Autumn Jaunt

I felt just like Tom Bombadil two mornings ago. Out with the dawn and "both my eyes open." When I rose and leapt away down the road in my car, the big dipper filled the window to my left, and dawn was a green line ahead. I like the silence of earliest day that watches, poised, to spring up and sing at the first hint of light. I like to watch the way that day wells up golden in the fields, more like water seeping all through a field than light falling from the sky. I keep my space hushed in those early hours.

My mom read someone recently (can't remember the author) who said that if we wish to hear God speak, we must make a space of silence in our minds. Well, my car is my quiet. My coracle, my little boat caught in a swift stream but whole and silent unto itself. I listen a lot as I drive. And the loneliness, the solitary hush becomes prayer.

Eventually, I listen to a book on tape or some music. My choice this time surprised me; I snatched something called The Life You Save May Be Your Own from the shelf at my library. Something about writers and faith was on the cover and I stuck one of the CDs in my first morning, not sure what to expect. Well, it's a biographical, writerly, spiritual symphony describing the lives of four major Catholic writers who influenced the spirituality and action of Christians in the past fifty years. Thomas Merton, monk and writer, Dorothy Day, writer and activist, plus Walker Percy, and Flannery O'Connor. Oddly enough, I have been quite challenged, convicted even, by the unblinkered sincerity with which these writers pursued God and a life of integrity.

But how beautiful for me, that they did it, at least partly, through writing. And, most of them were influenced into their own radical choices by the writing of others. This is becoming somewhat of a theme to my coracle ruminations.

I sang, soared in eastern Illinois as the sun split open the night and darkness melted from the sky. I was convicted in northern Kentucky, convicted to write, to act, in sight of those strong shouldered hills cradling the valleys. I ached to write in the bushy, gorgeous maze of the West Virginia mountains. I let a mountainous storm and a tempestuous violin sing my exultation in the fact of striving hard after God and books and my next destination as I crested the green, lolling hills of Virginia.

Allright, so the above was what happened in my soul. The rest of the story is that I have decided road trips are just one grand excuse to eat all the things you never get to at home. I mean when else in years have I eaten a burger and fries two days running? And munched on candy (gummy bears) and chocolate (dark, thank you, in a plain bar and in covered almonds) using the grave excuse of keeping myself alive (i.e., awake)? Or condoned, entirely without guilt, the guzzling of as much coffee (mocha cappuccinos, I mean) as my poor stomach could take?

I love road trips.

Aptin's Feast

Cross posted at The Rabbit Room. From the minute I stepped off the plane that brought me home to Colorado from Hutchmoot, I've had this post in my head. "Better late than never," is an adage I am coming to embrace as a writer, because I never get things written as quickly as I think I will. But Hutchmoot has followed me. The stories told and people met have stayed with me in so fresh a way that I have decided to write about it no matter how late. So this is my delayed, but heartfelt tribute to Hutchmoot. I must begin it by saying that one of the best parts of Hutchmoot to me was the feasting. Evie's meals have now become the stuff of legend. I love this, because the meals we ate became a metaphor for what was offered to our souls in the sessions and dinner-table conversation. But I also love it because it put me in mind of another feast I experienced, a feast that changed my life. And a feast that will help me explain why I feel that Hutchmoot was a time of such grace.

It all began several years back, when I spent a summer as a ministry intern in England. I worked with a group intent on changing culture and having the right theology and worldview. I did it because, well, it was England after all. It was C.S. Lewis country. It was faith and academics and pubs and tea. I thought it seemed a worthy sort of work. Deep down, secret in my heart though, I also yearned to know God. Though I believed in him, he felt distant and vague to me, and I thought working with theological experts might finally answer my hunger to truly know his love. Oh, but I was starry eyed.

After two months of hearing everything there was to know about God, after sitting in two or three dozen lectures on Scripture, poring over worldview books, writing papers, and talking about God round the clock, I woke one morning and realized that I felt farther from him than I ever had. The realization was so stark, my soul so barren, I barely knew if I could finish my internship. Later that day, I heard a lecture on the six interpretations of the word "hell" and the fate of the people sent there. When the lecturer stated that he knew for sure that only one of them was true (the cruelest, I thought), something in me snapped. I didn't even want to know so awful a God in so dark a world anymore. I finished my work and nearly ran the cobblestone streets back to the refuge of my attic room. But that's where the grand bit of the story begins, because right then, when I was close to throwing my faith out the window, a man named Aptin was ready to save my faith with an offering of grace.

My home that summer was a rambly old manor house made over as student lodging. Good bones kept it standing, but its joints were all out of place in odd staircases and tipsy attic rooms. A narrow, homey little kitchen glowed at its heart though, crammed with mismatched teacups and a window that let in the sunset light as I cooked. This became my place of refuge in the evenings, and most days, Aptin cooked with me.

Aptin was a professor of something or other who commuted to London. He was from Iran, and had escaped with his parents when the Shah was overthrown. I'm sure he had a somewhat glamorous story, but I knew him mostly for his gourmet cooking, his friendly demeanor, and the snatched talks we had about life and travel. We both got home late most nights, and while he grilled salmon or concocted a souffle, we talked. I loved his stories and he distracted me from the bland monotony of my student's fare of eggs and toast. On this particular night though, my budget and soul were both so tight, I made plain oatmeal and ended up just passing him as I headed upstairs with my dinner tray.

"Wait," he said, in his high voice with its British accent, "I have found a new place in London, so I'm moving. I'm throwing myself a going away party in the garden tomorrow night - I'd be so happy if you could come." I nodded my acceptance. I had two days off, and even if I intended to spend them having a spiritual nervous breakdown, I couldn't offend my friend.

The morrow found me mad. Furious with myself for being the sort of person that struggled in her faith. Furious with the teachers I had trusted to lead me closer to God, and who, I felt, had shoved me away from any sense of his love. Furious, I must admit, with God himself who had left me to bumble about in a lonely darkness. By evening, I was fit company for no one, but I forced myself downstairs, eyes down, heart in my toes.

One step outside, I looked up, and I could not help it; I smiled. The garden had been transformed into the site of a fairy tale feast. The prim, green squares of English lawn were ranked by tables heaped with food like plunder. Aptin must have raided every grocer in town to fill the first with thirty different cheeses that sat amidst mounded breads, olive pates, and cracker stacks. Three giant bowls of fruit graced the next, full of grapes, pineapple, and tiny English strawberries, leaves and stems intact. The last was the crown, two or three dozen bottles of wine, among them the elderflower cordial I had come to crave during my English sojourn. As my feet sank into the grass, Aptin hurried over from the rounds he was making, shaking hands, laughing.

"Oh, I am so glad you came! It's a perfect night for a feast - fill as many plates as you can."

I obeyed. I sighed for the sheer relief of distraction, and somewhere between the brie and the cordial, I forgot to stew on my crisis. There was simply too much to enjoy. Plate filled, I found a seat under a gnarled old apple tree. The light was honey and gold and it fell on my head through the green apples and heat-struck leaves. The setting sun dyed the garden gold, and everything in it glowed; poppies and roses, the red stone walls, the rich, worn wood of the tables. A merry group of housemates soon joined me, and an air undeniably hobbit-like descended upon our feast.

For almost the first time that summer, I talked with my neighbors. I shared internship woes with Andrea, a German student. I asked Debbie, a doctoral candidate in theology, all about her studies. And I finally worked up the courage to talk to Ged, our housemother, a former nun who had left a strict, secluded convent to run the house for the summer. I questioned her about a life of contemplation and prayer, and in her gentle, reticent way, she told me her tale. "But I needed to be with people again," she ended. I simply nodded, knowing the truth of that need as I basked in the friendly presence of the woman beside me and the other friends round me. Night grew up as we lingered, a warm, hushed darkness that slowed our breath and rested our bodies. Bugs chirruped. Stars blinked. We chatted to the clink of plates refilled and glasses brimmed again. When sleepiness finally came, I climbed slowly to bed.

The minute I opened the door, my earlier struggle sprang, catlike, from the shadows. I clearly remember the way I tensed, and even clearer, I remember the peace that came and relaxed my fear. Darkness passed me by and I sat down on the edge of the bed, shocked at my lightened heart. The silver light of the moon fell full on my face and out of the blue, I know God loved me. I knew he was with me. A calm warmth filled every nook of my soul and I knew that I was held, kept, loved just as much as I had hoped. Grace cradled my heart and doubt seemed like a ghost. And it was all because that night, I had finally touched something real.

God, I finally realized, is not merely a thought I must think, or a proposition I must know. For the first time in weeks, I had tasted good food and rested. I had spent time in the fresh, green glory of the garden, seen the myriad colors, tasted the fresh, fresh air. For almost the first time that summer, I'd had a personal conversation, I had exchanged stories, doubts even, with a friend. And I'd been still. Quiet finally had a chance to still the frenzy of my thoughts. Sitting there in the moonlight, I came to the knowledge I had so hungered to find. God is the lover and maker, the friend and creator. He reveals his goodness in the tastable, touchable wonder of his world. His love is felt in the fellowship of his people. His joy is what sings in the wind and spices the best wine, and glimmers in the gold of sunset. In the savor of feasts, the cadence of seasons, in apples crunched and friends touched, God is known for the eternal Good that he is.

But I had lived apart from that goodness all summer. I had tried to know God by thinking about him. By working for him. By saying the right things about him. All the while, I ignored the earth and people God made so that I might know his soul. To grasp truth is vital, and I know it is something that must be taught in an age of such spiritual confusion. But truth must be enfleshed by love and beauty, or it will ring empty to the soul. Beauty known and people loved are the great ways that God offers his hands to us while we sojourn here in the earth. By loving, by feasting, by touching his beauty, we grasp him back and let him fill our hearts with joy. Two months of study couldn't give me what one night of feasting could, because I was made to touch and taste and see the goodness of God. I don't even know if Aptin had my faith, but somehow, he had grasped a heart of celebration. He understood the grace that beauty and friendship bring, and through the gift of his feast, he saved my faith.

The reason I tell this story here is because, for me, The Rabbit Room is that feast continued.  I discovered the Rabbit Room the same year I went to England, and as I grew, slowly, in trusting a God of beauty, it became a refuge for my heart. The Rabbit Room community sheltered me as I learned to let stories, music, and nature bring God close to my heart. In the daily creativity and fellowship of this place, I experienced that sense of God being not just a thought to be known, but a song to be sung, a story told, a friendship sealed by love of the same good things. Then I went to Hutchmoot and felt that I had stepped into Aptin's garden all over again.

Taste and see that God is good, says David in the Psalms. And at Hutchmoot, we did. We sipped wine and gobbled up spiced rice and roasted chicken made by the matchless Chef Evie, and we knew that God is good. We lingered at conversations that rambled onto holy ground, sat and marveled at songs that sang out the hungers in our souls. We watched light drip through a stained glass window onto the heads of a band of musicians merrily re-enacting the Last Supper, and we knew that God is a God who has laughter every day.

And the laughter continues here, now, in the Rabbit Room. To stumble into a feast is one thing, to have a daily bit of savory bread served to me through this place is another level of grace altogether. So this is my roundabout and heartfelt tribute to Hutchmoot, and really, to the whole Rabbit Room. It is my thanks to all you feasting folk who make this a place where God is touched as well as talked about. To me, the Rabbit Room is Aptin's feast continued every day. Since that feast restored my faith, I can think of no more heartfelt compliment. God bless you Aptin, wherever you are. God bless the Rabbit Room, and all of us here as we strive to taste and see his goodness. And Hutchmoot 2011, here I come.

On the road again...

Well everyone, the adventure begins! I feel just like Frodo. The yen to travel, to walk new roads, and fly up new highways just as the sun rises always comes strongest to me in autumn. As if the change in the air called for a change in my view of the world. I am so excited to be stopping at a few of your homes, the conversations promise to be delightful, and for those I can't meet this time, we'll plan for a future visit and cup of tea. I plan to take pictures. To contemplate my journey. And tell at least a few of the stories here. So I'll be back soon, reporting from the wandering road. For now, I leave you with the stirring, adventure-inspiring words of Tennyson:

Push off! And sitting well in order,

Smite the sounding furrows, for my purpose holds,

To sail beyond the sunset and the baths,

Of all the western stars until I die...

It'll be eastern stars for me, but sunset, here I come!

This good day

Today, there is air like cold water and sun like gold dust amidst it. Today, the leaves reveal their fiery hearts and line the trees like soldiers ready to fight the wind, and die.

Today, music is a lilting cry that sings what I can't speak.

Today, the twist of branch and gem of berries twine round a fat candle that tilts and gutters next to the open window.

Today, the world outside is a jewel-bescattered kingdom and my walk amidst it is a hunting of treasure.

Today, the rule of living is hot drinks unnumbered and long books begun and joy picked up like a penny from the sidewalk of these autumn days.

Today, I will start The Lord of the Rings all over again.

Today, I know that God is present before me to be taken in my hands. Decisions are illusive - they can always flit one more day ahead.  But the grace of today can make me strong. I am shored up by awareness of this settling season, as people and trees buckle down to face winter but do it with bright eyes and laughing hearts. Sometimes warmth is the sweeter because you have to fight the cold.

Today, I realize that beauty is the way I take hold of God. These small, strange gifts of leaf and flame and tea and story and sky, are the literal, physical hands God reaches down for me to hold. And I do. I put my small hand into their cupped, protective grace. And even amidst this unsure time, with shadow obscuring the road ahead, for now, I rest. And I am held.

Unmoored

I'm irritated with the general state of the world today. And for once, I think it's logical. I have big decisions to make right now and this has plunked me into an analysis of how to choose one course over the other. I question why I choose certain things, and how, in the end, to make the sort of choice that sits well with my heart. I have realized, abruptly, that just about anything is possible to me. In this day and age, with travel and internet and no societal constraint, I could go anywhere, do anything, and study any subject. One choice seems as good as the next. And while, for a few seconds, the intuitive in me glories in the sky-high freedom of it, my heart speaks wiser.

Never before in history have people had the ability or social permission to choose a course in life based purely on their own desire. Before now, choices were shaped by personal desire, yes, but also by family, history, the ties of the home you were born to and the people who watched you grow. There were ties of land, of the earth that fed you and the community that knew you. There were ties of integrity, ties that bound you to bless and nourish the people that grew you. You were part of a story that had a beginning long before you were born. Your life was told, in part, by the characters that came before you, and you understood that your life would inform future generations. Your choices were your own, of course, and you could cut all ties with the places and people that gave you life. Yet, I think the knots were thick and the cords strong and there was an understanding that your choices really weren't your own because they would shape the story of everyone else too.

Things have changed. Our modern culture is largely disconnected from land, community, and family. We are mobile, which means we can whiz wherever we want and are independent of our neighbors. We have a largely "postmodern" view of the world which means we believe that you make your own reality, you create fulfillment by being loyal to your desires and yourself. Our concepts of home and family have been fractured by social revolutions that leave us disconnected from the most basic of relationships, and challenged to form them. We live in what Neil Postman calls the world's first "technopoly," where technology forms our lives, relationships, and decisions. Even in our culture of art and music, we are disconnected from locality, driven by electronic, impersonal media. Our values are increasingly formed by the mass tastes of a generation that lives largely in a virtual world instead of the real one. Relationships are formed on mutual interests, not mutual history. What it all comes down to is that we moderns choose our loves and work purely on what feels best.

In this atmosphere, I find it excruciatingly hard to make life decisions. Because as a lover of God, I don't believe my decisions belong to me alone. I think the old ways of people tied to teach other, to serve, to love, to give, is the real way were were supposed to live. I think God is the shaper of my days, and I think loving his people and building his beautiful kingdom ought to be my work. But how in the world I am supposed to determine which of the million and one ways I could do this in the midst endless, self-driven possibility is beyond me. How do I hear God's will above the cacophony of cultural voices and my own confused heart?

What bugs me is that no matter which choice I make, I feel it is just me determining my own life. Any action I make right now is my own, driven by whatever need most moves me at the moment. When I'm in a Wendell Berryish mood and am convinced of the need to root and nurture local relationships and homes, I think I'll stay here and build my Rivendell and love people in the home I have always dreamed of making. When I am tired by the demands of ministry and feel stymied as to how to connect and make friendships, the allure of new countries and a nomad's existence of writing and study and wind wildness, well, it looks pretty good. In either life, I could serve God, I could write stories to picture redemption, I could love people heartily and well, I could teach, I could comfort. Does God care what I choose? Amidst the many voices and choices, the pull of loneliness, ideals, desire, it's hard to be sure.

Yet he has to. I just can't bring myself to believe that God doesn't care which choice I make. In a wonderful Sunday School class yesterday, I heard a gentle, wise man explain that God always has a plan. He does not change, his purposes are firm, his heart to bless and to build the kingdom of heaven is ever the same. Spurred by some of the Scripture I had heard in yesterday's talk, I read back through some of my most beloved passages in Isaiah this morning. There, the ringing affirmation of God's power and purpose sounded out like clamorous, beautiful bells of promise and I knew in the rock bottom of my heart that somehow, God will lead me. I do not follow a cloudy deity riding a star far above me. I follow Jesus, heart of my heart, who knew my days when not one had yet been told.

So gloriously did this surety renew my heart, I pounded downstairs and pontificated to my mom and sister on the glories of such a God, my yogurt bottle in hand as I gulped breakfast on the way out the door to an appointment. I probably looked a little hysterical. But I definitely looked happy, and here I am pontificating again because o' friends of mine, God cares what we do. The times we live in are so strange, and I think modern life tempts us to see God as random, impersonal, disconnected from the small decisions that shape the whole thrust of our existence. But he is not. He is the one who "knew our days when as yet there was not one of them," whose plans "cannot be changed, and will not be moved," whose purposes to bless and redeem are "firm throughout each generation." I have come close to losing my grip on this Father God of mine, but I will not allow a crazy world to undo me. He leads and we follow. I don't know how I will figure out where, but heaven help me I will. God will not abandon me to myself. So there.

Greenspace

Sorry for the hiatus. This was one of those weeks when I had two or three great thoughts looming like storms in my mind, but no time to chase them to the point of articulation. Just when I thought I might, I got jury duty. Yes, one of those weeks. Even now, I find that these ideas in my head are turning out to be whole countries that I will need to traverse and explore before I can describe them well. Things like how modern culture came to be, the importance of nature in sustaining faith, and, not least, what to do with my life. I think I have my self-made writing assignment for the fall. For now though, as I'm still a little befuddled from life, I'll simply tell you some of the things that sparked the thoughts.

I had a night alone last week, and decided I wanted the company of field and sky. I found my usual trail around my favorite sapphire of a lake crammed with teenage boys all riled up for a track meet. This, I knew, was not the soulfulness for which I searched, so I hied me out instead to a nearby "greenspace," a protected tract of land between the highway and the mountains. I don't usually walk there because it is so exposed; pure plains. But a broken up storm lingered in the sky and the sun was sinking fast away and shooting light straight up from the black mountain line so that the clouds blazed and dappled. The first fall of dusk was already on the ground as I began to walk, but the gold of day still lingered in the plants so that all the colors lurking in the yellowed fields woke and blinked and breathed to life.

I was stunned. To walk that gravelly undulation of a road as it snaked between the fields was to walk amidst scattered gems. I could not count the colors. Amethyst flowers starred a sea of wild wheat, the stalks tawny, the grain palest gold with the light filtered through. Emerald-leaved somethings in a calligraphic twirl of branches, wild grass burnt that deep crimson that burns in the last embers of a bonfire. Rosehips, mauve and red in their nest of tiny, razor-edged leaves. Vines etching green teardrops down the gravel, and all of it framed by far-off hills in sheeny green, mountains dark and old behind, and the sky a bowl of pellucid blue with storm rippling through it, the clouds edged in saffron by the dying sun.

Step and step, my stride was rhythm and breath put back in me when I hadn't known I wasn't breathing. Life rose up from my very heart, kindled by the fresh, unfettered air of that open place. I've been indoors a lot these days, working, wrangling through the sorts of decisions that shape one's future. And in the midst of it all, I have often felt my heart feeling around me for God, and coming up empty. Until my walk. In the damp, growing spectacle of color and the touch of sky, like a cool hand on my fevered head, I felt God and I wanted to cry out loud, "I see you God, I see." Because finally, I did. I couldn't be in the field and not notice him.

I think our hearts were meant to be rooted in the earth God has made. I think we were supposed to be daily immersed in the million tangible, intricate creations of a good God, and that nature was supposed to make him unmistakably clear to us. Now though, we are more and more separated from natural things by the whiz of cars and concrete, by houses made of all manmade substances and set far away from anything natural, by the time all of us have to spend in the weird world of screens. Yet throughout Scripture, God refers to himself as the "Maker of Heaven and Earth." When he must evidence his power or kindness or ability to save, to what does he point us? Stars and the running of the sun and the seasons that bring growth from the earth. How did God answer Job? He merely described the beauty and courses of nature and that was, in God's mind, enough to answer the ultimate questions of suffering. David said "taste and see that God is good," and I think he meant it literally.

Open your eyes and go outside. The artistry and abundance you will find in the earth will give you a flesh and blood and leaf and dirt and blue sky way to grasp the goodness of God. And with it comes the means by which you can cling to his goodness, even when circumstances seem void of it. I have a lot of questions for God right now, unanswered prayers, and when I am sitting in my study trying to trust, they can seem like enough to make me question my faith. But when I go outside, like Job, I want to repent and take back my words and say that I have involved myself in matters too great for me. Because the beauty I see in the earth, in the sky and mountains, is so great, so enduring, I cannot doubt that the God who made it will make and keep my own life, and fill me with a springtime of living soon.

Of course I love home and indoors and I have to live in the modern world. But I think it is all too easy to drift very far away from the glorious spectacle of nature. I think the wild sky and mountains, and all the trees and fields are God's living presentation of his beauty to us, even here in the fallen world. The earth is broken too, of course nature bears the mark of sin just like we do, but there is a beauty that speaks of what lies before and beyond the brokenness. And as I realize this, I see that this is another one of those truths that makes me question, how in the world did we get separated from the earth? Our ancestors lived much more present to nature and seasons and stars than we did. And however grand the modern, technological world, if it loses us the inheritance of God's good earth, is it worth it?

I realize I'm sounding a bit of a tree-hugger here, but I merely want to be a beauty lover and I want to keep my heart loyal to God. My thoughts of late have led me to question what we moderns are losing. What ancient, deep beauties - things meant to tie us to God, to hope, to each other - have we lost to hurry and technology? Nature is only one of the things I feel we are losing in modern times. The others would be community, family, local and life-long friendships, sacred spaces, and yes, a bit of earth to love. I guess I was shocked by the life that came back to me in one little taste of God's earth. It makes me hungry to question, to push away what separates me from the One I love, and grasp his life as firmly as I can. The lovely thing is, I think he made his soul to be touched and tasted.

More mullings to come.

Born Storytellers

Friends from afar and rainstorms like gods descending in fury have been the gift of our last two weeks of summer vacation. Both my brothers are home (well, Nate is almost here) and along with them a whole family of dear friends. Our house feels like Noah's ark - crammed with countless creatures all eating and laughing and sailing the seas of discussion at all hours of the day. After a jaunt down to the artsy part of town this morning, we got caught in yet another shrieking fury of a rainstorm and got home soaked and chilled. There was nothing for it but to light candles and kindle a fire (summer fires are one of the many joys of being a Coloradoan). Tea was brewed in a fat cobalt pot, mismatched teacups piled on a silver tray, and scones warmed in the oven. We lounged around our living room, the soundtrack from Ladies in Lavendar keening in the background.

Now, I must inform you that I am the introvert of introverts. I sometimes have these odd, panicked moments of thinking, oh no, what will we talk about now? If you are an extrovert, just ignore me. I know I'm strange. Nonetheless, even with my best friends, I sometimes wonder what I will say to keep the conversation going. Today though, I had a small revelation. We had all just settled in when my mom, cozy as a queen in her chair commanded, "okay, everyone has to tell a story from their own life."

The rambling, hysterical round of epics that followed never slowed from the minute we sat down to the instant we rose to start the feast for dinner. From tales of disastrous mountain hikes to the meeting of famous people, to unforgettable midnight rambles in tiny, English villages, we filled an hour with stories. There was never a lag, never an out-of-place silence. Once told to tell our stories, to share whatever it was out of our own memory of life lived thus far that had most tickled or touched us, we spoke. Even the introverts. As we got up to the clatter empty teacups, I had a moment of clear realization. We're all born storytellers.

Scratch a soul and they bleed a story, I'm convinced. We are all full of the tale of our lives, always connecting the dots of existence. The sum of our laughter and what we have seen and felt, and the people we have felt it with is the sum of who we are. To speak out the memories of what made us who we are is a vital part of how we craft our existence. But it is also a key element in the foundation of a friendship. It is by sharing stories that we knit souls and come to know each other. And I think we're probably all just waiting to tell our tales, if only someone will ask.

Story, I've decided, is what good conversation ought to be. I think I dread social situations sometimes because conversation exists on such a shallow level in modern times. I hate small talk. How can trivial pleasantries turn a stranger into a true friend? I've spent so many evenings, parties, and meals on conversations that don't mean a thing to anyone involved. The introvert in me dreads trying to come up with yet one more hour of talk that has no purpose but to pass some time. And yet today, it took just one comment from my mom to get the lot of us merrily talking the hour away. At the end, we knew far more about the loves and laughter of each other's hearts than we did when we sat down. Real conversation, the sort that makes souls known, consists of shared tales; the discovery of which ideas and scenes and happenings made us, formed our faith, livened our passion.

So now, whenever I feel that introverted panic rising, I shall simply grasp my teacup like a queen and request a merry tale. Or maybe even be brave enough to offer my own. Let the storytelling begin...

A Wide Place

Last night I walked with mom and saw the sky empty at dusk. Like a slow tide dying away, the light fell back, back, and the foam of it clung creamy to the blackened hills. Above, the sky curved over the earth like a navy blue crockery bowl and in it, adrift, one diamond and over that a scimitar of moonlight, needle thin. I felt blessed to see again. I need to behold, with flesh and blood eyes, this touchable, tasteable earth. I feel as absent from it as if I had been on a journey to outer space. This summer has helped me to realize that you can get so far into your brain, so lost in your own worries and thoughts, that life, in its dance and bluster around you, falls back, dimmed. I finished a journal recently, glanced through it and realized that most of this year's writing has been of inner debate. The tumblings of my own heart made such a  clamor inside me, I lost sight for all but that. I look back at other journals, from earlier years, and find tales of sunsets and stars, or ordinary hours, or friends, and I know. It is not that small beauties have passed away from my present life, but that I have passd beyond reach of their shelter and dwelt in my own confusion.

Worry is a hot little cave I carve out in myself. None of the outside trouble is changed by the presence of that fretting space within me, but I feel that I can keep some hold on my life, control my problems by giving them a place to live in my heart. Then I get locked in with them. And that hot, black space is the house from which I think and see the world.

Beauty saves me. Like the sky at dusk on my evening walk, some glint of star, or touch of a friend, or note of a song calls me back. Beauty unlocks the black little door in me, and my worries scatter, and I walk out, weak, wide-eyed, into life. And the blue above me is vast as joy and the dark is not choking and hot, but wide and fresh with starlight. My fretting is answered simply by the fact of the hugeness of the earth and sky, the loveliness that exists beyond any touch of my worry. "Taste and see that the Lord is good," says the Psalmist. The miracle is that I can. That God so crafted the world that beauties should abound, that every sense should find joy in this earth, and every joy craft a road we can follow in faith. Not to dark little caves do those roads lead, but to a wide place of peace beyond the edges of the world.

Details, details!

Detail the first: do you know how much you hearten me? Your comments on the last post were cool cordial to a thirsty writer's soul. However, if in checking back to that post you observe that all the comments have disappeared, well. As with so many endeavors, a bid for simplification got complicated. I am trying to set up comments so that people can receive follow ups if they want, and I can reply back to them a little easier (imagine that!). I have all the old comments safe, just stymied as to how to get them to come back. I shall figure this out in the very near future. Detail the second; I forgot to mention last week that I had a post up at The Rabbit Room. It's called Lessons in Shared Dreaming.

Third, I have decided to begin the slow, arduous, but rather enjoyable task of summing up some reviewish thoughts on the books I have read. I find this to be a good discipline anyway as I usually devour stories and then wish I had time to consider them in far more depth. I'm going to use Goodreads for this. I'll post reviews here too, but all will be archived in the Goodreads stuff. So friend me if you like - I'd love to carry on bookish conversations and hear your thoughts on the books you read as well. As part of this, I'm converting the "Library" section into a Goodreads montage. Click on a book to see my review. (Well, eventually. It will take awhile to review all those books.)

And last. A good storm terrifying the eastern sky just as dusk closes in for a kiss is one of my favorite sights in the world. You might like it too.