Springing into Summer
Spring is color and cloud,
wind and wildflowers,
rushing down headlong into summer.
Catch a breath!
Summer is heat and hats,
beach and books,
topped with tomato and avocado sandwiches.
Catch a sigh!
Lilly Green--Everything Changes in the Light
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Mail Domination!!!
I wonder if they make femail boxes in this rural setting? 
This scene is very nostalgic for me, except for the locks on some. Growing up you would never see that! However, many a mailbox ended up stuffed with manure or firecrackers on Hallowe’en. Delinquents! . . . Not me. . . . What are you looking at? I only used hay!
We collected our mail at the general store a mile from home. I felt disenfranchised not having a shiny mailbox at the lane. Finally, we got one! Said “Cr____ and Son” on the top. Nice try, Dad. Your only son would run off and become a space-age scientist engineer person. It must have been a sign that a month after the mailbox was up, somebody threw it in the river. At least, that’s what we suspect. A Hallowe’en trick. Sometimes, pranksters would just exchange mailboxes so you found it a few farms over. We never found ours, and the river was so handy.
Now if it had said “Cr____ and 6 wonderful daughters and one son,” no one would have dared such a sacrilege. Oh, well. Back to the general store.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Migraine Morning
Woke up with a migraine, and it feel cloudy like this, only not so pink! BUt I am still jazzed since hubby bought me a new Canon camera yesterday! My love language! :-)
Monday, April 23, 2012
Perspective on Perspectives
(Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, scanned from 35 mm)
It’s all about how you look at things;
at least, that’s how I see it.
How do you see it?
It’s the Rorschach test of life–
how you view your world,
what you see that others don’t.
From the bottom looking up,
from the top looking down,
inside looking out,
outside looking in.
Grace should be a given
till we can see how others see
and understand the filters in their lives
through these pieces of wood in our own.
Sequoia '10
Seattle '10
Sequoia '11
Tahoe '10
Kaiser '11
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Everybody Has a Story
'10 Tahoe
An observation, an opinion, an idea,
a story—everybody has one.
. . . But not every voice is heard.
Not every voice can
b -r -e- a- k—–
through the drone of drilling words—
to cut the wake, the constant flow.
Not every voice can
p e r s i st andresist
to ring through
when talked over, walked over, socked in the heart over
and over again.
Self-centered . . . no, well,
maybe.
But certainly self-absorbed.
Is your story better than my story?
Is mine better than that –>other,
that other passing silent, unheard, misunderstood
because of the steady surge of my lexicon, your hex upon
an other’s unsurpassable worth?
Not every voice can
s w e L L L
in a surge of soul
to cut the wake, the constant word wash,
when mauled over, scrawled over, quenched in the spirit over
and over again.
Everybody has a story, but
not every voice is heard.
******************************************
…………………………..[Is your story being heard?]
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Worm Soup
Glorious,
DNA delectable,
molecules changing places,
neither wanderer nor wonder.
In a tepid, liquid dance,
remaking my lowly self—
creation in destruction.
Worm gravy,
liquid life recipe
in a transformation prison.
No going back—aiming higher.
Breaking free—the final push,
bursting my chrysalis crucible.
Perched wet,
perched dry,
hallowed in flight.
Friday, April 20, 2012
This is what other people go through . . .
This is what other people go through. These are other families’ struggles. You put them on a prayer list, and you fervently pray
. . . at least a few times. Well, maybe once. It’s an obligatory function of faithwalking. But urgency fades with the pressing in of life; alarm is absorbed in the myriad needs that crowd our days.
We don’t mean to be apathetic.
And after all . . . these are people outside our circle. These are other people’s parents, other people’s children, other people’s friends.
They are not as gifted as our own, not as thoroughly instructed, not as thoroughly graced.
This doesn’t happen to people who do things right—who make the sacrifices, who make the tough choices, who sow good seed. Does it?
What can relationship be without this reaching out in desperation—this frantic desire for a reversal of hell-breathed decisions?
How will we talk about meaningless things in a meaningful way, and all the while the heart hears scratching nails as on a chalkboard, blood pulsing in the ears?
Do we just give up . . . give in? Surrender?
Does surrender look like truce, abandonment, painful silences—with rock hard parameters placed around the talk that really matters? Or can surrender and warfare comingle?
Indwelling Spirit, left as our guide, our comfort, our power, I’m feeling hopeless here. I need Your presence, Your intrusion, pushing aside my tears and fear. I need You to sigh through me, pray through me, love through me. I need Your gleam of strong hope, because I am unable to conjure up any on my own.
It is easier when it is another’s loss.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Your God is Too Small
Your god is too small—
this science, this rational-dependent mind, this earthbound philosophy.
Since when did such a god ever come close to redeeming,
ever come close to blessing?
Does DNA love me? Does nuclear fission long for my relationship?
How many prayers has biology answered,
and how many musical compositions have risen unbidden, undirected,
from tectonic activity and volcanic explosions?
Marvelous observations! Yes.
Marvelous discoveries. Certainly.
But if this is all there is, if this is how big your god is,
what a small god.
What a small pitiable god, this science.
Your hungering heart is not just chemicals and firing synapses.
Your weeping eyes are not just lysozome and water.
Open your eyes to the largeness—
to the other.
Beyond the brokenness, beyond the tainted veil, beyond this war zone,
open your eyes to wonder,
to the largeness of Creator.
Listen to the call of Love, wanderer, both bruised and blind:
your god is too small.
Sunrise in My Bathtub
Standing in my bathtub
in my nightie,
camera in hand,
snapping pictures
as a blazing sun burns off the memory of yesterday’s storm.
Not superior planning by our builder,
this picture window for a bath–
but for capturing sunrise souls,
superior!
It’s an eastern vista, a bird’s-eye view
except for the other pesky houses in my way.
I wonder if my neighbors think I’m a peeping Tom-ette
as I stand in my bathtub,
in my nightie,
camera in hand?
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The Weak in Review: Gimp Shopping
Well, I actually went to a store today–Target. I only had to pick up a few things, but some were at the farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr end of the store, so I rode on one of those little, red electric carts. (They have to be red; it’s Target.)
It was an interesting experience.
It’s good they don’t go very fast because I could be a danger to myself as well as others, but the Stop function is, shall we say, effective. If you don’t watch it, you can get whiplash, which is no small feat given you are only driving at .00002 miles per hour (That may be a generous estimate.) I could probably get this down to a smooth cruise if I practiced more, but I kinda (slang alert!) think I’m not going to be using it that much. (Let it be!)
Another weird thing is that people look at you funny. Well, I guess that is not totally accurate. Other customers don’t look at you at all. They will not look you in the eye, and unless you are rounding a corner a bit too fast (hypothetically speaking), and they have to hug the canned goods to keep from being run over, they act as if you are invisible.Do they feel sorry for someone who needs this tool to do such a mundane thing as shop, but are uncomfortable with your need? Do they judge you, thinking that you probably don’t need it and are just lazy (I made sure to limp really noticeably when I got up so they could tell I was hurting. Not that hard to do.)? Or do they just not care enough. Period.
Next time I’m shopping on two good legs and I see a person in one of these snazzy go-carts, I’m going to look him in the eye, smile, tell her I’m not judging, and ask it if I can possibly help to reach an item (Notice my PC gender sensitivity!). S/he will probably call security, but I will feel better about myself.
Nothing New Under the Sunset
4-9-12
We just had another glorious sunset.
Is that too superlative or maybe too cliché?
Okay, it was totally awesome, dude–mmm
. . . or maybe pretty, in an exclamation point kind of way.
That’s it!
I need to speak in punctuation marks colon
fresh, innovative, disarming kinds of descriptors!
Or maybe not–insert sigh.
It was layered, peachy, pink chiffon
with crystalline threads of lavender and sky blue–wind breathed.
. . . Sky blue in the sky doesn’t really fit.
Robin’s egg blue!
Okay, I give up.
It was a beautiful, inspiring display of earth rotation!
(Notice how I didn’t say sunset. Is that a cliché yet?)
Looking west
Sunday, April 8, 2012
My Easter Prayer
St. Andrew's Abbey '11
Is it just another day, another ritual performed,
a chance to wear new clothes and serve festive meals,
a celebration to mark our days and orient ourselves in a new year?
Is it just another obligation,
a compartment to fit in all the praiseworthy things
we ought to feel,
hope to feel,
about One so distant, so long ascended?
Has the burning in our hearts been quenched by familiar practices
and institutions?
Has the finger-in-the-side-faith lost its exclamations,
replaced by programs, distractions, and holy soundtracks?
Has our communion in the garden become commonplace
rather than ablaze with revelation and intimacy?
Oh, God of the resurrection,
God of the unruly and easily sidetracked,
burn within my heart this day.
Renew this shabby faith, these tattered shreds of almost belief,
with an obsession,
a knowing,
a persistence,
and an urgency to love You,
to love the faltering, the lost.
To be the Kingdom person you suffered to make me
is my Easter prayer.
St. Andrew's Abbey '11
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