Category: anxiety

To Turn Suffering Into Beauty

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(Poetry) matters because it’s beautiful. It matters because it tells the truth, the human truth about the complexity of life. . .
It tells the entire truth about what it is to be alive, about the way of the world, about life and death.
Art embodies that complexity and makes it more understandable, less frightening, less bewildering.
It matters because it is consolation in times of trouble.
Even when a poem addresses a painful subject, it still manages to be consoling, somehow, if it’s a good poem.
Poetry has an unearthly ability to turn suffering into beauty.

Be a good steward of your gifts.
Protect your time.
Feed your inner life.
Avoid too much noise.
Read good books,
have good sentences in your ears.
Be by yourself as often as you can.
Walk.
Take the phone off the hook.
Work regular hours.
~Jane Kenyon from A Hundred White Daffodils

 

 

There’s nothing “regular” about the hours I work and I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to obsessive commitment of my time.  My phone is attached to me day and night for good reason.  I don’t read enough, don’t particularly enjoy being alone, don’t spend enough time walking nowhere in particular and am immersed full time in the noise of life.

Yet I recognize beauty when I hear it, see it and read it.  Sometimes I actually write it.

In the meantime,  I cleave to good sentences in my heart and the cadence of good phrases in my ears.  It’s what a good steward and harvester of words must do.

 

 

Preparing Through Parable: What Will It Cost?

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28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you,30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.

33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Luke 14: 28-33

 

 

 

I am reminded I must grasp what material possessions I have loosely:  I must be prepared to let go when the time comes.

This is hard for someone like myself who plans things out carefully, works hard, yet despite all that effort, is left feeling unfinished and bereft.

Even in the most dire circumstances:  I let go of what is meaningless and grab hold and hang on tight to a Savior sent to rescue me from myself.

 

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand.  He prepares me with parable.

 

Preparing Through Parable: All Kinds of Fish

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sunrisepond22115

 

winterfish

 

Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 
Matthew 13: 47-48

 

mudpondkoi

 

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. 
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
– It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
– if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels- until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! 
And I let the fish go. 

~Elizabeth Bishop  from “The Fish”
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sunrisepond1

 

All my life, I’ve taken care of a variety of fish in tanks.  As a child, I would watch, mesmerized, as our tropical fish glided around, happily exploring their little ten gallon world.  I willingly cleaned away the algae, rinsed the gravel and changed the filter. As a teenager, I boasted at least three different tanks aerating away in my bedroom, my own little aquacultural world.

During college and medical school, I chose to share my room with goldfish and bettas, thriving on their contentment within a clear glass bowl.  I didn’t think of them as emotional support animals, but there was a joy obvious in their albeit limited existence: they still thrived when I was away, not missing me, but were always thrilled when I fed them, and tolerated my messing with their home maintenance.

My current aquarium is over thirty years old and boasts over two dozen fish and plenty of furry algae and plants. Some of my watery friends have lived a decade or more and when they pass, I miss them.  Even the dozen koi and goldfish in our farm pond have expressive faces and individual personalities that I’ve gotten to know well as they come when I call.

I’m not a fisherman so can’t imagine sorting these finned friends good from bad as the parable suggests will happen in the kingdom of God.  I know the heart of compassion I feel for these animals I’m responsible for, as I know and have experienced the compassion of our Creator.

I would hope when the time comes that I end up in His net, that He’ll look at me, at my blemishes and wounds and the number of hooks in my mouth from the times I’ve been caught and escaped, and if He’s not yet ready to take me home, or deems me not yet ready to leave this world, He’ll throw me back to keep trying to get it right.

He has promised us that.

Rainbows, rainbows, rainbows.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand.  He prepares me with parable.

tanks

 

koigold

 

 

Preparing Through Parable: The Rain Came Down

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sunrise213181

 

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
~Matthew 7: 24-27

 

febdrops

 

Our house is built on sandstone, on a rise on the farm.  It is strong and solid, warm and cozy.  We don’t worry about rising waters from the perpetual rains this time of year.

But the barns are built on lower ground where the waters come in torrents down the hill in fierce storms and fill the floors and cause chaos.  Add in the winter winds, and we worry about whether the structures and their inhabitants can survive another season.

The wise man who built the barns on solid rock knew there would be hard times on that low ground yet his buildings have remained standing for decades despite the storms and threats.  We too stay standing on the Word, even when tossed to and fro, though stuck in the mud and muck of life.

May my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart understand.  He prepares me with parable.

 

sunrise213182

 

 

 

 

Go This Way

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paths

 

We want to reach the kingdom of God,
but we don’t want to travel by way of death.
And yet there stands Necessity saying:
‘This way, please.’
Do not hesitate to go this way,
when this is the way that God came to you.
~ Augustine

 

fogdriveway2

 

 

We too easily forget;
we are not asked to bear more
than God endured for us.
We follow a well-worn path
bearing the footprints of Him
who has come to lead us home.

 

 

beechtrail

 

morning113157

 

Partly Cloudy with Sun Breaks

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danfield
danbarn
When it snows, he stands
at the back door or wanders
around the house to each
window in turn and
watches the weather
like a lover. O farm boy,
I waited years
for you to look at me
that way. Now we’re old
enough to stop waiting
for random looks or touches
or words, so I find myself
watching you watching
the weather, and we wait
together to discover
whatever the sky might bring.
~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”
danfield2
My farm boy does still look at me that way,
wondering if today will bring
frost,
a wind storm,
maybe fog or mist,
a scorcher,
or a deluge.
I reassure him as best I can,
because he knows me so well
in our many years together:
today, like most other days
will be partly cloudy with showers
and occasional sun breaks.
danpnp
shuksan104172
sunsetdan

In the Dark, Reconciled

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sunset121173

 

I am the rest between two notes,
which are somehow always in discord
because Death’s note wants to climb over—
but in the dark interval, reconciled,
they stay there trembling.
And the song goes on, beautiful.
~Rainer Maria Rilke from “My Life is Not This Steeply Sloping Hour”

 

north12518

 

sunset125182

 

On Sunday evenings I often feel I’m the spot in the middle between discordant notes. There is on one side of me the pressure of catch-up from what was left undone through a too-brief weekend and on the other side is the anticipated demand of the coming week. As I prepare to sleep at the end of a Sabbath day, I feel uneasily in dead center, immobilized by the unknown ahead and the known behind.

This moment of rest in the present, between the trembling past and uncertain future, is my moment of reconciliation: my Sabbath extended.

This evening, I will allow myself a steeply sloping hour of silence and reflection before I surge ahead into the week, knowing that on my journey I’ll inevitably hit wrong notes, yet beautiful nevertheless.

Even the least harmonious notes resolve within the next chord. I will move from the rest of my Sabbath back into the rhythm of my life.

Trembling, still trembling, always trembling at what is to come.

 

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photo by Josh Scholten

 

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photo by Lea Gibson

 

 

 

 

Let Us Go In

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fog1228141

 

Let us go in; the fog is rising…
~Emily Dickinson, her last words

 

fog101910

 

morningfog910172

 

I have watched the dying
in their last hours:
often they see what I cannot,
listen to what is beyond my hearing,
stretch their arms overhead
as fingers touch what is beyond my reach.

I watch and wonder what it will be like
to reverse the steps that brought me here
from the fog of amnion.

The mist of living lifts
as we enter a place
unsurpassed in brilliance and clarity;
the mystery of what lies beyond is solved
simply by going in.

 

sunrise115181

 

fog101915

 

foggydrops18

 

januarybug

My Heart in Hiding

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morningswans

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from  “The Windhover – For Christ Our Lord”

 

 

morningswans2

 

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
~Mary Oliver from “The Swan”

 

swansong

 

I hold my heart in hiding, trying to protect that tender core of who I am from being pierced and shredded by the slings and arrows of every day life.

Yet to live fully as I am created to live, I must fling myself into the open, wimpling wings spread, the wind holding me up hovering.  I must change my life as the wind changes.

I take my chances, knowing the fall has come.  My wounds shall be healed, even as they bleed.

There is no wonder of it.  So stirred. So much beauty to behold.

Ah…  Ah, my dear.

 

 

geese913

Lost Inside This Soft World

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morning113159

 

 

goldenhaze3

 

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for — 
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
~Mary Oliver from “Mindful”

 

foggymorning13115

 

dawn7253

 

Some days I’m the needle
and other days I’m the pin cushion

Today I may be both,
probing into people’s lives and feelings,
moving beyond their sharp edges
to find the source of their pain.
They don’t realize I wince too,
remembering how it feels.

I choose the softness of the light
that floats close to the ground,
that reaches out with cloudy grasp.

This is what I was born for:
delighted to be lost
and then found.

 

reflecting1

 

foggyfrontyard