Blackberries

Protruding from the wiry, spindly brush
with skin pulled tight like the head of a drum
encasing sweet, warm droplets of sun-ripe
ruddy juice--delicate and plump, teasing,
drawing a covetous gaze as velvet
tempts you to graze it with your hand or cheek.
Dark with soft, placating sheen collecting
all energy and light like small black holes
of deep summer, they ensnare and transfix
and you salivate and long for a taste
and the event horizon is traversed.
What could approach perfection so nearly
as a warm burst of tartness on your tongue
that stains your mouth, seeps into the creases
of your hands like hairline cracks in your skin
and just beneath, a reservoir of blood?
Oh, I remember blackberry-picking
and how the sting of nettles scrawling bloody
scratches on your arms was worth the reward--
pain for sweetness on your tongue, an exchange
some will never choose to make. But I hope
in my life to always pick blackberries.

Implosion

Like a parade
my beating heart before me marched
with meticulous measured meter
and the pregnant palpitationis ruptured
the membrane of my heart
like an overripe tomato
made sick by too much sun.

And like buckets
dangling in the fabric of everything
I saw the sloshing stars
brimming with everything
my heart could not contain
and splashing it across unending lifetimes.

And a sigh
like a sword slit across my throat
and it slid across my lips
where the wind whirled it away
an ocean and a world away
to strike an unfurling tendril
where perched a crystal dew-drop
which slipped silently away

like a tear-drop
sliding cool across my skin
weightless, unladen with encumbrances
of sighs and pounding hearts which
(faced with wind and trembling leaves)
escapes empty and shatters
soundless, while the drumbeats inward turn
and slow to fainter rhythms
whose painful, poignant peals
could never spill a star.

A novel idea

I have to say thank you to Allison for commenting here recently. I always enjoy meeting new commenters, so I clicked over to her blog to check it out. I'm glad I did; otherwise I might never have learned about National Novel Writing Month.

Maybe this is just the impetus I need. It really would do a world of good for me to have something to do in my spare time. And I've always wanted to write a novel--make no mistake. So I decided on a whim to take part in the challenge.

The rules? Starting November 1, and ending before midnight on November 30, participants have a month of time in which to write a novel of 50,000 words. Yes, the focus is primarily on the quantity rather than the quality of the work. But here's why I think it's a great thing: There are people like me out there who know they've always wanted to write a novel, and are just waiting for the right moment in their lives. The right inspiration, the perfect allotment of time, the right amount of knowledge or experience. Whatever. But with that kind of outlook on it, they will never write that novel--something will always stop them. Something will always get in the way. Throughout my life, possibly my greatest fear has been that I would not live my dream--I would not be a writer--because I would let "life" stand between me and the goal.

As I thought about all the thousands of people out there in the world who will be writing this month, doing what always sounded like such a vast undertaking, I realized that this was my chance to go for it--to really step out in the deep water, leaving the tide pools behind. Just write it, now, when I have nothing to lose. Will it be quality work? I don't know. Maybe it will be something I can continue to refine; I hope so. But that's not the point, right now. The point is, I'm writing a novel, just like so many other amateurs out there. And I'm going to finish it. And then next time, it will be easier to start writing a novel. I'll know I can do it, because I will have already done it before.

I'll keep you updated on the process. I'm having a great time with it so far--already it's coming along much better than I expected.

Anyone else out there doing this?

Painted

A smile sits stark upon her cheeks,
ghastly-cold
as the beam of the moon--
smile-in-a-can,
a bastard, conniving,
masking and mocking
the true tale told
by the ice on her brow
and the sigh in her eyes;
chaos is her face,
a lie finely penned--
contentment, poise--
but the discerning eye
perceives the lie
in an un-beautiful smile,
her painted hiding place.

A brief history

...of me and writing.

I began this blog in January of 2006, but I had been writing for ages before that. Now, as this blog approaches its second birthday (wow, I never thought I would keep a blog going for so long), it occurs to me that I have never given an account of why I write--of what it means to me. Believe it or not, it's actually quite an interesting story.

I can still remember the first time it occurred to me to write a story. I was in the first grade, and I had a sheet of stationery that was decorated with a drawing of a fairy hovering over a strawberry patch. One day while I was at school, my imagination started brimming with ideas as I pictured a story centered around that simple drawing. So I wrote it, my first story. It was called "The Strawberry Princess," and its length was enough only to fill my one sheet of that stationery with my loopy first-grade penmanship. But I showed it to my teacher, and she seemed very impressed. So impressed, in fact, that when I got home from school that day my parents asked if they could read my story too. My teacher had called them to alert them of my budding talent.

Through elementary school I was always scribbling poetry about any topic imaginable, from friends to flowers to food. And frequently I would write outlandish stories about haunted lighthouses and talking animals and closet-monsters. Several times I was published in the local paper, and in third grade one of my poems was printed in The Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. I loved having something I was good at--because I was never a great athlete or dancer or singer, but people recognized me as a good writer. In that was I was able to leave a lasting impression on people, and being noticed and remembered was always very important to me.

Once I started sixth grade, I began to feel dissatisfied with my place among my peers--and suddenly I began caring about shopping at the right stores, signing up for the right activities, sitting with the right people at lunch, and all sorts of junk that really had no value at all. I became a cheerleader (a terrible one, at that), I insisted on growing my bangs out, and I even neglected my homework from time to time just so I would not be the nerdy kid who always turned everything in on time and aced it. But none of those things seemed to change my image much among the other kids--I was still the one who got picked on at the school dances and the one who people would whisper about as soon as they thought I was out of earshot. I developed few close friendships, and sometimes I even hated my own friends because they were not "cool," and I could never be cool as long as I claimed their friendship. On top of repeated blows to my self-esteem, I also had to deal with death for the first time around the age of eleven--and it struck my family and even one of my own peers. I developed an intense anger towards people, and at the same time a fear of being alone.

As I withdrew from the world around me, my love of writing became a need for writing. I purchased a journal, and as an emulation of one of my role models, Anne Frank, I gave it a name. And for five or six years, life was about nothing except crying out to pen and paper, because there was not a person in the world whom I trusted... but I knew I could trust my journal, the only true friend I had. My poetry took a dark and lonesome turn; when I wrote stories, they were stories about tortured people doing maniacal things. But mostly I just wrote long discourses, trying to accurately convey my emotions onto paper so that for the rest of my life I could look back and remember how angry and hurt I was, and maybe even feel those things again if the world had so numbed me by then that I had forgotten how to feel.

Several years passed like this, and my need to write intensified and grew into an obsession. It was my ecstasy, my opium, the only way to ease the depression that gnawed away so ruthlessly at me. Then when I was fifteen, something changed. After months of attending church with one of my friends, I realized that there was someone who did love me, and whom I could trust as I had learned to trust no one--his name was Jesus, and I knew I needed him.

When Jesus walked the earth he told his followers that the cost of following him was great, and I soon learned the truth in this. For me, the cost was writing. I knew that my addiction to writing was unhealthy, that it had mastered me. Now I had a new master, and I knew I couldn't serve both. The day I packed my journal away and stowed it in the attic was a very sad day for me--I cried as I put up volume after volume of the best friend I had had for the past six years. But even as I cried, I felt right about it in my heart... I knew that a book could not be my best friend. I needed to learn how to live in the world around me.

During the last two years of high school and the first year or so of college, I wrote very little. I stopped keeping a journal of any kind, save a prayer journal. Occasionally I would write poems or short essays, but they didn't mean very much to me, and I eventually abandoned or misplaced them all. But I made friends, and I learned how to love life and to love myself. And I didn't miss writing, though in my heart I always knew I would come back to it someday. When the time was right.

Sophomore year of college, something else happened. I heard about a lecture that was to take place on campus--a lecture by one of our own professors, who was an accomplished author. He was to talk about his journey as a writer, and about overcoming struggles in his own life to finally publish his first novel. I knew that I had to go and hear him speak.

This was my time. As this writer spoke, I felt every ounce of myself start burning to write again--not in the needy, desperate way I had experienced before, but in such a way that it just felt right that I should be a writer again. I'm not sure if I slept at all that night after the lecture--I was full of ideas and excitement. I was strong and confident. I was a writer.

The next semester I had the opportunity to take a creative writing class. I enjoyed it but I struggled with it too, because it dared me to take my writing places I had never considered before. I dabbled in some microfiction; I tried my hand at science fiction; I explored the theme of dystopia; I warmed up to modern free-form poetry, which to that point I had always poo-pooed as not "real" poetry. That class proved to be very experimental for me, and an experience I appreciated... though ultimately my purpose lay elsewhere.

I soon found that purpose. My senior year, I had the chance to take another creative writing class--this time, taught by the same professor whose lecture had so inspired me two years earlier. In that class I discovered the nature writing genre, which I maintain still today is where my calling lies. As far as my own personal development, there can be no doubt that my nature writing class was the most rewarding, enriching, life-changing class I ever took. In fact, it was during that class that I began this blog.

Each of us has a special ability, I believe, which we are meant to share with the world. For years I've known that writing was mine, but it's been a long, strange journey. I am confident, though, that my history with writing has enabled me to appreciate these things all the more. I write not because I can, but because I must. There is something every person must say in their lives, and I have to say mine by putting pen to paper. What a privilege--what a joy.

Unremembered

As I wrote this, I was thinking of a homeless woman I met in Whiteclay, Nebraska. May God be with her...

She spoke; I leapt with a start. Her soft-spoken plea shattered the lonesome night. "M-my coat… l-lost my coat… cold t-tonight..."

Why did I turn to face her, this night? Every other evening I passed her by, where she stood in the shadows only blocks from my apartment. And I never heeded her prayers, never even looked back. But this night, that thin voice crept into my soul, and I turned.

And met despair. As her searching eyes bore into mine, I glimpsed the shadow of misery too keen and monstrous to grasp, housed within her twisted body. In that gaze she shared with me a lifetime of pain--it tore my gut, and yet it locked onto my mind, and I had no will to turn away. I saw no shame, no fear--those feelings were mine alone, and my cheeks flushed as my awareness of her hopelessness deepened. As she gripped my mind she seized my hand (or did I take hers?) and placed it against her scarlet neck; she burned with fever.

Feeling suddenly as if an iron block had descended upon me, I reeled and backed away. I shook my coat off and thrust it into her arms, and fled toward home. I lingered not even long enough to know if she thanked me.

I never saw her again, after that excruciating night. Days later, over breakfast, a small blurb in the newspaper caught my eye: Homeless woman found dead last night, corner of 33rd and Young.

A human life begins and ends, and its vastness is encapsulated in a sentence fragment buried in the daily news. I cried. The despair was captivating.

Flesh Like Grass

First light trespasses
upon your eyelids
and you grouch
and pummel the SNOOZE
and banish the sun
for nine moments more...

Ah, but
no day lives long
before twilight breaks
and it seems still early
when the sun is subdued
beneath sweaty dewfall,
an anemic glow and
bullfrogs' and crickets' laments,
which choke
on the pale dust of morning
and are never re-sung.

Love vs.

The unexpected
sundering howl
of a silly girl whose
hair ignites with
fireflies. Light brings
terror, a bit, to
every darkness.

Wild at heart?

"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest."

(Thoreau)

I remember a time in eighth grade when I was on a field trip to Cumberland Island, and one of the counselors at the nature center there took us on a walk through a salt marsh. It was a hot, stinking, South Georgia kind of day. At one point my classmates and I were all sitting along the edge of the boardwalk, and our guide was standing ankle-deep in the thick, pungent-smelling mud. She picked up a handful of mud and began to explain to us how clean and pure it was, and how indigenous people would use it on their faces to cleanse their pores, just like a modern Swiss facial.

Then, holding out her hand toward our big group of prissy fourteen-year-old girls, she asked us if anyone wanted a salt-marsh facial. Every one of us shrunk back, shrieking. I thought she was joking, but she persisted in her offer, just waiting for one of us to seize the moment. After a deliberating moment I, without a doubt the shyest and most reserved one of the class, volunteered.

The mud squished softly through my fingers as she put a dollop into my palm. The crude odor, far from a luxurious spa scent, wafted into my nostrils as I raised my hand to my face. I hesitantly painted the first streak across my cheekbone; the mud was so cold and wet on my skin that my arms and legs prickled, but it was soft and relaxing. After that first stroke, I wildly smeared the entire fistful over every patch of skin, even down my neck halfway to my collar. I remember the exhilaration I felt, as if layers of worry and artificiality were being unraveled around me. I knew that everyone else was laughing at me because my behavior was so unprecedented, but I laughed because I felt life pulsing up and down my body, and because I was breathing in the smells of the real world, right under my nose, and a part of me for the first time in ages.

The healing power of violets

I love wildflowers. I love them for their special, unique beauty that a neatly trimmed flower-bed can never duplicate. I love the way that each flower has its own season in which to bloom and flourish, whether it is the summer sunflower or the winter gentian. I love the way they sing, raw and unrefined, like the folklorists of the earth.

The season of violets is just coming to a close--they first began appearing in February and lasted through the chilly season, and now are yielding to the spring bloomers--dandelions, wisteria, and others. But violets have a special meaning to me...

Here, I will share with you an excerpt from a narrative I wrote about a time in my life when I was truly depressed, and how God used the world around me to lift me out of the pit I was in. I hope you enjoy it.

* * * * * * *


True friends walk with you through the low places in your life. Friends I didn’t know I had were the friends who saw me through depression, encouraged me to continue holding onto what I had, faithfully believing that everything would take a turn for me if I allowed it to happen. And so I held on and on, and learned to lean on them for strength.

Sharon knew I loved wildflowers. Their beauty sometimes gave me peace, their fragility sometimes made me feel not so alone. I was at her house one Saturday afternoon early that spring; I sat on the swing in her backyard, staring at the ground beneath me where various feet skidding against the ground to halt the swing had worn a bare spot in the earth. The dirt was black and spongy.


“Laura, look! Wild violets!” I looked up and saw Sharon kneeling in the grass across the yard. I dropped from the swing and walked over. She knelt before a deep green patch that had looked like grass from farther away, but as I knelt down beside her I saw the deep violet-blue flowers whose tiny heads emerged from the greenery. I smiled as I studied their form—they were like newborns, with soft and pliable faces. The markings on the petals looked like eyes squeezed shut, too sensitive to the sunlight; they turned away to face the soft green below them.

I stretched out my body and lay flat on my stomach, my face next to the violet patch. Resting my cheek on the ground beside them I could feel the feathery leaves tickle my skin. I saw the flowers eye-to-eye now, the firstborn of spring, and for several minutes I lay there with them.

Sharon stood up to leave me alone with the flowers. As she did, I propped up on my elbows and turned to her, smiling. “I’ve never seen violets before…” Then I got to my feet and walked away with her, leaving the young flowers to nap placidly in the gentle afternoon light.

From "Time to Weep, Time to Heal"
March 2006

Death Knell of the Ancients

Another tree falls, and the taiga mourns with groaning—not the sound of groaning, but the deep and silent rumble of the soul whose tremors make tremble even the deepest parts of the earth. For the thud of one more tree against the pock-marked ground is the fearsome, chaotic clanging of one more thick, cold iron bell, another alarum ringing out the imminent fate of all life that once found its haven here.

For these trees have never seen war, never been brushed by plague or pandemic. Peaceful existence, nurturing coexistence has reigned here for centuries as the trees, fir and spruce, elm and oak alike, have offered their raised limbs to the native grouse for nesting, and to the visiting thrushes who stay only until the first gray of winter touches the sky and sends these fair-weather birds to a more tropical locale for the cooler season. These trees have been proud to wear, year after year, the pure and powdery snow from which raptors flee and grizzlies hide themselves, fat with nourishment to last them for months as they sleep in their deep dens until ground thaw.

These old-growth trees have seen light and shadow, each wonderful and terrible in its very special way. Nothing is as jarring as a full neon sun throwing itself against a tinny, white wilderness; nothing is as spectacular as colored hues that glow and dance across the backdrop of space every vernal and autumnal equinox. The forest has seen it all. It has also seen the nightfall, accompanied by the paralyzing beating of owls’ wings and the death squeals of the small rodents, fallen prey to the hunters of the night. The trees have played the part of protector against harsh daylight, weaving their stretching limbs together as a barrier so that the mosses and lichen could thrive gratefully along the shaded ground beneath.

The forest remembers stories of the first appearance of man, coming in on foot from the west, building their settlements nearby, hunting the animals, treading lightly on the land. Even the last of the trees who had known these respectful men, had lived in harmony with them, have long since fallen and returned to the earth, adding their matter back to the soil to the propagation of forest life. But the legacy of these gentle hunters remains, giving strength to the trees and the delicate fibers of life in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

Nothing like that legacy are these newly arrived men, who come in droves with their clamorous machines to cripple the forest, their hearses to drag the victims away to the nearby paper mill. They upset the balance and the peace of the long-time dwellers here, giving it no thought as they ravage and scar the land. Another tree falls, its once proud limbs crunching against the snow-packed ground. An alarm sounds to the raptors that had nested in those branches, to the fox and the squirrel whose once secret dwellings are now hopelessly destroyed. And a chill pulses through the forest—a chill that the cold, damp summers and thoroughly severe winters have, in thousands of years, never managed to elicit from the proud and brawny trees. For the trees know they can survive the wind and snow and the days upon days of darkness, a barren climate which has caused virtually all other life to shrink away. But against the calloused greed within the hearts of short-sighted man even the stout-willed trees cannot fight. And in each buzz of a saw, each turning of an engine, each loud and brazen guffaw of a hardened, senseless clearcutter preparing to wrap up another day of hard work, the forest can hear the heralding of its own bleak doom. And so it remains, in jarring silence.

Night Rending

She believes he is asleep
at her side – but he silent lies
to watch a moonbeam paint her hair
and to eavesdrop as she weeps.

A single crystalline tear
he spies, perched atop her raised cheek
like a secret cast in quicksilver.
Then a sniffle, never meant to reach his ear.

Shadows ooze along the wall
like molasses. He smells the brine
of meekness under brazen sun –
deciphers her heart’s encrypted call.

Two souls the thick night somehow cleaves,
one with back turned to hoard its sundry
wounds, one helpless to breach the divide.
Death claps at the window in dry oak leaves.

A tortured mind begs wordlessly for grace
to right what it never knew was wrong
with love. He turns to sleep, dreams stained
by a moonlit tear upon a stranger’s face.

Morning light

My bedroom window faces northeast, and if you look out you see a bald spot in the horizon (owing to the parking lot to our apartment complex and, further along that vector which starts at my window, the campus of the University of Georgia) which cradles the morning's first sun. When that sun makes its daily appearance there, pushing its way even through my mini-blinds, even through my heavy eyelids, I am hopelessly aroused from my night's sleep, regardless of whether I tumbled into bed eight hours earlier or three.

I don't entirely mind. I see beauty during that first hour of sunlight that many people only read about or view in photographs. I can hear daylight take its first breaths; I can observe the sky blooming with light that only becomes harsher, hotter, heavier as the day ages.

A part of me loves my mornings, though there is another sluggish side that revels in letting my eyelids droop shut for another hour that, in that snoozing reverie, feels like only a few blissful minutes. I am reading a book (an early Christmas gift from my dear and doting Bob) called In the Morning: Reflections From First Light by Philip Lee Williams, and it contains some of the most beautiful language about morning that I have ever had the occasion to read. I recommend it to anyone who wants a deep and many-faceted account of morning--what it means aesthetically, biologically, spiritually... simply. It is novel and lovely, prose wrought with the poetic. It has caused me to think much on morning's place in my ever-evolving life.

How I have always longed to be a morning person... But when you are in high school and college, your social world is constructed around night--theatre and midnight movies, 24-hour coffee shops and bars that close up shop at 2 AM, nightclubs and formal dances, rock concerts and winds symphonies. You stay up later and later out of necessity, until you find yourself on your nights off, sitting at the computer in the middle of the night, idly surfing the web and waiting until "bedtime." That is how, as young people, we are obliged to fashion our lives.

But for me, those who keep going until those early-late hours are missing something quite enchanting contained only in the quietude of morning. Early mornings were the preferred time for Jesus to commune with God the Father, when he "withdrew to lonely places and prayed." It is difficult to find lonely places in the bare and brazen light of day, and it is difficult to pray in the night watches when our biology tells us to be on guard against the dangers of the darkness. But in the morning there is peace and there is solitude. It is a time of day I often missed until I moved here to my beloved east-facing window, which never fails to alert me at the first shard of sunlight that a new day has arisen. I hope only that as I get older and more seasoned, I become more able to leave aside the folly of night life and rise to greet the new day with a growing eagerness.

Giving...

Today is Thanksgiving day here in America, so, well, what do we have to be thankful for? If I am being real and honest, I have quite a lot. Quite a lot, when I look at the poor, the huddled and weary masses that inhabit the streets of this city. Those who bundle up in a long flannel shirt on a night when I have dressed myself in my heavy woollen pea coat that keeps me stylishly warm from my neck to the tops of my knees. Those who gather in a lump at the front door of the winter shelter, carrying around their chronic sickness and their drug addictions and their earthly possessions which hang loosely from their slumped shoulders, waiting humbly for a plate of warm food and a comfortable place to lay down to sleep before the day repeats itself again in the morning.

I almost spent yesterday afternoon at home, curled up on the futon with my favorite blanket and a cup of hot tea. But Bob and I knew that Food Not Bombs gathered at 4:00 every Wednesday to cook food to hand out, and since we are normally busy on Wednesday evenings, we felt this tug at our hearts to be there this week for the very first time. The tug was so forceful that, within moments, we found ourselves pulling up to the door of Common Ground Athens, where we were greeted by the aroma of stewing tomatoes in a heavy-duty stockpot, and herbed potatoes roasting in the oven.

I was nervous that Bob and I would be entirely out of place at Common Ground (an ironic fear, I know)--we don't look like hippies or yuppies; we dress very conventionally and drive a 2004 Honda and go to church. What was I afraid of, exactly? That we would be sneered and scoffed at, looked down upon, because we showed up one afternoon to help create a nutritious, vegan meal out of donated food so that the hungry could be fed? People--well some people (these people at least)--are much more open minded than that.

So for two and a half hours we chopped fruits and vegetables, much of it bruised and soft and ready to be consumed or composted, the refuse of local groceries. All the while we chatted with the regular Food Not Bombs volunteers--there were Ed and Sarah, community social workers who are truly compassionate toward those on the cusp of capitalistic society; there was Joy, an ESOL teacher out in Oconee who enjoys just being able to do what she can when she can for a cause that is dear to her; there were Kelly and Dave and Alex, the ones whose wardrobe is your mother's worst nightmare, but who are there at Common Ground on their own time fighting to right the social wrongs of the community. Among such people, how could Bob and I not belong?

We stayed until the end. Once the vast quantities of food were cooked, we helped transport it all down to the shelter at the corner of Hancock and Hull, where a group of about ten people were already gathered, awaiting their hot meal. Everyone served themselves buffet-style and ate all that they wanted, standing around in the dark and cold on the eve of Thanksgiving. Tomorrow, when Bob and I went to share an afternoon and feasting with our family, would these people have a warm meal? Or was this their Thanksgiving feast, this food that may otherwise be rotting in a dumpster or atop a compost heap at that very moment? Struck with that realization, it would take a very callous person to not be thankful--thankful for the chance to be here, shivering and tired, serving a feast of unwanted produce to the unwanted of this city, the ones whose poor and marginal existence many of us choose to be blind to, day by day. But are these not the people that Jesus came for? And if my Lord came and had compassion upon them and went among them and ministered to them, then am I not called to do the same?

Food Not Bombs volunteers get arrested, even beaten in other cities for their activism. I do not know a whole lot about the movement, and I don't know what their other activities may be aside from merely serving food to the hungry. But I felt my body tense up when a police car pulled up and parked perhaps twenty feet from our makeshift banquet table. Well, I thought, better men than me have engaged in civil disobedience, and impacted perhaps more people than if they had not stepped outside the realm of the law. And my mind turned to Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr... But when the police officer got out of the car, he walked around to the back door and helped a brittle old lady out into the cold night. He was dropping her off at the winter shelter. He saw her inside, and then with a nod he got back into the car and pulled away.

We got home at about 9:30 at night, and set about making a vegan pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. And I was thankful to be in a warm apartment with our oven all fired up and my heavy coat hung back in the closet, making a pie with my husband. In fact, I have perhaps never been more thankful in my whole life.

Learning to be silent

Be still, and know that I am God...

In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength...

I hear my heart screaming, even as my voice falls silent. It doesn't take much to upset my world. I pride myself on my sense of responsibility, my dedication to the task at hand, my perseverance through all my worldly busyness--dedication and perseverance to the point, perhaps, of forgetting to rest and trust in the Father? Do I strive to do well because it is the godly thing to do, or does it come from a sense of urgency because if I do not provide for myself I may not be provided for at all?

One of my favorite stories is the story of the manna the Lord provided to the Israelites. Lost and weary in the desert, unable to rely on themselves, the people of Israel awoke every morning for nearly forty years and found this supernatural substance on the ground. It sustained them through their wanderings, but they could never store up more than they needed in a day, for if they tried to secure a stockpile of this mysterious what is it?, it would be no good the next morning. The only exception was on the day before the Sabbath, when they were to gather enough to carry them through the Sabbath--they were instructed not to work on the Sabbath, of course.

The verses in Matthew which document the prayer of Jesus which we commonly call The Lord's Prayer refer to this time in the history of God's people. The verse Give us this day our daily bread... may be better translated as Give us our bread day by day... Rely on God to give you your bread, your sustenance, every day. Don't try to store it up for yourself; your effort will be in vain. As much as you strive for comfort and security, you are surely at the mercy of God. And that is nothing to be afraid of, for God offers abundant mercy...

There is a line between being faithful with what you have been given, and striving to do for yourself what only God can do for you. I spend my life dancing along that line, trying so hard to keep myself in equilibrium so that I will not totter to one side or the other. For I never want to be someone who did not try hard enough in this life...

But it's not about me, is it? It's not about how hard I try. The truth is, whether I try a lot or a little, I still ultimately have to rely on the one who gives me my sustenance day by day. So while I do believe that God wants us to be faithful, diligent stewards in this life, I know in my heart that he does not want us to constantly be concerned about toeing that line. Our concern should be trusting him--that is the heart of faith. If I truly come to a place in my life where I can stand and close my eyes and cross my arms over my chest and let myself fall, knowing and believing that his arms are wide enough to catch me wherever I go--if I can get to that point of faith, then I know that everything else in my life will align to the purpose that I strive so hard to attain.

Let me not strive to let go. Instead, let me pray, day by day, for the grace to be a child of reckless abandon.

portrait (in flavors)

eyes like marbles of
boldest chocolate--71 percent cacao
(with fine espresso flecks)
garnish a face of
smooth simplicity--
framed by dark-roast tresses,
mild and subtly nutty

and a steeping bouquet garni--a mouth of
fruit and spice (orange-ginger essence)
conceals a cayenne tongue

and a mind like jonagold,
sharp and sweet, permeates aroma
that strikes like a serpent
and adorns concealed complexity

a mélange of marvels,
forbidden flavors enticing
to savor sweet fire

and forever sedate sense and reason.

I Love Your Smile

This was the text on the sticker that came to me yesterday, and I do not doubt that it was from the Lord.

Studying with a friend on a bench outside of the business school, suddenly we heard a man's voice trying to get our attention. I looked up, and there was a smiling older man standing over me, trying to give me something. I took it--it was a sticker, a bright yellow one that looked like a road sign, but the words were "Are we having fun yet?" Cute. He gave one to Jessica too. I smiled politely at him. He then proceeded to confront me about his true purpose. Could I donate a dollar to the Athens area food bank? Well, of course I could, if I had a dollar... I just gave him all my spare change. He thanked us warmly, and just before he turned to walk on, he gave each of us another sticker--"Because you're so nice."

This sticker was white with black text, and it simply said in block-style letters, "I Love Your Smile." The "o" in "love" was replaced by a red heart. I kind of chuckled about the whole, slightly strange incident as I slid the latter sticker into the clear plastic covering on the front of my accounting notebook.

My professor flew through class. I wrote feverishly for an hour and fifteen minutes, trying to document every single word that escaped his mouth, because I knew it would manifest itself on the test next week. But the faster I scribbled down his words, the faster he spit them out, and Jessica and I were frantically looking at each other's notebooks--and the notebooks of the students around us--trying to catch what we missed. Then, at the end of class, my professor moved the test back one week. What? I'd been planning all semester for the test to be the twelfth, and now, a week away, it is suddenly on the nineteenth? I was very inconvenienced. I was already irritated by the breakneck pace of class, and now to move a test that I had been planning around for two months now... As I got up to leave, I clapped my notebook closed in a flurry of frustration--and there, drawing my attention like an aptly sent, unexpected greeting card, was the sticker.

"I Love Your Smile."

Something in my spirit melted a little, and I suddenly felt the peace of God around me for an instant, just as strong as if I had been standing amid a cloud of angels. Then I just smiled--I smiled in my spirit, that is, a much deeper warmth than an outward smile that doesn't truly reflect the heart.

My father in heaven loves it when I smile, when I experience the unshakable joy that He intends for me. And amid all my recent frustration and busyness and failing to stay centered on the most important things in my life, He sent me an October valentine to let me know. If I can't smile because of God's unfailing love for me, even despite difficult and exhausting circumstances, then something in my heart is out of place. Nothing in life is so hopeless that it can cast a shadow over the everlasting light of God.

Let me remember, then, to live in a way that speaks of this light. Let me remember to live every day with that purpose at the forefront of my mind. Let me remember to smile--and bring delight to my father's heart.

A Malignant Attitude

Each of us exists within the rhythm of the planet.

Whether we like it or not, I believe that all actions must be governed by the design of nature... or our earth will die. The thought of our world becoming virtually uninhabitable can seem a very distant and surreal concept, but it rings with a greater imminence than we realize. I see the quality of life on earth becoming poorer and poorer, notwithstanding what conventional statistics suggest. Perhaps I can look forward to a lifespan of 90, 100, even more. But do I want to exist on a planet where polar ice caps have melted away, remaining forestlands have been leveled, and the balance of the seasons has been dramatically realigned toward unbearable heat? Can I really enjoy a place where I know that animals are being tremendously abused and once fertile soil is being irrevocably stripped of all its nutrients to put a mass-produced and genetically modified dinner on my plate?

It is time for all of us to step into a role of greater awareness and sensibility toward the plight of the dramatically underrepresented natural environment. I applaud my friends who abstain from using their ovens in the summertime, instead focusing their meals around chilled salads and soups and exotic, sweet summer fruits and vegetables. I respect those who can live without tomatoes in the winter--for how many pounds of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere to transport that tomato from the tropics all the way to your grocery bag? I support the health food store that encourages the use of canvas shopping bags, and facilitates the recycling of those horribly inefficient plastic grocery bags that many supermarkets plow through at nauseating speeds. I thank the driver who makes a concerted effort to stay within the speed limit, knowing that the fuel economy of his car drops of drastically at speeds above 55 mph.

Over thousands of years, human beings have attempted to create their own rhythms by which to live. The problem is, there is no rhythm to how we choose to live our lives today. We live however we wish, whenever we wish. We pay no attention to the dictates of the seasons, nor to the beautifully orchestrated patterns of native plants and animals within each particular region. And so we strain the earth by consuming more energy, we strain the soil and the water supply and the local ecosystem by introducing nonnative species. And we do it without hesitation, without consideration as to the repercussions of our supposed benign actions.

I walked outside this morning into a world immersed in gray. From somewhere far beyond the low quilt of clouds overlying my world, I heard a muffled rumbling of the heavens. And I was reminded that mankind does not have the final dictate as to the condition of the world. There is always something far greater than us at work, and our meddling with the design of nature can only cause ruin. Too often we follow our own designs and desires, and close our eyes and ears to the blatant signals that beg attention toward the mess we are making. But we cannot live this way with impunity forever. Instead we must hear the rolling thunder and respond, all the while respecting that we are not sovereign in this world.

One of the simplest and greatest books ever written, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, commissions us succintly and eloquently to look further ahead with the following poignant declaration:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not."

As I walked to class this morning, I was glad to have brought my umbrella.

Descent At Dawn

When the mind is pried open,
nothing is real or false
and all else smears into sepia.

The long, heavy sighs of the ignorant
in flux with the waves
behind the shutters--
deeply rooted in time-circles
and phantasmal places made up
(or forgotten?)
and colors
that stream like chalk in the storm
that was sure to come.

And then...
Rays upon the eyes
and cold feet on the hard old floor,
a knick and a shave...
and rubber oatmeal with stale, steamy coffee.

Genius
effaced like the star that blazed
ten million miles through heaven
and flickered and sank silent beneath the margin of sky.

A runner's chronicle

Plink…plink…plink… Every fourth step, the house key that I laced to my left sneaker is jostled so that it hits against the eye of the shoe, creating a tiny metallic sound that no one could possibly hear except for me. It’s not loud, but knowing and expecting it as sure as the downbeats of a piece of music written in common time—my body’s metronome—makes it pop out like the resonating beat of a tympani drum. An annoying sound, to be sure, but more than that a comforting sound. Comforting because as long as I can hear its tiny clang, I know that I will be able to get inside the empty house after my evening run.

I had to untie my left shoe so I could thread the key on securely. I don’t know that my shoe has ever been untied before, since the very first time I laced it up. That’s the kind of person I am, I guess. Silly, really, to think I’m saving myself so many precious minutes by tugging pre-tied sneakers on and off my feet rather than taking the time to tie and untie them properly with each use. But when it comes down to the moment that the shoes must come off, I never find it a habit worth trying to break.

Now, as I run, I can feel the tongue of my left shoe rubbing awkwardly against the top of my foot—I’m not used to this precise position. I could let that drive me crazy, bring a premature end to my run. But instead, I try to focus on something else. Not much else to think about though, that would be any better. Nothing but the green, thick heat makes any impression upon me from mother earth. That—and these hills…

What an awkward summer it has been. Some of the highest peaks of my life I have seen in these recent weeks, and at the same time some of the worst frustrations. It all goes along with being in a new place, at another elbow in the road. Believe me, I would know. My life has taken so many one-eighties over the past several years, and each time I feel like I’m getting off at yet another unfamiliar station. So here am I again, standing amid an alien set of circumstances and just plodding along, new kid at a looming new job, wishing with all my heart that my husband weren’t so far away from me. “Your internship’s only X more weeks,” he tells me again and again. Should I be delighted? Depressed? Because right now I feel both—or maybe neither. Maybe this uphill climb has just deadened me through and through.

My legs muscles are burning. Lactic acid just coursing through them. Clearly I don’t practice on hills often enough—but I truly dread them. I can see the top of the hill about a quarter of a mile in front of me. Car after car drives up the hill, teeters at the crest for a moment, and then slips into a hidden descent down the other side. My body is really pushing to turn around once I reach the top. Just think how nice the downhill cruise will be, going in the opposite direction! But the cars slide so effortlessly down the other side of that hill—I want to see where they’re going. I want to see what’s at the bottom.

This is how I get into these cycles. While I’m running furiously uphill, I hate it. But I don’t hate it enough to forgo the chance to run down the other side. In Savannah I was never faced with such choices—flat, soft land, as far as my feet could take me. Wasn’t until Athens that I developed this love-hate relationship with running. A classic catch-22: When I’m in great shape, I love it. But when I slip out of my habits and lose some stamina, then I begin to despise it as I puff my way, red-faced, up these hills like the little engine that just barely could. Soon, I run out of steam. No more running, no more hills. My endurance deteriorates a little more. Then it’s just that much harder to get up and put rubber to pavement.

So many runners out tonight. It’s good, at least, to know that I’m not the only one who was eager to endure the stifling, torturous heat. I wonder, as I look into each splotchy, shimmering face, how each of them will deal with this heat once they end their evening jog. Me, I’ll probably lie in the floor of my shower and let the cool water pelt me like my own personal thunderstorm. The thought of that, at least, is enough to keep me going, though I hug the right side of the road where all the trees drape nicely over the sidewalk. I run beneath a nicely box-shaped magnolia tree, which had apparently thought it would claim the air space over the sidewalk, though someone with powerful pruning shears must have thought differently. On the one hand, it makes me sad to see the tamed magnolia cowering alongside the walkway. But because of the pruner’s hand those thick leathery branches are not there to whack me in the face. So I feel a twinge of gratitude, followed swiftly by a twinge of guilt.

Another runner, this one a woman about my age, red-headed with a shirt to match. As usual I glance up at her face as I pass by. She didn’t look into my face, but I saw her sneak a glance at my thighs. Checking them out, no doubt, to see if they are firmer or flabbier than hers. All women do it—it’s inherent. I wish I knew how to cure that urge to compare myself to other women, but after I passed her all I could think was, So maybe your thighs are more toned than mine, but boy, are they pasty! But gosh, I would love to have your hair…

These are the kinds of thoughts I want to escape from when I run. But sometimes it’s just useless. I remember when my family thought I was anorexic; I was under constant pressure to gain weight, even though I knew that I was in great shape. But every time I ran, I would have to wonder, Is this bad for me? If I went home and ate a few spoonfuls of ice cream I would ask myself, Is this bad for me? So driven by pressure… When all I really want is to know my own body.

And I do. I know my metabolism, my breathing cycles. I know how my left foot hits the ground harder every fourth step, jostling my house key. I had to learn these things, so I could sustain a run for longer than a whim would carry me. I love listening to the meter of my breath, the metronome of my feet, taking cues from my body as I run. But why must I pack along all the junk that I take with me everywhere else? For once, I want to leave it at home.

Home. Now that I’ve stopped running, my face is pounding—in fact, I can almost see my pulse hovering inches in front of my eyes. I lean against the column on the porch; yes, that’s joy. That’s satisfaction. It’s all flooding back now. This is how living should really feel.

Rather than untie my shoe to retrieve the key, I opt to yank my entire left sneaker off my foot to unlock the front door. That’s just the kind of person I am, I guess.