Of Things That Have Been

I finger them mindlessly most days,

These tokens of thanksgiving.

In some familiar corner of my brain I am

aware of their weight and

the anorexic string that

keeps them connected to a well

untended.

But something has shifted

inside of me and

I can’t remember

how to see.... 

To keep reading this poem, please follow this link

++++++++

I am writing today over at my beautiful friend Elizabeth Marshall's home, 

Poetry & Prose Through A Lens of Grace.

She extended a gracious invitation to several of her friends that write poetry and I am honored to be included in that circle.

Elizabeth and I have a history of mingling words and images and stirrings of the heart.

Together, we created Adagio, a writing "pas de deux" of sorts where we wove our words together to pen poems. 

Quite a bit of life has happened between that last project and now, as well it should have. But we are both very excited to join together again in the new year. It is our hope that you will journey with us.

Spinning Straw Into Gold

This last week before Christmas has taken on a life of its own this year.

Right when my sweet little family was gearing up for afternoons baking cookies and evenings driving around town gazing at twinkling lights we had to, instead, quickly shift gears, rearrange plans, throw clothes in suitcases, make haste. Suddenly, it was all about hustle—a verb that I fight with a vengeance during this holy season. But rather than it being about needing a little Christmas, right this very minute, it was a pressing need to get home.

My mom is, once again, fighting a battle with her body. Cancer thinks it deserves space in her bloodstream and it is acting like a big old bully. I hate cancer.

But, I figure, the best way to fight a bully is with love so my little family has slipped on our boxing gloves and we intend to go down punching. For we want to be known as people who love. We have shown up on my parent’s doorstep, even if there is but little room in the inn, and we are ready to do business.

It is Christmas time, though, and there are children here so I am trying to figure out how you patch together something that still sings of grace and glory while not ignoring the present reality. How do we take the straw we’ve been handed and spin it into something golden and magical?

+++++++

Would you like to read the rest of this post?

I am writing over at SheLoves Magazine today. Follow this link to find the rest of my words.

Take Joy!

I will be taking a break from the blogosphere over the Holidays so you will probably not see me here until after Christmas. Until then, I leave you with one of my all time favorite passages. I shared it last year but I will share it again--for it is good and right and true.

Take Joy!

I salute you! 

There is nothing I can give you which you have not;

but there is much, 

that, while I cannot give, 

you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today.

Take Heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.

Take Peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet, within our reach,

is joy.

Take Joy.

And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you,

now and forever,

the day breaks

and

the shadows flee away.

-Fra Gio

So as you gather with family and friends this holiday season, as you look into their faces and wrap your arms around them like you will never let them go, as you feel the ache of dear ones lost. in all of this, my prayer is that you will take joy.

Noel {A Haiku}

Inspired today by the thoughts of Seth Haines over at Tweetspeak Poetry. The structure of certain poetry  forms can provide just the right space in which to share raw and ragged emotion. Here, I fall into the haiku and I am grateful for its conciseness. It hems me in--in just the right places.

+++++++++++++++++++++

When there is silence
my ears are tilted upwards
catching the holy

Into my empty
there falls a swelling presence
that keeps me breathing

For these days are stretched
across my breaking heart space
and I need comfort

But haven't I always?
every Noel finds me poor
in mind and spirit

This one only rips
closer to the quick, the root
from which life is born

The idea of God
as a child burns deep and wide
it is at once, mad

And beautiful, because
it is the heart of the young
from which springs glory

And in the inky
black sky a crop of new stars
sing Hallelujah

O come, o come, now
usher in sweet songs of joy
be born in me again.

Where there is life there is love

image credit: Flickr "Christmas Lights"

In my last two posts, here and here, I shared about being open to the hope and the wonder of this Advent season. I mused on long darkness and piercing light and holy spirit smoke. I swelled with anticipation.

It's amazing how everything can change in a day or two.

My first week of Advent has been ripe with hard conversations, thwarted goals, and deep soul walking. There has been no lighting of the Advent wreath, no dwelling in Words of life, no mighty nesting instinct spurring me on to small acts of preparation.

Instead, there has been life.

And it has been drippy and sticky and complicated.

I lost every ounce of patience with my children, closed the door to the world and lamented my fate to the skies. And never fear, there was much cursing and clenching of fists.

I surveyed my house on several occasions and wondered how I could possibly want for more when I was already drowning in piles of paper and trinkets and dust.

And as people near and dear to my heart spun like dervishes in the wake of their own deep churning, I felt the strain of impotence.

But that is not all.

For "where there is life there is love" and this week delivered that, as well.


I learned the spiritual discipline of letting go... of control. of unrealistic expectations. of perfection.

Every year since we have been married, I have put up the Christmas lights. Not to take a stand on equality or anything else noble like that. No, I have always put up the Christmas lights because I am a control freak.
But this year found me committed to another task on the 65 degree December weekend that simply insisted be dedicated to donning holiday lights. And my husband and two boys needed something to do together. The answer was simple=put up the lights.
The lights did not go up in the order or manner they were supposed to. There were colored lights hanging all willy nilly from columns and door frames and I didn't understand the arrangement and it was.all.wrong.
I was just about to intercede on the behalf of Christmas lights everywhere and offer some constructive criticism when I felt my tongue freeze heavy in my mouth. Something stopped me. It was not because of anything generous in my own spirit. No, my mind was busy talking my body off the ledge of Christmas madness and encouraging deep breaths and closed eyes. No, something bigger and greater and wiser than me was taking over. And it was winning.

That is what love does. It wins.

And the other miraculous thing? I didn't put up a fight.
I let love win this one.

Something hard and brittle broke in me that day. A rigid cast of contention that I had made my uniform for all these years, it simply fell away.

And in its absence I could move. And breathe.

And now my sweet, little house shimmers with color and beauty and glory and I had absolutely nothing to do with it.

That has been my Advent lesson this week.

quote: Mahatma Ghandi

The Feast of Broken Pieces

Photo credit: Bread! Flikr, Creative Commons

We sit at a table round and old, the edges burnished by years of reaching deep and sidling close. It was bought by my parents, this table, when their love was still young and the road less littered. The years and their offerings, they have left their mark and there are scars to remind us all. But when I run my hand across the polished top, I smile at the way that my fingers glide and dance.

We are a motley crew, this gathering of souls, and yet we are all cut from the same cloth. Our blood runs thick with crooked noses and broad shoulders, almond-shaped eyes and cowlicked hair but despite the familiar echoes, I sometimes feel as if I am looking into the faces of strangers. 

For aren’t we all just stories draped in flesh and can’t it take years to peel back the layers that mask our true forms? 

Some of our tales have never even been whispered but yet, they blow silent through cracks, wanting to be heard. It is their muteness that rings loudest.

We’ve all come hungry...

I am humbled and very excited to be joining 

SheLoves Magazine as a contributing writer today. 

You can read the rest of my piece here at the

SheLoves website.

Naturally dyed Easter eggs

Let us permit nature to have her way.  She understands her business better than we do.  ~Michel de Montaigne

red onion skins

red cabbage leaves

beets 

turmeric

soaking overnight

close up of red onion skin dyed egg

close up of red cabbage leaf dyed egg

close up of beet dyed egg with turmeric egg in bottom left of frame

close up of blueberry dyed egg


Nature is the art of God. 
~Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, 1635