of Christ's wisdom concerning the "kingdom of God" is not qualitatively different from Buddhist "mindfulness." I love the way the 15th century Hindu mystic, Kabir, put it:

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think... and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before
death. If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten—
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City
of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

This is part of why I finally got a new tattoo. I don't understand why some want to cover themselves in ink. Nor do I have a love for the physical pain as is true for others. For me, it has been part of the unfolding journey of becoming my truest self. In retrospect I realize that I shut down a lot of my heart when I chose the path of ordination into ministry. There's no point in pondering whether this was the right/correct decision as there's no going backwards in time. Still, I am aware that for good or ill, I sensed that it was essential for me to conform to a host of bourgeois externals if I was going to "make it" in ministry. 

And that, of course, is part of the problem: making it in ministry. While it is true that the insiders do not readily value or reward those who obviously fail to fit into the "guild" - and they still don't - the notion of striving to be successful and marketable as a spiritual guide is antithetical to the way of Jesus. It continues to happen, of course, but it is still wrong. For decades I bought into the status quo of my particular tradition - and it slowly devoured my soul. My first break came after about 15 years of ordination when I got an earring on my 40th birthday. I had wanted one since seeing Al Pacino's portrayal in the movie "Serpico." On the road from Cleveland to California for my brother's wedding in San Francisco, I knew I just had to do it. So somewhere just across the California border, I got it done. Celebrating that wedding beyond the confines of organized religion was another break with conformity: the artists, Beat poets and hippies gathered on a moored sailing vessel resonated as one when I spoke of God's grace that was being shared with creation through the language of music. It was the first adult affirmation that perhaps my calling really wasn't within the church as I had come to know it, but maybe more like the church of my calling at age 16. To artists. To those on the boundaries. To those wrestling openly with their brokenness rather than masking it in the trappings of middle class propriety. And taking place so soon after my piercing... 

To say that the next three years were tumultuous would be am understatement as old commitments came to an end - and new ones began - with each change being marked with a new earring. There was something important happening within me that these piercing helped me remember. They became a part of my embodied prayers. Later came my on-going collection of bracelets from journeys around the world; our new wedding rings as we renewed our vows, my prayer beads and my first tattoo. It was a Jerusalem Cross - one large cross with four smaller ones in each corner - representing the apostles and Jesus as well as the wounds the Lord experienced at the hands of the Roman Empire. Being marked was another step in owning the radical grace of God in my life even as I was leaving my traditional ministries. I like the way one woman using tattoos to tell the story of her spiritual journey put it. It rings true to me, too:

She sees her tattoo as an outward mark of an inward journey, accessing a part of her self that had always been there. (When) I asked her how this step along her journey made her feel and she replied: Fierce!

An outward sign of an inward, spiritual grace is the way many Christians speak about a sacrament: an embodied way of expressing and experiencing a deep spiritual truth. In my case, my tattoo not only affirmed my abiding love for Jesus, but became a visible testimony for me that this love was about living into a spirituality of tenderness. That is the paradoxical wisdom of the Cross to me: it is a call to be compassionate in the midst of real suffering trusting that this is where and how God becomes flesh. Tenderness is what drew me to the writings of Jean Vanier. Tenderness is what lead me out of traditional ministry. It has been my deepest calling since I first "heard" God's still, small voice of grace at the Church of the Savior's coffee house ministry: The Potter's House. And it is what took me into L'Arche Ottawa. Tenderness is how I seek balance in my heart, body and spirit and the key to mindfulness.

Perhaps two years ago I began to explore another dimension to tenderness: in nature. Within God's first word: creation. The more I was outside, the more I sensed that there was I lot more for me to learn about "the unforced rhythms of grace" from the circle of the seasons. I now realize that this was a new/old way of restoring me to balance. The more I tended our small plot of earth with love and attention, the more I grasped God's abiding presence in all things - even the cruelty of our current politics. Hatred hurts us all. It may even devour many of us as Mother Earth burns and cries. But over and again, I have seen how God's love grows greater than the hatred. God's will to live is greater than our obsession with death. God's foolish tenderness is wiser than all of our ephemeral obligations and norms. And I choose by faith to trust God's grace rather than the foolishness of this or any other regime.

My new tattoo is my outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual commitment: a call to honor the earth and the cosmos - to learn from them - and walk by faith, not just by sight into the light as well as the darkness. Imagine my heart's delight when I read Fr. Richard Rohr on-line posting this morning:

“There exists in all beings,” says Teilhard, “a common centre” through which “(all things)meet together at a deeper level...and we may call this Centre equally well the point upon which they converge or the ambience in which they float..." This bond of unity constitutes the “axis of all individual and collective life. It is in virtue of that axis that we see that Christ has not only a mystical, but a cosmic body... And this Cosmic Body, to be found in all things...is eminently the mystical Milieu; who ever can enter into that milieu is conscious of having made [their] way to the very heart of everything, of having found what is most enduring in it.” 

I know that the Light shines in the darkness and both not only remain, but can be excellent teachers - the Word continues to become flesh - the Alpha and the Omega meet and become One - steadfast love and faithfulness embrace as justice and compassion kiss in heaven and on earth - and:

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life
you will have the face of satisfied desire.

montréal reflections: day ten

NOTE: We are on holiday for rest and reflection in Montréal before a new year of engagement, teaching and creativity begins. This is the ninth in a series.

When I first traveled to the then Soviet Union the tour leader told our group: "You need to ride easy in the saddle on a trip like this because anything could happen." He wasn't kidding then - 1983 - and his advice remains useful 36 years later. Remember yesterday when I wrote about a trip embracing all things "new?" Well, we woke up this morning to a massive leak in our wee Montréal bedroom. After consulting with our host - who is conscientious and kind-hearted in spades - it seems that a repair next door on an upstairs balcony was trapping rainwater that was leaking throughout the building. He was "Johnny/Janey on the spot" getting repair people out and now there are massive, humming, industrial dehumidifiers restoring well-being to the flat. No white noise machine needed tonight!

Later in the day, we took the Metro down to the McGill University stop to get the new Louise Penny novel at Indigo. We took the advice of a local and ate lunch at Mr. Steer - no, really, it is called Mr. Steer - a kosher diner on Ste. Catherine that has been specializing in fresh beef since 1958. It was really good and we were feeling fine when we made it back to the Metro just at the start of rush hour. Sadly, our line had been delayed for an hour because someone pulled the emergency brake. Once we figured out what the French-only announcement was telling us, it made sense to hoof it back home rather than wait in ignorance. Every trip here seems to include at least one unplanned 3+ mile walk - and today was the day. No local jazz tonight! Just a light supper and maybe "Derry Girls" on the Netflix lap top IF the Internet connection remains working.

We have to travel on a budget - now more than ever - so AirBnB and the like work well for us. We have stayed in great, creative, beautiful and truly unique places. Each visit brings us to a new neighborhood where we get to see how real people live and get to talk with everyday working shop keepers about life on their street. Both Di and I would not travel any other way. 

Sometimes, however, things can be a little funky. If you're ready to ride easy in that saddle, all is well, but these trips are NOT like a cruise. I think of the flat where we had to pretend to be the owner's old friends visiting from out of town because crabby neighbors did not approve of AirBnB. Or the flat with almost no water pressure for the shower. Or the third story apartment with an outdoor circular stairway that was so steep, it made us both woozy. Or the tiny Zen room in Ottawa that I was initially locked-out of as the host was in Germany and never got my messages that I would be late because of a blizzard. Her boyfriend gave up on me and left without letting me know where to find the key. Waay too late, I got into town, made text contact after midnight and was told that he'd hidden the key behind a garbage can in an alley behind the building! Finding it in genuinely ugly weather was fun. That was also the trip I thought my wallet had been stolen 3 days before Christmas only to have an Indigo employee find it and save it for me. Today's adventure was mild by comparison and will go into the book as yet one more connection with real people. When everything got resolved, our host came upstairs with a bottle of the craft beers he sells in the shop just below us. Life is good - I am so very grateful - and the beer is called "La Fin du Monde!"

This morning I also had a fascinating experience getting my second tattoo. The artist, Sylvian, has just gotten into the world of remodeling old vans and going to gatherings with other "van people" for camping weekends. It is a realm I know nothing about, but saw his 1988 Chevy van and was enthralled to hear how he's going to keep upgrading it. He has been a tattoo artist for the past 13 years and enjoys the variety and most of his clients. After he did a rendering of the design I wanted, and shaved my left forearm, he said: "Don't tense up, man or fight the pain. Move with it." And then he began. Four years ago, my fear of the pain was greater than the actual event and the same was mostly true today, too. But, it did hurt. It wasn't agony, more like a burning pinch that would come in 4 second bursts. For 30 minutes. And he was right: its best not to fight the pain but move and breathe into it. That's what this entire day felt like: being willing to move and breathe into it rather than fighting it.

That's a great deal of what the wisdom school is asking us to practice: breathing and feeling what is real and how we can be at peace with it all. I need a lot of practice. I am glad to be studying and praying in this way. I am also really eager to see what this tattoo looks like once I'm able to get this wild ass bandage off. But that's for later tonight. 

montréal reflections: day nine

NOTE: We are on holiday for rest and reflection in Montréal before a new year of engagement, teaching and creativity begins. This is the eighth in a series.

Last night we visited with Di's EF colleagues who live in Montréal: three young English teachers currently living in this town but having roots all over creation. One will be heading to Taiwan soon because, as he told us last night, "it is the most beautiful place I have ever been." Like Johnny Cash sang, this guy's been everywhere, man: Hanoi, Uzbekistan, New Orleans, Korea, Canada, Japan and on and on. Teaching English as another language creates opportunities to travel and meet new people and cultures. I loved his adventurous spirit.

As our meal unfolded, one common theme involved how hard it is to make a living teaching English as another language - it takes determination, stamina, and professional creativity - so each of these instructors work four jobs to cobble together a living wage. Because of the mobility and flexibility these gigs afford, however, these teachers make it work. Each one is profoundly independent and intelligent, too seeking meaningful human relationships in their work rather than only working for pay checks at soul-numbing bureaucracies. We listened and laughed together, swapped life stories and insights over great food, and even got to take in some hot local Latinix jazz, too.

This morning over breakfast, I was struck by the serendipity of savoring last night's feast alongside a poem that popped up in my email. It is by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer entitled, "How It Might Continue." 

Wherever we go, the chance for joy,
whole orchards of amazement—

one more reason to always travel
with our pockets full of exclamation marks,

so we might scatter them for others
like apple seeds.

Some will dry out, some will blow away,
but some will take root

and grow exuberant groves
filled with long thin fruits

that resemble one hand clapping—
so much enthusiasm as they flutter back and forth

that although nothing’s heard
and though nothing’s really changed,

people everywhere for years to come
will swear that the world

is ripe with applause, will fill
their own pockets with new seeds to scatter.

Of the multiple gifts given to us this time in Montréal I've been struck by a new quest to explore this great city. That's always been an undercurrent of "flâneur-ing," but rather than return to many of our old favorites, this trip has been all about new places. And new people. We've made time for a few sentimental essentials - Diese Onze and Modavie have been vital eateries (and each time the jazz is new) and we took a stroll through both Parc Baldwin (our sabbatical home four years ago) and the ever beautiful Marché Jean-Talon (the city's finest farmer's market) - but most days we've gone into unknown places. 

Today, we hit Parc Jean Drapeau, two islands filled with gardens, solitude and the Biosphere. Having made a commitment to stay in Pittsfield for at least a few more years, one of our embodied prayers has to do with building a home garden dedicated to peace. We are working our way through a spirituality of gardening  book that asks us to rediscover the beauty of indigenous plants. We also want to know the history of each new flower and shrub so that we understand how it compliments and strengthens the environment. The garden at Jean Drapeau is huge, filled with hearty flowers and shrubs that work in the north country, and abounding in simple artistry. The butterfly bush was resplendent in color and butterflies. The willows and stone walks invited contemplation. And the silence on the island was restorative. We took a ton of pictures to research and discern what might work in our emerging garden of peace.

For almost two years I have been learning to listen to the first word of God in creation. I am a slow learner. I still don't know the names of many of the plants that already abide in our garden. I get confused with our herbs. And don't even ask about the trees. But after spending this time working in the garden, hauling branches and rocks, cutting back the scrub at the edge of the wetlands, building a terrace, and watching what all of this splendor looks like, the time has come to go deeper. To learn the unique wisdom of these flowers. And trees. And weeds. To honor them with intentionality and care. And to work at being still enough to hear what they want me to know. The late Mary Oliver put it like this:

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.

Tomorrow I am getting a new tattoo as part of my covenant to better learn how the first word of the Lord in creation is speaking to me.

montréal reflections: day eight

NOTE: We are on holiday for rest and reflection in Montréal before a new year of engagement, teaching and creativity begins. This is the eighth in a series.

One of my favorite experiences in Montréal is walking with Dianne through Marché Jean-Tallon in the heart of the city's Little Italy. It is a grand farmer's market with the freshest fruit and vegetables around at excellent prices all displayed with an artist's sensibility. Even if we never purchase a thing - and that would be tough - it is a sensual delight simply to stroll amidst the people and produce and bask in the bounty. When we stayed in that neighborhood, we would often do just that - and then call it a day. The colors are sumptuous, the aromas are delicious, and the herbs and flowers are a joy to behold. I couldn't help but consider Psalm 8:

O Lord, our God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens...
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made (us) a little lower than God,
and crowned (us) with glory and honor.

Yesterday I was taken with all the different types of peppers as well as the late summer cherries and corn. We feasted upon them for an early supper before one last walk through the street fair on St. Laurent. As we looked upon the sunset and the people, I had a deep sense of peace. Yes, the world is in total chaos. Yes, Mother Earth is screaming as she burns and chokes. And yes, at the same time there are millions upon millions of good souls seeking ways of peace within all of these troubles. Like young Greta Thurnberg, who is speaking truth to power. Or William Barber, deepening and advancing the prophetic legacy of MLK. I thought of those loving, courageous, and all too human friends I worked with in the farm worker's union, the Mississippi Wood Cutters Association and the three faith-based community organization I was a part of over the years. And, I thought of the mark made upon my life by Robert Pirsig, author of both Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila. 

I loved both books. I know that some found his philosophizing ponderous, but not me. I valued the way he wove the ordinary into the extraordinary, the poetic into the personal, heroic acts within the wounds and brokenness of very real people. These inquiries into values and morals made sense to me. They gave me a way of sorting out some of my culture's blind spots. He may have been the first writer to help me realize that the inward/outward journey was connected. When he quipped, "It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." I had an aha moment. I still do given how easily I can distract myself. 

I probably liked Lila more than Zen - especially Pirsig's understanding of the way morals devolve. Somewhere in the middle of the book he talks about those like Bertrand Russell who broke decisively from the constraints and confines of Edwardian morality. Those free thinkers and lovers had a foundation against which to rebel; they had been raised with manners and an awareness that our actions have consequences. They grasped that their non-conformity was a way into liberation for all people, but especially those condemned to the fringes of society. In other words, their rejection of the status quo anticipated the greater common good. Not so for those who followed them who grew up without social norms and precious few manners. They often became barbarians. Selfish and rudderless in a sea of choices, without a deep awareness of the consequences of their deeds. I see this in our era's politics and sexuality - and it isn't healthy. Or liberating. Pirsig was also clear that offering a critique of these dangers involves a fine line as those who condemn the quest for freedom are often the greatest hypocrites:

(The) ones who go posing as moralists are the worst. Cost-free morals. Full of great ways for others to improve without any expense to themselves. There's an ego thing in there, too. They use morals to make someone else look inferior and that way look better themselves. It doesn't matter what the moral code is - religious morals, political morals, racist morals, capitalist morals, feminist morals, hippie morals - they're all the same. The moral codes change but the meanness and the egotism stay the same.

I think of Bill O'Reilly, once at the helm of Fox News, preaching rules and restraint to the masses while exploiting and sexually harassing the women in his own office. No matter how you cut it, those advocating "cost-free morals" are dangerous. As the sun was setting last night, my heart gave thanks to Robert Pirsig as well as so many others who have struggled to make freedom real for others often at great cost to themselves. 

Because it was raining on and off today I mostly spent time considering the gospel of Thomas a la Cynthia Bourgeault's insights in her wisdom school. Later tonight we will visit with some of Di's colleagues who live here. On Labor Day 2019 I take consolation in this poem by Danusha Laméris: "Small Kindnesses."

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

montréal reflections: day seven

NOTE: We are on holiday for rest and reflection in Montréal before a new year of engagement, teaching and creativity begins. This is the seventh in a series.

We have been chilling it in Montréal for a whole week. Today is Labor Day in both Canada and the US. According to the new liturgical season of Creation, however, in addition to honoring the heroic struggles of working people, today also invites us to celebrate what the ocean tells us about the holy. Instead of immersing ourselves in our own thoughts and words, Ocean Sunday exalts the first word of the Lord: creation itself. Further, the constraints and hubris of our anthropomorphic limitations are called into question for an entire month. This new season closes on the Feast Day of St. Francis (October 4) with a blessing of our pets. (NOTE: You really haven't been to "church" until you join the faithful of all varieties at St. John the Divine's festival of blessing the animals. Paul Winter et al provide a contemporary jazz context before joy and peace wash over all who assemble. Check this out.)

Once upon a time, in a very different life, a person in one of the churches I served said to me, "Ok, we've done the season of creation twice now... can we move on?" I was struck dumb. As if we could ever exhaust the wisdom God shares with us in nature? As if we could ever grasp the magnitude and majesty of the ocean? As if we might be opened to authentic humility by 8 weeks spread over two years? In the Jewish wisdom tradition, such arrogance is called out by the holy in a reading from Job 38 wherein Job asks the Creator why the world works the way it does?

So the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?  Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?—when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?

Who, indeed? If you have ever happened upon a quietly tumbling stream in the forest - or stood on the rim (or at the bottom) of the Grand Canyon - or been beside the ocean as the wind and the currents crash waves upon the beach - or even looked up at the night sky when the world is dark and silent...? Then you know something of the awe and mystery invoked by the Source of Creation as a response to Job's self-importance and despair. Job, like each of us, must learn sacred wisdom from the inside out. By astonishment, experience and enigma rather than just liturgy and linear thinking. Douglas Wood puts it like this in Old Turtle and the Broken Truth:

"First, my child," said Old Turtle, "remember that there are truths all around us, and within us. They twinkle in the night sky and bloom upon the earth. They fall upon us every day, silent as the snow and gentle as the rain. The people, clutching their one truth, forget that it is a part of all the small and lovely truths of life."

Cynthia Bourgeault suggests that without living into the mystical truths of wisdom born of our bodies, our feelings and our intellect - without living in alliance with the inter-connectedness of the cosmos within and among ourselves - we will make decisions without sensing (or caring about) their implications. We will act without compassion. We will look only to our immediate gratification. We will become small, selfish and eventually cruel. Hmmm... I like the way Marv and Nancy Hiles put it in All the Days of My Life:

We are overdosed on data and underfed on the mysterious. Our brains inflate while our souls wither. Constant interference by interpreting and explaining can distance us from life itself. God woos us into the wildness of unknowing where we are tempted by deeper senses. 

There are many ways to appreciate the wisdom of Job here from the political and inter-personal to the paradoxical and poetic. My hunch is that they are all true. If you would like to know more about the Season of Creation in Christian liturgy, try this:

http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/ocean-sunday.htm. D. Keith Innes begins a reflection for Ocean Sunday with cutting clarity:

Our human words and ideas can obscure and confuse God's wisdom, hindering ourselves and others from receiving it. Job is challenged to declare how much he knows of the origins of things, and how far he understands their true nature. The creation of the earth is viewed under the metaphor of erecting a building, with foundations and pillars. The sea is pictured as a child bursting out of the womb: God acts as a midwife or a parent, clothing and disciplining the waters. Close to the surface here are Ancient Near Eastern ideas of the sea as an unruly, hostile power. Humankind now has vastly increased scientific, analytic knowledge of the composition and potential of creation. This knowledge has brought many benefits, but has also reaped a harvest of loss and destruction. The harnessing of technology to greed and selfishness points to a lack of wisdom. We urgently need to respect the limits that God's wisdom sets to our activities.

It feels like the poet Kwame Dawes does much the same in the poem: Tornado Child. (https://www.slowdownshow.org/episode/2019/08/27/197-tornado-child)

I am a tornado child.
  I come like a swirl of black and darken up your day;
  I whip it all into my womb, lift you and your things,
  carry you to where you’ve never been, and maybe,
  if I feel good, I might bring you back, all warm and scared,
  heart humming wild like a bird after early sudden flight.

I am a tornado child.
  I tremble at the elements. When thunder rolls my womb
  trembles, remembering the tweak of contractions
  that tightened to a wail when my mother pushed me out
  into the black of a tornado night.

I am a tornado child,
  you can tell us from far, by the crazy of our hair;
  couldn’t tame it if we tried. Even now I tie a bandanna
  to silence the din of anarchy in these coir-thick plaits.

I am a tornado child
  born in the whirl of clouds; the center crumbled,
  then I came. My lovers know the blast of my chaotic giving;
  they tremble at the whip of my supple thighs;
  you cross me at your peril, I swallow light
  when the warm of anger lashes me into a spin,
  the pine trees bend to me swept in my gyrations.

I am a tornado child.
  When the spirit takes my head, I hurtle into the vacuum
  of white sheets billowing and paint a swirl of color,
  streaked with my many songs.

Blessed Sabbath: we're off to Marché Jean-Talon before walking around the port in the sun and then taking in a block party on Blvd. St. Laurent.