Corporal Punishment (sticks and stones may hurt my bones. . .)

Yesterday Merry lined up a half dozen or so rocks on the patio for school.

"If they don't listen," Merry said, referring to the classroom of rocks, "I give them a pinch." (She demonstrated with a clothespin).

Then she led the congregated rocks in a chorus. One rock apparently did not behave himself because Merry said, "Oh, you don't want to sing the song?" And promptly pinched him with the clothespin.

"That's rather brutal," my mother observed.

I've also noticed that Elephant comes under threats for a spanking fairly regularly. Martin and I take a staunch position of antiviolence in all forms, including spanking and pinching with clothespins. Merry, on the other hand, is free-handed in her threats of retribution--poor rocks--and not above threatening to thrash Elephant if she thinks the wrongdoing is grievous enough.

Maybe this falls in the same category as hoarding secret love for Barbies, since they are one of the only things we disallow. At visits to Barnes and Noble, Merry promptly pulls down half a shelf of Barbie books, plants herself in a chair and slowly devours each one. One time she actually tricked her aunt into reading her one interminable Barbie book after the next. She cajoled her weary aunt with filthy lies about her parents encouraging such a past-time.

It must be a phase. In the meanwhile I'm encouraged by the fact that Elephant is stuffed with fluff and the rocks are impervious to pinching.

Poetry: Important as Green Leafy Vegetables?

Revisions continue.
Reveesions continu.
Re
vis
ions
contin
u
Re:
vivid
suns
contain
you

To Martin:

Yesterday
in a lapse of judgment
I sat down
and wrote a poem.

Forgetting green,
I wrote, and thought,
Nice beginning.
You crossed it out.

Merry at the kitchen
table said, Cotton candy.
When you put it in your mouth
it melts like a cloud.
That's poetry, you said,

Added, Your line breaks
stink. The baby swiped
carrots to the floor.
You swept my poem
out the kitchen door in two
swift strokes.

I
ate
spi
nach.

______________________
Level with me, here:

Words
Form
Images
Structure

Say a chap sees your poem on a page. The chap takes your words and your images. With a few deft strokes of his pen the chap reorganizes all your words and all your images (adds clever internal rhyme as bonus). Chap takes your clay, punches it down, reforms it. Still your clay, different form. The chap takes your cards, shuffles them, deals out a new hand. Still your cards, chap's game.

This poem. Is it still your poem, or is it the chap's poem? Or does the poem belong to both you AND the chap?

What do you think?

(All hypothetical, of course.)
And should we all stick to spinach after all?
(Nah.)

Front Porch Fiction

Saturday was the contest deadline for a short story I'd set myself to, and I was determined to have the thing viable by then.

A really good story surprises you, like a car dropped out of the sky, flattening the daffodils on the front lawn. You can't help but pay attention, whether you want to or not.

For me the surprises, the climaxes if you will, of writing occur when I have disciplined myself to the process. Usually, I don't write because I am inspired. I write because I have made writing my job. Often I feel as if I have no choice in the matter, as I did in the middle of revising the short story for the umpteenth time. I felt saddled with responsibility for the characters, weighed down by my duty to get their story right, to be faithful to their personalities and voices.

When Elspeth naps, I write. When the girls go to bed for the night, I write. When Martin is home and can look after the girls, I write. I have my own office with a gentle view (Merry also sleeps there, often to the background noise of keys clicking away). I sit down in the morning and work to the detriment of unwashed dishes, unwashed me, unclean house.

So when I finished the first draft (30 pages) of Delphinium (look, I know it's a ridiculous name but I had to come up with something to submit it), I felt pretty good about myself. Actually, to tell the truth, I felt moody and creepy. I had spent a few nights by myself already while Martin worked late and I was saturated with the story. That evening, a scene crept up and bit me while I was typing away, and after I recorded it I felt a bit possessed. So as I stood in the shower, I felt that bizarre sensation that someone was standing outside the curtain in the emptied house. I finished washing my hair in a hurry. Then I did something normal--brewed a cup of tea and flipped on a Netflix BBC show.

When Martin staggered into the living room from his meetings, I nodded at my story. To his credit, Martin sat down right away and began reading it out loud. Sure, there were edits that surfaced as he read, but overall I thought it was pretty good.

When he finished reading all thirty pages, Martin looked up. "What do you think?" he asked.

Warned by his diplomacy and expression, I snapped back, "What do YOU think? I'm the one who just wrote it."

So he told me. Martin is the most gentle man on the planet, but blast it all if he doesn't speak straight every time. The first part was good, he said. But the last bit (oh, say, most of the story) strayed away from the core of the characters and plot. The climax was bogus, the conclusion wholly unsatisfying.

Fantastic.

I was tired and grumpy.

Hadn't I poured my scant time into this story (over a period of weeks, actually)? Hadn't I felt, as I typed the last word that it was rather brilliant? That I was mostly done?

But underneath my grumping, I knew Martin was right. I knew he was telling me what I was not honest enough to see. I had broken the most cardinal rule in the book about fiction--that is, I foresaw what was coming, I steered the characters into it, I forced my agenda onto them instead of letting them lead me. I had been heavy-handed, and Martin realized it in one reading.

Next day I plunged back into the story. I deleted whole pages, I reorganized, I let the characters lead me. I was terribly impressed when I finished. I secretly hoped my latest efforts would blow Martin away into outer space. Maybe he would gasp as he finished, blink back tears, offer me his hand in congratulations. You are a bloody genius! he would finally whisper.

Oh, it was nothing.

Friday night. Contest deadline was Saturday, but no sweat, man. Except for a few little edits, the story was done. I waited until our guests had left, and then Martin and I sat down late that night and he read the whole story out loud again. We were both tired out by the time he finished, because that story was still really long.

I waited for Martin to say something. I didn't have to wait long.

He unleashed a whole storm of critique--too long, the ending still messed up, whole sections had to go. Give me some time, he said, and I'll sit down and edit it.

Some time? The story is due tomorrow!

Look, I said, You are the best editor I know. What do you want me to do, bow at your feet?

Yes, I was rather tired, and very frustrated, and ready to flog someone.

After a good night's sleep, I awakened to find Martin absent from bed. As I stumbled downstairs, he said from the kitchen, I got up with Merry, and by the way, I'm working on your story.

I went back to bed.

After a good breakfast and a good garden, Martin and I put the girls down for a rest and he laid out a late lunch on the porch as I finished planting some lavender starts.

I listened to the wind chimes singing and ate a slice of chicken-spinach pizza while he read through the story again, silently this time, pen scratching away. I watched him as he drew huge exes through section after section. Elspeth awakened.

Martin is one fine editor, a one-man workshop. I really do mean it. He respected the story by cutting out all the flab that belittled it. "I feel as if I'm really getting to know the characters now," he said, "And as if I'm getting to know the story." And then he handed me his edits and went away, hauling Elspeth on his hip.

I went back to the computer, and this time, much fell away, much that was well-written but didn't belong and didn't work. One of my favorite scenes got tossed into the netherworld, and I had to admit that was the right move. Who was it who said, pick your favorite part and cut it out?
________________________________

In Quaker Meeting yesterday, I sat in the silence and this is what came:

Joy is free. But it is in the context of hard work, in discipline, that joy surprises me. And it is the brief moments of joy that make me put down my head and go back to work.

In labor, in great pain, I glimpsed Elspeth's thick black hair. For a moment I was still giving Elspeth oxygen and then, in the seconds when Martin snipped the umbilical cord, Elspeth was suddenly wholly separate from me.

And what is suffering in the face of such joy?

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: Wazoo Farm to Cease Operation

Online friends,

As you might have heard by now, Kimberly will no longer be able to blog about her life. At 4:32 am this morning, she and Merry and Elspeth were removed bodily from the earth. I woke just in time to see Kim's cold toes defenestrating from the bedroom. I think I heard her saying something like "Water my plants" as she ascended to what I can only imagine to be some lofty place far from here. I swung my legs out of bed and gazed up through the open window. Kim and the girls had joined hands and were charging upward with a host of others, most of whom were still in their bedclothes. It was only then that I noticed the deafening trumpet blasts from all of heaven's company. And then, in an instant, the world was quiet again.

Guess I'll have to wash my own socks from now on.

Martin

Elephant, Baby Dear Visited by Grandma

Elephant's Grandma has been visiting. This sent Merry into a flurry of cleaning, telephone calls to Cocoa, and bearing with Elephant, who is naughty: You're a bad, bad mommy, he keeps telling Merry.

Occasionally, though, he does show a more endearing side of his personality like yesterday at nap time:

Elephant: I’m scared.

Merry: Elephant, think about good things. Think about Treat Day tomorrow. That’s the thing to think about.

Elephant: Can I have the light on for six minutes?

Merry: FIVE.

At bedtime last night I asked after Elephant's Grandma, who looks a lot like an African doll with a green tyedyed dress who sits most of the day atop Merry's quilt. Apparently, though Grandma appears to be listless, she has been very busy all day doing her homework and babysitting Elephant. Tonight she ate a very healthy dinner of spaghetti noodles, a biscuit, and a dish of Cheerios.

Baby Dear, Merry's other child, has been keeping us all up with her shenanigans. We hear her singing to herself and then Merry switches on the light and says in a very quiet, even voice,

Baby Dear, I'm sorry I'm mad, but you should not be doing that. I'm going to tell Cocoa and he'll be very disappointed. You won't be a good person when you grow up if you do bad things all the time. If I hear you again talking to yourself, you're going to lose a privilege. Now this is the LAST TIME.

There is some question of how long Grandma will stay. The latest rumor was two weeks, though with Elephant's Grandma you never can tell.

Hello All

All ye good people who improve the world by existing:

There's a new book review, below, by WC Long.

The art show is coming along, but I'm holding out for more entries. Some of you have sent some stunning entries.

Don't forget, art encompasses many things: you can submit a picture of a lovely scarf you've knitted or a lush garden you've grown. Or if you've baked or cooked something quite exquisite, why, just pack it up in a box real comfortable and careful and send it to us, Express. (Submissions are nonreturnable, I'm afraid).

E-mail me with your submissions!

Thank ye!

CONTRIBUTOR BOOK REVIEW: Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Victor Hugo
Modern Library; New edition (October 8, 2002)

This story is as impressive and gothic as the building whose name it bears: a soaring classic tragedy not to be missed. Hugo is an author who can craft a story about the heart and soul of humanity, and while this one does not quite reach the heights that Les Miserables, no careful reader will leave it untouched.

Hugo’s primary strength, in the tradition of Jane Austen, is his characters. They are all full bodied people, internally consistent, yet capable of surprising one. Esmeralda, the gypsy girl, is a prime example of this. She is tender and compassionate, and yet has all the fluctuating passions and selfishness of an untutored teenage girl. Unlike many of Dickens’s unbelievably angelic heroines, wisdom and foolishness are both equally present in her, strength and weakness combined in the right proportions.

This work is not as powerful as Les Miserables simply because its theme is not as powerful. Les Miserables’s theme is grace and justice. In Hunchback, Hugo tackles the theme of idolatrous love by taking the most cherished of human loves, the love between a man and woman and the love between parent and child, and shows how they all can be twisted into a self-love that always results in the destruction of the self and often the destruction of the object of the love. He gives us a bereaved mother whose obsessive grief turns her love to hate, and a man who allows unvarnished lust under the name of love to lead him unwavering to damnation. Hugo skillfully juxtaposes these and other more subtle examples with striking examples of self-love, selfishness in all its degrees, to show that when love has fallen, it is indistinguishable from selfishness, and even from hate. Indeed, as portrayed in Hunchback, pure selfishness does not have nearly the same destructive power as twisted love. Readers of C.S. Lewis will find strong parallels between Hunchback and Lewis’s The Great Divorce and The Four Loves.

The book still has all of Hugo’s stylistic quirks that may make it tiresome to the modern reader. In particular, his habit of interrupting the story with essays on tangential topics can be tedious, and a reader may be forgiven for skimming or skipping over the chapters on the history of Paris, the history of architecture, and the interplay of the arts (although, once again, Hunchback does not attain the same, uh, level as Les Miserables; I doubt that any tangent in history can match Hugo’s detailed diatribe on the Parisian sewer system). Not that these are necessarily worthless in themselves, but they do drag down the story. In addition, there are some parts of the story that seem to be leading somewhere, notably that of alchemy, which never intercept the main plot and are not concluded, giving the book a slight unfinished feel. Perhaps Hugo intended them merely to add to the atmosphere of the story, which they do, but he develops them too much to leave them hanging as he does.

Regardless of these quibbles, it is still a work of great depth and power. Powerful because its theme calls on the reader to look into himself, and question the motivation behind his own loves. Hugo paints his characters so skillfully, laying bare their thoughts and motivations, that one can see fragments of oneself in them. The reader is offered through their tragedy a light into his own heart and a chance to root out a little more darkness.

Reviewed by: W.C. Long
W.C. Long spent his childhood in Botswana, handling snakes and scorpions with abandon. He is currently teaching his daughter the same pastimes on the Virginia coast.

(DASTARDLY) Break-in at Wazoo Farm

So, good scouts, brilliant Holmesian detectives, see if you can crack the case of the Dastardly Wazoo Break-in. The clues are AS FOLLOWS (ahem):

One: I realized only this morning that I had left the door to our back porch wide open. (So let me clarify. 'Twasn't a classic break in.) A sign (COME ON IN, FOOLS) was hanging on the doorknob, and the burglars clearly took note and felt duly welcome if not a little insulted.

Two: The following were removed from the house and vandalized: Large bag of unsalted peanuts. Left on deck: box of Trader Joe's Multigrain 0 transfat crackers-- meticulously emptied.

Three: The following damage was done: Pineapple scraps, etc., thrown in careless manner about floor. Bag of brown sugar, bags of rice flour desecrated.

Four: Burglars wore irremovable black masks.

You can't blame the burglars, as Martin said, and I agreed (thanks for pointing it out, chump)--indeed I was the one to blame. I! I took full responsibility and did the sweeping, the cleaning, and reported the crime to our local department. (It's a small town, and burglaries like this are big news.) When you publish the article in the paper, I said, Make sure you emphasize the burglary was actually my fault. The burglars actually did no wrong. Probably they had hungry kiddies at home.

This did not stop me from volubly calling the masked fellows a very rude name. The newspaper said they couldn't print that specific word, but they'd do their best with the rest of it and Gee wilikers, what a corker of a story this one was. I dare say, in the near future, there will be a sharp increase in people actually closing their doors at night.

All in all, I thank my lucky stars the chappies did not devour my sack of whole wheat pastry flour. And as Martin added, they left the Yingling beer alone. Thankfully we hadn't left a bottle opener in full view by the beer, or the robbers would have likely passed out cold on our deck steps and we'd be sad, sad, on a Friday night with pizza but no booze.

So take my advice, good people. Tonight, before you go to bed, for Pete's sake, shut your doors. And you'll have nothing to fear. It's all about education, about breaking the ignorance. This crime does not have to happen again!

Notes

Today I pitched a tent in the side yard and Merry and Elspeth and I took a picnic lunch and dropped sandwich crumbs and pineapple juice all over the inside of the tent. Then we lay on a blanket in the sun and read Mouse Soup while the tent blew away toward the street.

Tonight Martin and I went out together. (Since we don't have family living close by, we manage a date about once a quarter.) We drove down to the college and watched Guys and Dolls. I put my head on his shoulder and he held my hand, like we were students again. During the intermission we strolled to the Student Services building for a free bathroom. The night was clear and cool. I linked my arm through Martin's and said, The girls will some day leave our house. We should make sure we remain good friends. We should go out more.

Martin is downstairs mixing up a nightcap, so I'll excuse myself. Notes: Go out with husband more. Do silly things with the children like eating lunch in a tent. Life rushes by fast.

Hey, I'm An Elephant

Bobo and Cat T. (yes, these are really their names) visited me this morning while their dog Star went to the vet. Cat brought me a bottle filled with pink water and glitter. "Shake it!" she cried, and so I did. "How nice!" I told her, and set it on my windowsill.

Then I fixed them some poodles and cheese. "I just have to rinse the poodles," I told Cat.

"What?" she said, watching me rinse the contents of the colander. "You're joking, Aunt Kim."

"No, I eat poodles and cheese and peas twice a week. They're good for you." She gave me a concentrated stare, one corner of her mouth twitching but the other corner rutted in a frown.

"You're kidding, Aunt Kim," she repeated. "Right?"

"Right. I've never eaten a poodle," I assured her, and she went off to play while I finished fixing lunch.

The T. kids always, always eat macaroni and cheese with peas and ketchup at my house for lunch. We are creatures of habit, and I'd hate to disappoint. The loveliest things, I think, when you're a child, are the routine things, the things you know to expect and anticipate: love from your parents, a regular bath and bedtime, macaroni and cheese.

"On Good Friday, I get to serve," said Bobo, looking up from a bloodied pile of macaroni and cheese (the T. kids never skimp on the ketchup and just for them I keep an ungodly carton of Heinz from Sam's Club in my fridge door). Bobo, especially, is a class A ketchup consumer.

"That's great, Bobo."

He paused before helping himself to more poodles from the pot: "I'm an altar boy."

"Hey, Kim, look!" shouted Cat, who is sitting on my left. "I'm an elephant!"

For the remainder of lunch, Bobo played a game with empty yogurt cups and a rubber frog with Elspeth, and then we watched an black ant, who took up residence in our kitchen yesterday morning, crawl along the kitchen table. He finally dropped to the table and scooted under a piece of macaroni.

"Where's Ted?" the T. kids asked at intervals. I had told them the ant's name was Ted, and we should let Ted live at peace in the house. Watching Ted segued us into swapping riotous ant stories: my brother sitting in an ant hill, their baby father sitting in an ant hill in nothing but his diaper.

Right now Merry is singing Elephant a blessing "May God bless you and keep you. . ." she sings, and I dare say she is signing a cross on his pink forehead. After Elephant is tucked in and instructed not to move ("Do what I please," she tells him, "Not what you please!") Merry calls Cocoa on the telephone. She does Cocoa's voice as well. . .seems as if he's been in a meeting and has a broken leg. "Oh, of course, Cocoa! We would be delighted to pick you up!" she says. "Oh, that's terrible! They had a razor? They cut themselves with a razor? The children? Cocoa, that's TERRIBLE!"

(Cocoa now:) "Well, I have a late night. Pick me up at 30 o'clock."

Children. Honestly, they are the chlorophyll in my leaves. Non sequiturs abound. You can smell their imaginations. They are just so much FUN.

All Who Wander

All who wander are not lost.
--Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
*
*
*
*
Sister, this is in reply to your question:

What was wrong with the church we were at?

Nothing. In fact, I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who arrives in town, is looking for a well-established, well-run church, and wants a good solid evangelical education for themselves and their children. The pastor gives outstanding, well-thought sermons. The choir is pleasant, the members are educated, intelligent, and kind.

So why, why, why, are we wandering again?

I'm not entirely sure, but I'll try to explain.

Martin and I have moved almost every year, and during our moves we have spent time in Episcopalian, Reformed, Southern Baptist, more liberal Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. We both grew up evangelicals, and Merry and Elspeth are baptized Episcopalians.

We both fell in love with the Episcopalian church in college. The liturgy articulated all that we wanted to but could not; it rooted us in history; it was inclusive of many; its rich symbolism and concept of Christians bringing the Kingdom of God here on earth all resonated deeply with us. The Episcopalian pillars made sense: Reason, Scripture, and Experience. The church calendar finally made Easter exciting, Christmas celebratory, and Eucharist was suddenly a real, substantial experience of God's grace.

So of course we looked for a good Episcopalian Church when we moved here, but did not find one.

Before we visited Quaker meeting, I had a talk with my parents. (All parents warn their children:All that glitters is not gold). They affirmed what I knew about church: no church is perfect (no community is perfect); you have involve yourself and give what you can. I know this, but I also acknowledge the great sense of restlessness I have experienced of late. Recently I've been relieved for an excuse to miss church; I haven't minded when Elspeth needs my attention and I can leave the service; I've gone to church out of a sense of duty rather than joy. Church is a discipline, yes, and has been for how many years? As long as I've been alive.

Now I'm an adult, and I have a feeling that this new sense of restlessness Martin and I are both experiencing is a good reason for us to journey forth. I've always been fairly content to follow in the footsteps of those before me, and to take my children to church every Sunday. It's just what's done. But WHY?

Listen, I feel like there's enough words and messages and sermons and praise songs in the files of my brain. I'm full up. As I sat in the Quaker Meeting, I suddenly pictured what I often feel happens when I sit in church: Words, words, words, banging at my brain, images begging me to feel, swells of music tangled up in reason and emotion. I sat in church a while ago and found peace not in the church or the songs or the sermon but in the awakening world I saw outside.

What do I miss in the church we've been going to?

A sense of mystery
Community unclouded by institutionalism
Mysticism
Silence

There is more to the journey for us. Our souls are crying for something else, and I feel we must follow. Will we end up being Quakers? Who knows?

Rock On, Friends

"So where are we going to church?" My parents, visiting for the weekend in a flurry of Trader Joe's bags and suitcases, wanted to go to church. We did, too. We just didn't know where.

We've been doing some more reading on the Quakers. The Inner Light dwells in everyone; humans all have an inherent potential for good. We listen in silence. We hear God in silence.

Quakers have marked history with their moral and spiritual courage. Richard Foster is a Quaker, as are many other insightful writers, contemporary and historical. Because Quaker missionaries believed in the presence of God in every person, they were among few outsiders who treated Native Americans with respect. They spoke out against slavery. They solidified the concept of conscientious objection. They suffered greatly.

I love everything about the Quakers, I told Martin, Except the suffering part. I admit: I voice my convictions strongly, but I do not want to suffer.

Simplicity. Silence. Social justice.

Rock on, Friends.

So Martin and I drove through a day so beautiful you could tongue the air and savor each taste of spring.

Thirty minutes and countless twisting curves later, we pulled into the parking lot of the Friends Meeting House. "During the week the meeting house is a yoga studio," I told my parents. Imm, hmm. I could tell my parents had their reservations. My mother, who is highly suspicious of any seed that might grow and bloom into self-absorption, was most hesitant about the idea of an hour spent in utter silence without the grounding of Scripture or other text.

The members of my family disappeared into the room of silence and I took the girls into the big sunny room across the hall. Merry was skeptical. "This isn't church," she said, looking around at the old easy chairs, the rows of books, the toys on the floor.

"We'll have our own church," I told her, hunting through the books on peace and Quakerism for a Bible. (Did see Richard Foster, by the way). Finally I located a row of Bibles and pulled one out. "It doesn't look as if there are any other kids here, though," I said. Elspeth toddled around finding bottles of carpet cleaner, a container of seashells, everything but the toys she was supposed to play with.

Merry sat down and I conducted "Jesus Loves Me." Maybe it was the odd formality of her chair and my waving my hands in time to the song, but she seemed to adjust immediately to the idea that she was the only person in Sunday School. I found some markers and some construction paper and we adjourned to the table, where I flipped through the Bible.

Let's see. Today, we'll talk about the parable of the lost sheep. I began to read the story out of the Bible until I realized it was King James' version. So I told Merry the story and followed the lost sheep with the parable of the lost coin. Merry wanted to know what the stories meant, and though I tried to explain what I had always been given to understand the meanings were, I did a bad job. Merry didn't seem to mind, and just then the oldest members of the Meeting entered the room.

In Welsh accents, they explained that Meeting didn't always start exactly on time. "It keeps getting later and later," they said. This resonated with me in a way they could never have predicted. I am fond of blaming my time challenges on my growing-up years in Kenya, where nothing ever started on time and nobody was ever late. I ran breathlessly to classes in college and slunk into endless church services, often taking a seat in the balcony or the back row.

The Welsh friends chatted with Merry and me for a few moments and then they plucked a book off a bookshelf for Merry. The parables were over, and the Quaker education was beginning. The book was about a bonnetted girl and a breeched boy in Nantucket. Early Quaker fry, and how they lived by the ocean.

Just then my mother, bastion of Christian education, entered and offered to watch the girls while I went into Meeting. The Welsh Friend had begun reading Merry the book and at her suggestion, Merry was drawing with markers while she read. Later Merry would choose a book about cats and the woman would read her that book, too. Nothing in the way of Christian education, as my mother would tell me later. Though God made cats, I said to my mother in a joking way. Half joking way.

The room was silent, of course, as I entered. I did not know whether to nod at people before I sat down and so I looked at the textured carpet instead. Eventually I shifted my gaze to the huge panel of windows that looked out to a blue sky, sunlight, the bare branches of warming trees outside. And then I closed my eyes.

I am unaccustomed to spending an hour of focused silence. At first my mind was filled with endless scraps, like a washing machine tumbling a load of clothes. Bang, bang, bang, the contents of my mind swirled and smashed against each other. Contained there were mostly scraps of Christian songs. . .and then after all this chaos, and after looking out the window and at the man with big bare feet sitting across the circle, I closed my eyes.

Slowly the chaos of my mind whittled itself down into one bare phrase, and that phrase began scrolling through my imagination. "THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR." That was it. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR.

After a while that phrase gave birth to an image. Mary was sitting at Jesus' feet and Martha was in a chaos of bustle behind them. Mary was listening to Jesus, taking in his words, and Jesus was affirming her listening. Martha, you are troubled with many things. But Mary has chosen the best thing. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR. FOR THE WONDER OF EACH HOUR.

Then two friends shook hands, and the hour was over. People began speaking.

In the space of the hour, my father had thought over and over Jesus' last meals before his death, and what those meals meant about community, suffering, and service. His reflections opened me to new ways of thinking about Jesus, his personhood, the way he would have wanted one last year with his friends before death.

Martin's mind, too, had struggled through the bustle of thoughts to grasp one phrase, from Julianne of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

For the wonder of each hour. Jesus eating with his friends. All shall be well.

After Meeting all the Friends wandered into the other room and we drank tea and ate pastry. One fellow who had just returned from Venezuela where he studied harp and sustainable agriculture plucked a beautiful melody on a colorful harp. The chap with bare feet let Elspeth toddle around with his flashlight while he explained his work to us--how he refurbishes bikes for the poor and works toward alternative, renewable transportation. Also there was talk of college English, the venerable Bede and the concept of time in the Middle Ages. . .The fellow put on tire-scrap sandals and took off on his recumbent bike. We watched him pedal down the road and then we piled back in our car and drove the long way back through the green hills.

I think we'll go back.

All shall be well.

Today; Deer; Canadian Hemlock

Today we planted forty Canadian Hemlock trees in our yard. Someday they will grow into a soft evergreen hedge.

Big, muddy holes. Tiny, feathery trees. Filthy hands, shovels caked with mud. Immm. Love it.

After planting: found out that deer love "browsing" Canadian Hemlock trees.

Maybe they will never grow into a soft evergreen hedge.

Tonight: sleeping with the window open. Earth smells like rain. We can hear the gurgling of the creek. We can hear the deer licking their lips. It all makes for dreams.

Canadian Hemlock is the state tree of Pennsylvania. They must grow beautifully here though we've never seen one. Deer eat them all to nubs.

Sweet dreams, good people. Deer: eat hearty.

Voices

Spotted on church marquis:

Why do you need a voice
When you have a verse?

I turned this over and over in my mind on the way to the grocery store. Though I couldn't quite make heads or tails of the saying, the words themselves scared up images of women oppressed by their fundamentalist husbands (an abuse present in every religion's expression of extreme fundamentalism). It made me angry with the anger stirred up by trite marquis slogans, blasphemous books written in the name of Christianity (often about "how to be a godly wife"), and politicians who support latent abuses of the poor and claim to pray. It makes me angry, good people, because I am a Christian.

Last night I looked up the Episcopal Church on the internet. My mother, who is a spiritual director in an Episcopal Church in Maryland, had let me know earlier that day: "And in other news: Episcopal Church Given Up Anglican Global South for Lent." The American Church is hurtling head-first toward a break with the Anglican south.

Have you been following these sad things? (If you haven't, briefly--the tension revolves around the Episcopal Church of America deciding to appoint of a gay Bishop (Gene Robinson), the general appointments of gay Bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions. This issue sparked what more conservative Episcopalians view as a matter of the authority of Scripture; the global south, and in general the worldwide Anglican Church, condemns the American E. Church's actions and a schism is imminent.)

I looked at websites from both sides, and I was deeply grieved. Both arguments are clouded over with contempt for the other. A schism, though inevitable, is tragic and has raked up the worst in everybody. Everybody. I don't care where you stand or what you think of the issues. Humility, grace, compassion--seem to be lacking on both sides.

(And here's a little glimpse from history that does not answer questions but makes me cautious to believe there are any answers: for years in our country slavery was sanctioned by Christians. Slaves, obey your masters. It was in the Bible. It is a verse. And slavery was so ingrained into the very fabric of our society that it seems not one church in the South spoke out against slavery in any substantial way during these years and years of gross injustice. History has judged the church.)

What will history say about this latest schism? Oh, it made me want to be done. Done, done, done with church.


So I took my grief over the Church, and I took the marquis post, which by now I had internalized into memory, and laid it before Martin. What do you think this means? I asked him.

It means, he said, that you don't need special revelation from God (a voice) to know what to do. All you need is the lasting revelation (scripture) to tell you what to do.

Ah, I see. God does not reveal herself/himself in any way other than through the Bible. That's rather glum, I told him. (Forget dynamic relationship; forget the surprise of nature; forget sacred words in other books and in the mouths of people).

I don't believe it. Not for one moment.

Outside the world is covered in a trembling mist of rain. Drops hang and shine on the swelling buds of the tree outside my window. A bird with a bright yellow beak ruffles the water out of his feathers. In his beak he holds a long twig, which he drops in his anxious desire to sing. And so he is singing out there in the rain, beak wide open, throat trembling with sound. And then he is gone.

Voices, voices, everywhere! I hear the voice of God in the rushing of the creek waters; I hear the songs of God in the gentle pattering of the rain. I see the face of God in my daughter, who is sitting beside me, drawing.

There is great mystery in life. The words of Jesus, the parables he told in the mystical tradition of storytelling--these do not give tidy answers. Jesus' stories, the answers he gave to searching people, the strange things he said about himself and the many things he never said about himself--Jesus confirms mystery.

I have questions, questions, questions. At one time their answerlessness would have bothered me. But it doesn't anymore. Live into the questions, Rilke said. Last night, Martin said: the questions themselves are lifegiving. Yes!

Answers--firm, inflexible answers--these often do more harm than good. They often leave little room for grace. Their solidness excludes many. Questions? When I am willing to ask you a question, I am opening myself to you in a vulnerable way. I am humbling myself before you. I am leaving room for discussion, for childlike wonder and exploration. When I ask a question, and then I am silent, then I can listen. Then, and only in silence, can I hear with real ears. If I ask a question as a matter of form or correctness but have already decided what the answer is, I will not hear what you have to say. Your stories will be lost in the roar of my own voice. And our relationship will be damaged as a result.

The older I grow, the fewer answers I know. I am not afraid of the ambiguity. And in the midst of all these questions, I know a few things for certain, and those few things are enough.

I am convinced with every particle of my being of this: God loves us, loves this world, loves every human and animal and unfurling life that lives here on this good earth.

And I know, as I know and love my own children: God is present, in mysterious and astounding ways. God is present in the bird outside my window. God's voice is everywhere.

Often I fill myself with the clamor of other things--worry, criticism, meaningless and meaningful pursuits both. But occasionally I will listen, and I will hear, not in words, not in verses, but deep within my imagination, an imagination which gives me eyes to see what is truly real.


Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
--Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet