avoidance

and now fall has come
and the sun is dying
its brilliance to be seen
its mortality illuminates
the stark austerity
of tree branches bare
and the grey in my hair

When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

~W.B. Yeats

Like an owl among the ruins

Your spirit, O Lord,
has settled inside me
like an owl among the ruins.
Myself a sanctuary
that Your presence redeems.

Hope's feather flutters
softly inside my chest

Your spirit, O Lord,
has settled inside me
like an owl among the ruins
and begun the lifelong work
of my sanctification

Your Word
magnified
upon my skin

Your spirit, O Lord,
has settled inside me
like an owl in its glory.
Myself a sanctuary
that You have made.

At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters
have settled after a night of rain. I dip
my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls
cold into my body, waking
the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?

~Mary Oliver

Big and small

There is so much in my heart now, big and small aches, hopes, desires. I am lonely in places my friends cannot fill, I rarely feel it, but today, I do. I am demanding;  I am trying to choose otherwise, but sometimes I get too tired.

I am not always right, but

But sometimes, I don't think that matters as much as me trying to understand. It hurts when our conclusions are wrong, when we are wrong and when people see that. I get defensive, I hold strongly to my positions, because they are mine. That is something that I need to give up.

I may come to some wrong conclusions, but as long as I don't set them in stone, as long as they aren't the bedrock of my faith, there is grace. The bedrock of our faith must remain God -Father, Son, Spirit- but I have to think through things, pour water and see if they hold, build on them and see if they wobble, be willing to change my ideas. I have been wrong. I have been wrong often, and I've changed my mind and my story so many times I've lost count. But, as I've come to know Christ he shows me where I am tilting, where there is water leaking through, where I've tried to pour new wine into old wine skins. I am not a theologian, I do not have the answers. All I can do is try to understand, with my limited knowledge, in partnership with the Holy Spirit that is in me -and does know all things. We get glimpses, all of us, of God: his nature, his love for us, his joy in us, and his sadness and disappointment. What we do with those glimpses, well, that is another story.

blushing flowers

Every time the season changes it hits me again, this deep roiling rumbling in my heart and spirit. I always think I need to plan my alone time as well as my community time. Especially in the changing seasons time. And then Mari comes down and plays the piano while I am reading and writing and it is just honey to my spirit.People always say you learn the most from trouble and suffering and pain. And I think that might be true. We also learn the most from loving and being loved. Being vulnerable is never easy work to do, never easy to be always open, to not fear that others will hurt you, to not try to protect yourself. The thing is, protecting yourself is exhausting. When you stop trying, when you let God do it you have so much more brain space, so much more energy, so much more love.

Reunion!

So my roommates are all home. Delightful! And hard. I don't know why this is always so hard for me, why we always feel the need to resettle our dominant roles. I will just think of it as an exercise in submission. I will take the non dominant role. I will stop trying to push my way first. And just rejoice in our reunion! Community is not an easy walk, but it is joyful!

Logic

How important is it to be logical? Yes, when planning an essay or solving an equation it's useful, but in our relationships to God and to others, where is the place of logic? I do not seem to place a high priority on it. It rarely influences my emotions, and only sometimes my decisions. I take my intuition seriously. Perhaps too much so?
I don't intend to disregard my emotions or intuition in order to be more logical. But is there a way to integrate it and to be more careful in my thoughts and speech so as to be aware of where I am making leaps of imagination?

new blogs

my sister and I created our own blog, to write to each other, and then I thought it was such a cool idea I created one for my roommates too! Lots of writing.