there's an old song i hear from time to time that always stops me in my tracks, like wind chimes on a summer night. it speaks across time. i think it's called "Nature Boy". the first time i heard it was on an old piece of vinyl by the Nat King Cole Trio that Robert, my first husband, had found in a used records store. the line that stands out is the very last one in the song..."the greatest thing you'll ever learn is how to love and be loved in return." isn't this just a pop music version of the two greatest commands in the Bible (to love God with all your soul and all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself)? remarkable that such a small, deceptively simple pair of statements can be the twin root of such hoped for joy (in their achievement) and such universal misery (in the failure to achieve them). i have an unfinished sewing project upstairs in my work basket, begun years ago when Robert and i were still married: a piece of rough linen with the words from that old song embroidered on it, surrounded by a field of daisies. about a third of the design is filled in with colored thread; the rest is still only sketched in pencil, waiting to come to life. it was intended to be a wedding gift for a couple who were then friends of ours...i never finished it; we ended up giving them something else more conventional like a serving dish or something...and a few years later their marriage crumbled, and all of our once intertwined lives blew away into futures that none of us could have predicted at the time. i still work on that forlorn needlepoint from time to time, still unfinished...as unfinished as the riddle printed on it.
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn..." and if you in fact really learn that thing, learn it and cling to it and make it not just a pretty footnote to your actual grimy life, but the very fabric of which your life is made...then everything else will flow from that. how do we do this? are we even capable of it? we, the willful, the vain, the corrupt, the stubborn, the selfish, the unforgiving species that we are? we, the little crown of creation, that thinks it is alright to tell God what His plans are? how is it that we think we can ever learn to love rightly? we can scarcely tie our own shoes without getting angry. we are deeply challenged to truly look anywhere beyond our own personal suffering, without the filter of our own experience and self-righteousness...how then are we capable of the polar opposite of what we are...love? it's a tall, tall order for a small small creature.
we are not expected to do it alone (because we can't), but i believe that we are expected to do it. we are expected to look beyond ourselves for the means. we are expected to ask for help, to seek God; but to seek Him humbly, not with an agenda. Love is only love if it comes without conditions. without any thought of what anyone may or may not deserve.
that's the bitter pill...but anything else is just a sales pitch. we humans love to envision ourselves as a highly evolved species, but what a crock that is! Unconditional love and true forgiveness are as intangible to our natures as that word from space we've never heard; the close encounter we've never had. we know in our hearts, in our cells, that we're not alone, but we are profoundly hard pressed to believe it.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Hallelujah
i was raised in a caldron of passion, hope, despair, guilt and submission called Catholicism. at five i was baptized and told that Jesus had His eyes and His heart fixed on me and would always be with me. by the time i was ten i was a member of a family where alcoholism and sexual abuse dwelt cozily beside classical music, a solid B average, and weekend picnics in the mountains every summer. i graduated from Sunday Mass to evenings beside the record player with Dylan, Young, Mitchell and ...Cohen. Leonard Cohen especially was the perfect soundtrack for my soul: a balanced blend of sadness, torment, wit and romance. at times i remember feeling sometimes like this faraway Canadian was doing Jesus' work; that his eyes were fixed on me even though we'd never met.
i survived my childhood. i survived my adolesence. i continue to survive adulthood, although i suspect it will kill me eventually. some days i land squarely on my feet, unsurprised and mildly encouraged, chewing on an idea or a project that woos me to action. others find me a rolling ball of misplaced feet and elbows, pitching forward out of control downhill to land painfully, all broken bones, tears and exposed nerve endings. this seems to be what we are dealt in this life: one or the other...with the blessed ability, built into our DNA, to forget what one was like when we are in full thrall of the other. no wonder we are all so crazy.
Jesus still looks after me. i recognize Him daily in the beauties around me, the beauties rising up in the midst of ugliness. the moments of laughter and gentleness.the hope. the healing. the forgiveness.the love. but He can be vaporous, this Saviour of mine. He can dissolve between my fingers like mist if i try to predict or define him. i prefer Him this way...His way, not mine...as maddening as He can be. God help us all if He were created in my image and not the other way around.
so i opened my eyes today and the words of Leonard Cohen strolled regally through my mind. a most unlikely disciple of the Lord...but weren't they all? aren't we all?
i change the words a little when i play this song...i hope Leonard would not hold this indulgence against me...i simply can't leave this particular issue to chance, for myself:
(his version) Maybe there's a God above
(my version) i know there's a God above
But all i ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not complaint you hear tonight
Or pilgrim who has seen the light
It's a cold, it's a broken hallelujah
Hallelujah...
i survived my childhood. i survived my adolesence. i continue to survive adulthood, although i suspect it will kill me eventually. some days i land squarely on my feet, unsurprised and mildly encouraged, chewing on an idea or a project that woos me to action. others find me a rolling ball of misplaced feet and elbows, pitching forward out of control downhill to land painfully, all broken bones, tears and exposed nerve endings. this seems to be what we are dealt in this life: one or the other...with the blessed ability, built into our DNA, to forget what one was like when we are in full thrall of the other. no wonder we are all so crazy.
Jesus still looks after me. i recognize Him daily in the beauties around me, the beauties rising up in the midst of ugliness. the moments of laughter and gentleness.the hope. the healing. the forgiveness.the love. but He can be vaporous, this Saviour of mine. He can dissolve between my fingers like mist if i try to predict or define him. i prefer Him this way...His way, not mine...as maddening as He can be. God help us all if He were created in my image and not the other way around.
so i opened my eyes today and the words of Leonard Cohen strolled regally through my mind. a most unlikely disciple of the Lord...but weren't they all? aren't we all?
i change the words a little when i play this song...i hope Leonard would not hold this indulgence against me...i simply can't leave this particular issue to chance, for myself:
(his version) Maybe there's a God above
(my version) i know there's a God above
But all i ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not complaint you hear tonight
Or pilgrim who has seen the light
It's a cold, it's a broken hallelujah
Hallelujah...
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Wrinkle In Time
Well hello again,
and welcome to the next phase of my blog...my old site having become a casualty of the socio-economogeddon we currently find ourselves waking up to every day. God help the small businessman and woman, and i say that with no sarcasm whatsoever.
anyway i hope you will bear with me as i learn the tweaks and twonks of THIS site...so far i can see that it still involves typing, which came as a great relief to me. new skills are not completely out of reach at my age, but they are a little more hard won all the time. let's just say that i am really astounded that i figured out, on my own, how to use the automatic needle threader on my new scarily lightweight sewing machine from Walmart. and just in time, too, since i probably hear better than i can see now. that is not to say that i am legally (or even illegally) blind, so as long as i can still read what i type i shall continue to hammer away. lucky for YOU.
it's a very hot Sunday afternoon and all is quiet as a coma around here. we had a really busy weekend. Friday we went to a baseball game; the Colorado Rockies lost to the San Francisco Giants. i ate a brautwurst and shelled about 12 lbs of peanuts; the evening air was soft, silky and mosquito free. there was a lovely peach colored sunset and a men's chorus (Marked Men For Christ) sang the national anthem. it was very Norman Rockwell. there was even a pinch hitter, Seth Smith, who nearly saved the day...but no.
saturday i woke up cranky with a headache (probably from the salt on the peanuts) and realized that we had to pull ourselves together for a house gig that night. "pull ourselves together" means drag all manner of instruments and PA out of the basement, make sure it all works, and throw it in the van in a more or less organized manner. additionally, set lists need prepared, light rehearsal needs to happen...i was not initially in the mood for any of it. for somebody who likes to play as much as i do...it is curious how much i really dislike the preparations. but let me say in my own defense that the two are not at all alike. playing music is fun. packing is a giant pain in a private place. there you are.
by the time we were done rehearsing etc. there was enough time to hit the shower, put on a dress and get in the van. the house gig turned out to be completely enjoyable; we played for a small party of about 25 people and two lovely Belgian sheherds (dogs), had lovely barbecue, sold a few CD's and were home by 11:00. THEN we were up at 6:00 this morning to play two services at church. so now you understand why it is now very quiet around the house. we have been napping. in fact that is precisely what i was doing until i got up to start this here blog.
in the future i shall figure out how to invite all the same people back who were reading before...i'm sure some of you are scratching your heads trying to figure out how you were singled out for this distinction...but you know me, i just like to be on the radar occasionally. The Lord gave me alot more words than I can use in my lifetime without an outlet like this. hopefully every hundredth one will be worth a cent...and maybe in my lifetime i'll get to say something golden (although i'm sure if that happens i'll just be speaking for someone else).
in any case, welcome and blessings. nice knowin ya. be well and be kind. more soon...
and welcome to the next phase of my blog...my old site having become a casualty of the socio-economogeddon we currently find ourselves waking up to every day. God help the small businessman and woman, and i say that with no sarcasm whatsoever.
anyway i hope you will bear with me as i learn the tweaks and twonks of THIS site...so far i can see that it still involves typing, which came as a great relief to me. new skills are not completely out of reach at my age, but they are a little more hard won all the time. let's just say that i am really astounded that i figured out, on my own, how to use the automatic needle threader on my new scarily lightweight sewing machine from Walmart. and just in time, too, since i probably hear better than i can see now. that is not to say that i am legally (or even illegally) blind, so as long as i can still read what i type i shall continue to hammer away. lucky for YOU.
it's a very hot Sunday afternoon and all is quiet as a coma around here. we had a really busy weekend. Friday we went to a baseball game; the Colorado Rockies lost to the San Francisco Giants. i ate a brautwurst and shelled about 12 lbs of peanuts; the evening air was soft, silky and mosquito free. there was a lovely peach colored sunset and a men's chorus (Marked Men For Christ) sang the national anthem. it was very Norman Rockwell. there was even a pinch hitter, Seth Smith, who nearly saved the day...but no.
saturday i woke up cranky with a headache (probably from the salt on the peanuts) and realized that we had to pull ourselves together for a house gig that night. "pull ourselves together" means drag all manner of instruments and PA out of the basement, make sure it all works, and throw it in the van in a more or less organized manner. additionally, set lists need prepared, light rehearsal needs to happen...i was not initially in the mood for any of it. for somebody who likes to play as much as i do...it is curious how much i really dislike the preparations. but let me say in my own defense that the two are not at all alike. playing music is fun. packing is a giant pain in a private place. there you are.
by the time we were done rehearsing etc. there was enough time to hit the shower, put on a dress and get in the van. the house gig turned out to be completely enjoyable; we played for a small party of about 25 people and two lovely Belgian sheherds (dogs), had lovely barbecue, sold a few CD's and were home by 11:00. THEN we were up at 6:00 this morning to play two services at church. so now you understand why it is now very quiet around the house. we have been napping. in fact that is precisely what i was doing until i got up to start this here blog.
in the future i shall figure out how to invite all the same people back who were reading before...i'm sure some of you are scratching your heads trying to figure out how you were singled out for this distinction...but you know me, i just like to be on the radar occasionally. The Lord gave me alot more words than I can use in my lifetime without an outlet like this. hopefully every hundredth one will be worth a cent...and maybe in my lifetime i'll get to say something golden (although i'm sure if that happens i'll just be speaking for someone else).
in any case, welcome and blessings. nice knowin ya. be well and be kind. more soon...
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