A birthday card blog to my dear friend, Anne.

Anne,

May your graceful and expansive soul continue to find great joy this year in the God who was both kind and creative (bizarre?) enough to make a woman like you.

Source: geishazs.tumblr.com via Terri on Pinterest

May the small moments of peace and contentment, the bittersweet moments of strain and stretching, and the grandiose moments for remembrance be pieced together in a delicate kaleidescope of LIFE TO THE FULLEST!

 

Source: kendrascott.com via Margaret on Pinterest

May you find many charming gates to flourishing gardens of both green and soul, and may these hidden places refresh and renew you for the city streets and the hustle of this season.

Source: trouvais.com via Patricia on Pinterest

May sonatas continue to fill your home, and may opportunities abound for us music-lovers to enjoy the sound of Brahms at your fingertips,

Source: media-cdn.pinterest.com via Katy on Pinterest

And may devlicious and beauticious kitchen creations continue to be paired with your long nights of reading, writing, and editing, and result in articles as tasty as your tarts and cakes.

Source: foodandwine.com via Ann on Pinterest

And may the joys of timeless friendship pepper your days with wit and respite and wisdom and generosity. May you feel surrounded by a cocoon of goodness, because of all of us who have come to love you JUST AS YOU ARE.

Source: 500px.livejournal.com via Lina on Pinterest

Do you REALIZE?

September in New York (i.e. a walk through the Central Park zoo while being serenaded by jugglers and rollerbladers) is sweatier than DC (i.e. a stroll to Sticky Fingers vegan bakery from your boyfriend's basement). It is especially ablaze in New York City when you are standing in line for TKTS tickets for see Sister Act on Broadway (Spiderman is sold out slash $250) in pants and long hair sans Billy Elliot fan, but you remind yourself the sweat will evaporate after you elbow your way into the red velvety, heavily chandeliered theater and sink into your plush cushions. The playbill will have a funny interview with the principal actors in The Book of Mormon (which is also $250 a ticket and has won an embarrasing number of Tonies). You and your boyfriend laugh out loud at the playbill interview, and strain to read in the dark a second after the lights go down.

September in New York on a certain day of the month is wonderful, except you are more likely to cry than other days. Yesterday it would have been very unlikely you cry, but today it would be unlikely you didn't. There are lightbulbs that burn out after all, plastic bottles that don't get recycled, hands that don't get held, children whose mommies die, couples who cheat, and extremists who bomb buildings and perpetrate genocides after all. Instead of indulging a sudden instinct to write angsty poetry about... what was it? Oh yeah, that 60minutes-Dateline-CSI-type documentary segment on the crack-dealing landlord who killed his tenant, burned down her house, and buried her in the woods... you cry about it all the way to Penn Station on the nasty-roach-rat-dirt NY subway and cling to your boyfriend who has somehow become to you a beacon of light in a world infested with black-hearted sociopaths, but instead of writing flaming arrows and existential nooses to die by and whywhywhy's in some much too self-conscious a rhyme scheme, you spend the 3-hour Amtrak ride back to the District drinking Cabernet Savignon from the bottle and reading so many pages of the Hunger Games (yes, for the second time) over your boyfriend's shoulder. (No, he doesn't mind.) He shares excited and nervous faces with you when the suspense is making your heart beat fast. This exchange is like joy-full lemony daffodils growing from the shit of earlier-evening despair. The pain of bookmarking and closing the page-turner is only alleviated by the sudden realization that "Rachel!" your 9-5 cube-mate is sitting three seats behind you, and "Who's that?!? Bill Cosby?!!!" is not far behind. In the same train car. On the same train. Getting off at the same station. In the same world.

Some things happen that are weird after that. Like outsmarting an hourlong wait a Union Station taxicab - oy vey, the queue in the middle of the night - and some other things. Like almost playing some rap music you(r boyfriend?) had accidentally bought for a Lincoln from a complementary rapper (damn, you better marry her - she fuckin beautiful). This all at Times Square outside the Bare Escentuals store after Sister Act. (No, before Sister Act but after all the chestnut layer cake and jarlsburg cheese and European iced coffee.) Speaking of 30 Rock, instead of rap you turn on the Gabe Dixon Band, which your boyfriend plays often but you pay so little attention to that you have know clue what the band sounds like unless you are presently listening to it. Like right now - you are not listening to it and you couldn't possibly name one lyric, hum one tune, or list two instruments (guitar, obviously) involved in Gabe Dixon's Band-having-musicplaying-noisemaking. That, in fact, is weird.  You, in fact, are oblivious. But there were a lot of things you noticed when you were in hot New York with the delis and the knock-off vendors and the skinny girls in neon and zippers. You noticed your boyfriend was a little right about New York sidewalk-walkers not being very good-looking. And Carnegie Hall. Three times. The exorbitant price of cocktails, the nostalgic country paintings in the hotel lobby. And every flavor and nuance of every bite of Bobby Flay-recipe sea urchin, your new favorite mermaid-style snack. Mmm, mmm, better.

Zack's Favey Faves / Tasha's To Read Listey List

Dune
The Once and Future King
Not The Princess Bride (but he really likes it)
The Wheel of Time Series
A Song of Ice and Fire
Tigana
Ishmael
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Watership Down
Speaker for the Dead (might be close)
The Great Divorce
Memory, Sorry and Thorn
The Last Unicorn
Atlas Shrugged
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Billy Idol - And So It Goes

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretense
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

A Purple Hooded Sweatshirt is Good to Wear in the Dark Night of the Soul if You are at the Beach

The night I miscarried my faith in God was a beautiful June night, and the breeze was just enough to warrant a sweatshirt. My bare feet carried me down the two blocks from Aunt Sharyn & Uncle Tony's beach house in Oxnard to a beach glowing under the face of a full moon. I paced in the cool sand for hours, trying to understand what had happened.

The Presence I had always felt in my gut had suddenly expired that day, the way a baby might die inside of its mother. Except there was no blood or fainting to punctuate my loss. I wasn't even sure if it was a loss [maybe rather the end of a blindness?], but it was definitely a shift. What would I do with this life/world/night if I was alone? Cosmically alone. If all I could know is that I am alive and I will die?

In college, when discussing who and what we might be if we were Godless physicalists, my friends and I would spin wild scenarios (and actually believe them to some extent)... but it became clear to me that sandy night that I would not be capable of becoming the "un-Christian" drug-addicted Wiccan prostitute I had intended to be. Even with the hope of God drained from me, a feeling of emptiness making the canopy of stars more desperately beautiful than ever, I knew I could never stop sincerely worshiping Goodness, Truth, Beauty and the Love that is described in that weighty 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Even if there was not a God, there were these humbling Platonic ideals that seemed incapable of being ripped from my gut the way He was. It seemed that way. I was glad of that rosy conclusion, though it worried me that a feeling of liberation was swelling heavier than the expected terror. Was that a bad sign? Did I want this new conviction to persist? I couldn't undo it, that was for sure, any more than I could revive a dead body or bench press a semi truck.

And so, I called my roommate Miriam who had been flirting with atheism (regardless of my advice to the contrary) with no avail for months, and I confessed (still pacing in the surf). The timing of this conversation was shortly after our neighbor's similar confession to us. This neighbor was terrified she'd one day have to tell her [pastor] husband that, in the years since their wedding, she had somehow transitioned from evangelical faith to complacent agnosticism. Would he still want her, she worried. I worried too. Could I still respect myself (surely my friends wouldn't - and there was NO way I would be telling my parents) if I lost my resolve to trust in and honor the God of the Bible with my heart, soul, mind, strength?

That disorienting weekend was one of the most significant turning points of my life. The three years that followed were shaped like a question, asking... Can I live with this? What are the alternative approaches to life, if not a disciple of Jesus? If you are real, God, will you please make yourself known to me? In the meantime, I was resigned to wearing the conviction that life is only what a person makes of it - there is nothing to do except try to make this world a better place and find some enjoyment before we die. Motherhood (art?) may be the only point of access for transcendence, but approaching it with that heavy longing seemed dangerous and foolish. Serving and loving people more generally seemed to be the best consolation. But I despaired of the results. It was so difficult to care for people without needing to see the fruits of my labor when there was not a Co-Laborer, making possible joy and contentment when kindness was unappreciated. If my self was all I had, and not a Creator and Storyteller, the weight of the world was heavier to bear. In the end (middle?), it proved too heavy in fact.

But I feared nothing more, in that season, than the possibility of falling back onto the crutch of a false religion for dread of the unknown. My guiding principle was this, by Thomas Jefferson: "There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world." If the physical world were all that existed, so let it be. If an Eastern spirituality or philosophy was better suited to the human race, so should it be. If the nation of Israel or Islam were truly preferred by Creator over the rest of us pagans, why shouldn't the be. These are not conclusions simple to shake out, and my decisions to date about what realities to lean on remain meager. But whatever it is I believe or don't believe tonight, question or let alone - it is so because I faced the void that suggested, maybe there is no God, and I allowed it to make a case.

Walking on, Walking on Broken Glaaa-aaass

I set a goal to trim my Facebook friend list down to 50 today... I only made it to 125. Not too shabby, though, considering I trimmed around 700 lovely people. I've decided to try to start using Facebook a little differently, in the hope of becoming less overwhelmed in this overwhelming world, city, life.

It's my nature to try to take in all the information I possibly can (on topics I find compelling, though I need to work on tweaking what I find compelling it seems) - whether before making a decision, for the sheer joy of knowing lots of things, or as a distraction from taking the next step and using the information I've gathered...

And I am a "people person." I find people terribly interesting. More interesting than the newspaper headlines, often. So reading about people, and what they say, and what photos they tag, and where they are going... these capabilities make Facebook compelling to a person like me.

Sometimes I imagine hundreds of life stories are flowing in and out of my periphery, like a ridiculous Russian novel with too many characters' names to remember. But this knowing (imagining) takes up socio-emotional space that I need, right now, for other knowing (imagining).

Next week I will start a job that requires me to research and write all day every day. It's time to redirect my hunter-gatherer nature toward assignments - and away from all the real-life story-book characters whose breadcrumb trails I like to follow. I can only search so much.

I can only search so much.

What am I searching for? Often, my searching functions as a busyness I cling to so I can avoid the silence of searching for something of peace. I ache for an experience contrary to the clamor of this city, but it tends to feel like walking on broken glass to pursue that sanctity. Lewis's The Great Divorce captures the feeling I'm referring to.

This week was meant to be my retreat from work/busyness/schedule. And yet it's Wednesday. And all I've done is chores and errands that I've been putting off for months & watched movies I have been ever so anxious to see. With all I have on my To-Do List, I don't think it will be possible (short of a miracle, which I will now commence praying for) for me to enter next week feeling the refreshment I had hoped for.

I had imagined a 1-week escape from the machine... but it seems I've been tasked with putting all the nuts and bolts back where they belong, so the machine can run smoothly once the new work-life begins. And yet I sense there is a grace to be found in the shape of these last few days - the hospitality this week has shown me, generously assisting my efforts to put my life in better order with its hours.

Striving to have a peaceful week may be less useful than finding peace in a striving week. It's these things I hope to sift through this afternoon and tomorrow, with the help of some fresh vegetables and lots of H2O.

Swan Song

Today, an assistant in our International Services Office Programming Team wrote this terribly endearing and slightly hilarious eulogy for me... on my last day in the office. This is the closest I will ever come to attending my own funeral, it seems, and I wanted to borrow the memory from our Team's blog & nestle it away into mine for safe-keeping. Kelly Mannes, you will be missed. But not very much. Just a little. Because we will be working across the street from each other...


Well International Student Ambassador’s,

Get out your handkerchiefs. Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. Unless you’re on a treadmill or walking through a busy intersection. In that case, the fact that you’re reading this is impressive, but finish what you’re doing and then sit down because … I have some bad news.

Our fearless leader, our top dog, our mother of all things programming … is leaving …

today.

Here at the ISO, we take these departures quite seriously, because losing a member of the team is like losing a member of your not-really-family-but-I-spend-more-time-with-them-and-sometimes-think-I-like-them-better-but-don’t-tell-my-mom family. And that’s sad.

So, as we, the programming team, don our black mourning vestments and cover our face in dry erase marker because somebody replaced our chalkboard and now that’s all we have, we shall remember Tasha amidst our piercing wails and steady beating of fist to chest. Wait – no, I'm getting my farewell parties mixed up with my Ancient Mediterranean funerary rights (It happens).

Regardless, we’re still going to wear our symbolic black attire, but instead of tearing all our clothing and covering ourselves with dust, we’ll just listen to some sad songs and make this cheesy tribute.

Here we go. We’re counting on you to pick out your own soundtrack music for this, so make sure it’s really depressing.

Ready?

-----------------------------------------------------------

There is no single way to describe Tasha.

The first time you meet her, you may think: This girl lives in another world.

And then you get to know her, and you realize …

You were right.

But, that hasn’t stopped Tasha from committing herself wholeheartedly to the ISO and the GW community.

When it comes to programming and all the work that's needed to make an event successful, Tasha has never been afraid to get her hands dirty. ... or any part of her, for that matter.

Her dedication and enthusiasm sometimes left her feeling like she bit off more than she could chew …

But even after all of the stress each event would bring, Tasha was always ready to bite into something new.

And when we had problems, who came to our rescue? Tasha. Not just as a co-worker or supervisor, but as a co-person, a friend … a superhero.

Who was always ready to stand by our side …

no matter how embarrassing or ridiculous the situation?

Who greeted us every morning with her smiling exuberance?

And motivated us with her positivity and gentle nature?

Who has always encouraged us to be true to ourselves?

That’s right: Tasha

But the time has come.

She’s moving out into the wider world.

The sun has set on her ISO adventure

But as Ernest Hemingway once penned: “The Sun Also Rises.”

So, go Tasha.

Without sadness or regret.

Keep reaching for that next great adventure.

Don’t let the unknown paralyze you like a deer in the headlights.

And don’t look back.

Because, no matter what happens, we’ll be here.

And we’ll save you a seat.

----------------------------------------------------------

Whew. I don't know about you ISA's, but I'm tearing up.

Isn't that just the saddest thing?

How are we going to survive without Tasha?

(Don't worry: you'll still have me!)

:D

Uh ... I mean ... we'll miss you Tasha. :(

-K.M.

How to Be Intelligent and Well for Dummies

The 16 Habits of mind

1. Persisting – Do stick to it.
2. Communicating with clarity and precision – Be clear.
3. Managing impulsivity – Take your time.
4. Gathering data through all senses – Use your natural pathways.
5. Listening with understanding and empathy – Understand others.
6. Creating, imagining, innovating – Try a different way.
7. Thinking flexibly – Look at it another way.
8. Responding with wonderment and awe – have fun figuring it out.
9. Thinking about your thinking (metacognition) – Know your knowing.
10. Taking responsible risks – Venture out.
11. Striving for accuracy and precision – Find the best possible solution.
12. Finding humour – Laugh a little.
13. Questioning and problem posing – How do you know?
14. Thinking interdependently – Learning with others.
15. Applying past knowledge to new situations – Use what you learn.
16. Remaining open to continuous learning – Learrning from experiences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habits_of_mind

An Old (Refreshed) List: 'Things I've Lost Along the Way'

The Things I’ve Lost Along the Way

1. The key to the GW International Services Office bathroom
2. 13 roommates
3. A miniature glass bottle full of 14k gold dust on a chain
4. An iPod
5. My belief in God
6. My disbelief in God
7. The brown diary I wrote in when I was at the rock-bottomest year of my life (it stayed on an airplane when I did not)
8. My friend Autumn who was killed by her husband
9. Proximity to the beach
10. The ability to do a cartwheel or handstand
11. Papa Newell, the kindest and wisest man I know
12. The Dell laptop some kids stole from my apartment in South Sacramento
13. Three childhood homes on Coronado island
14. My pirouette
15. A tendency toward sadness and fear
16. My USB key with all my poetry & Fiona Apple on it
17. My aversion to unhealthy food
18. My vulnerability to manipulative people
19. Cell phone signal
20. My black leather Rainbows
21. All the diplomas I was ever awarded
22. My physical ability to drink coffee like water
23. Time spent at parties I didn’t want to attend, at redundant coffee dates, on unnecessary phone calls
24. My neck
25. $700 of dad’s money during a careless month on an AT&T Family Plan
26. My understanding of math
27. The fuses for this apartment’s fuse box
28. That rouge courderoy jacket I bought in Brea and loved so much
29. French literacy
30. 10 pounds since the days of college cafeteria grazing
31. My not-backed-up desktop diary called Life Goes On
32. My passport
33. Creative discipline
34. My precocious ability to memorize every phone number I needed
35. A tennis game or 300
36. A willingness to imagine my life without you

A Bread in Belfast

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination. ~Sam Levenson


A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. ~Rachel Carson


Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young. ~Sainte-Beuve, Portraits littéraires, 1862


In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. ~Friedrich Nietzsche


Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. ~Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943


The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius. ~Rebecca Pepper Sinkler


He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. ~Albert Einstein


There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again. ~ Elizabeth Lawrence quotes


Perhaps what we sometimes call 'genius' is simply a refusal to altogether let go of childhood imagination. ~ Michael Cibenko


When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay. ~Brian Aldiss


When you're green you're growing, and when you're ripe you start to rot. ~Ray Kroc


I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. ~Bob Seger, "Against the Wind"


Courtesy of Lissy Elle
 http://www.lissyelle.com/

Take THAT, Boring! POW! P-P-Pow!

How to anthopomorphize the items on my weekend Task List?

.... I'm feeling like a toddler with lips sealed shut, waiting for mom to realize she ONLY wants to eat green beans that make the noises of choochoo-trains and aero-planes. Well, today I am remembering to be a good mom to the toddler in me - anticipate the stories & promises & scolds that will empower her to Do the Right Thing. (Unfortunately, she was still wearing the pants in this relationship over breakfast... which meant sausage croissant roll for the 3rd day in a row instead of green beans. Or at least Special K Red Berries. Can I go back? Meh, whatever. I will rule lunch tray.)

So back to magical thinking... (as if I'd ever left)

Anthropomorphical Weekend Task List

Attend a Kennedy Center Concert = to have something to finally call Grampa Hank for chatting about

Bust out a 4 pager on Branch Campuses = to improve my chances of every-morning coffee with Rebecca Horton, a friend I love to break bread with

Clean my room = shower love and affection on my bunkmate Hayley, who deserves all my love and affection*

Dry cleaning all the way at Eastern Market = to slay a dust dragon encircling my high-maintenance clothes, including that really sleek work skirt. SLAY!

Ender's Game = to become a space warrior commander (not to be mistaken for space cowboy, my other favorite thing to be)

Fake out the trash, I mean... = to imagine I am Zack and I like taking out the trash (better than cleaning the bathroom at least)*

Gym workout = to hang out with my dad (from a distance) who is likely to be at the gym too. Where else would he be on a Saturday? Hey Dad!*

Hit a gay club/lounge at midnight = to celebrate Robert's debut as a back-up dancer extraordinaire

Ice my shoulder = to invite 23 little fairies to dance on my shoulder, throwing healing darts through my skin into my muscles*

Just CALL Amazon about broken Kindle = to give mom another kiss on the cheek for buying me this extravagant gift (and make up for the slap on her cheek, letting it sit on a shelf for 2 months)

* = done

Do The Right Thing, but not A Spike Lee Joint

"The Wire: -30- (#5.10)" (2008)

Walon: He's just putting it all out there, you know, the good and the bad.

Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins: You know what? The bad don't bother me to have out there. Shit, I know the bad. I ain't lying to no one about the bad.

Walon: Scared of somebody calling you good?

Reginald 'Bubbles' Cousins: A lot of folks volunteer places. A lot of folks share at meetings. Plenty of motherfuckers wake up every day and not get high. Man making me sound special for doing what the fuck I need to be doing.

Spring

The days and the nights beat like wings on a butterfly, like hail drumming down. They beat as paint and glow and fire erupt with the sound of it.

a glimpse of redemption to season the "celebration"

Death to the Death-Dealer!

Mourning (rather than celebration) remains my more natural instinct. Mourning that we live in a world in which a man's life, actions, and reputation can become so defined by his evil impulses. Mourning that human society, culture, and religion is capable of taking a beautiful little boy and shaping him over time into a mass murderer whose assassination sparks joy in the hearts of so many good people around the world. Mourning that there IS no justice on Earth for the kind of violence and hatred and ruin that this man effected. And mourning that the destruction of something/someone evil offers me little hope, as I would always choose redemption over this "justice." Such things as redemption rarely make the news, though. Destruction is so much more accessible.

A Banker Painter

"You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now."
— Anaïs Nin

"I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness." -Nin

Stockings

Sometimes I wish I could lick a song like a stamp and send it on a letter to Santa, and say please? I've been a very very good girl.

Stupid Wise

A Chinese Proverb
Put all your eggs in one basket, and take very good care of that basket.

A Proverb of Teen Angst
Plug up your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Drink bottled water instead.

Because the Little Mermaid dies in the Hans Christian Anderson version, The Last Unicorn is not quite as scary as when I was 6, and I want to become a pegasus

To Do:
1) Read Dealing with Dragons
2) Write my dream book about mermaids
3) Raise children with Catherine Woodiwiss

e e cummings

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

my father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
–i say though hate were why men breathe–
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Blossoming Cherries and Burning Flesh

I should be asleep... getting enough rest to be bright-eyed for tomorrow's sunrise over the cherry blossoms, Inshallah. BUT I just read a response to the question that's been fraying the edges of my soul today, and I needed to process.

Mallie and I call days like today Sadness of the World days (when the weight of minor and mass evils haunt and pierce, and the mundane life-as-usual day seems to have a menacing soundtrack. i.e. My mom didn't get abducted out of our kitchen when I was four. But my friend Spencer's did, and today I couldn't stop thinking about it. About how when we were kids his sister couldn't drive past a cemetery without hiding her face in her shirt. I haven't thought about them in years. But today I couldn't stop grieving for their family.) I decided this morning that a day like this should be called a skin-inside-out day. (I've been reading The Hunger Games trilogy which is tres violent. And I watched an episode of House over dinner which involved a burn victim. And it's true that the slightest brush of story against my skin, on a day like this, makes me wince at the pain another person or a people is faced with.) The demanding refrain of the day, Why are we alive? What is the point of all this? How can I live meaningfully into the awful-earth realities I might otherwise close my eyes and ears to for the sake of bliss? Enter Henri Nouwen.

"The more I think about the human suffering in the world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well in the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims...

I know of few people who have seen as much suffering as the Dalai Lama... Still I know of few people who radiate as much peace and joy.... How is it possible that a man who has been subjected to such persecution is not filled with anger and a desire for revenge? When asked that question the Dalai Lama explains how, in his meditation, he allows all the suffering of his people and their oppressors to enter into the depth of his heart, and there to be transformed into compassion."

While this doesn't solve problems of minor or mass evil, this does offer a strategy for me to use when I feel like I can't bear the burn of a skin-inside-out day. I mean for prayer and meditation to be a more instinctive response, a replacement for the churning of my empathic imagination. And, really, I'm just grateful to have opened a book sitting on at the coffee table tonight that spoke to me as if it had heard my question and didn't want me to go to sleep without an echo from the void. That is grace.

And now I will go to sleep with a cherry blossom scented smile on my lips.

What to Do with Feathered Things?

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

From "Uncertainty Identity Theory" by Michael Hogg

The key premise is that feelings of uncertainty 

about oneself and one’s perceptions, attitudes, val- 

ues, and behaviors that reflect on one’s identity and 

sense of self are “aversive” and motivate attempts 

at resolution. Where one believes one has sufficient 

resources to reduce the uncertainty, self-uncertainty 

is experienced as a challenge that sponsors pro- 

motive or approach behaviors; where the resources 

are considered insufficient, self-uncertainty is expe- 

rienced as a threat that sponsors more protective 

or avoidant behaviors (cf. Blascovich & Tomaka, 

1996). 

Not only can the subjective experience of self- 

uncertainty vary to sponsor different general behav- 

ioral orientations toward its resolution, but the general 

path taken and the underlying psychological mecha- 

nism can also differ. UIT focuses on group identifi- 

cation through self-categorization (e.g., Turner, Hogg, 

Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), which it considers 

perhaps the most effective way to reduce and protect 

from self-uncertainty. Uncertainty-reduction is consid- 

ered a core motive for social identity processes (Hogg, 

2006). 

Fictional Apocalyptic Poetry Series - Part 1

With the wisdom of a toddler who

imagines the world is and isn't

when his eyes open and shut,

I imagine - I've been ready for this,

and the timing is good... As if my proclivities pertain

to this matter. Matters of this sort.

A Sun Turned Black. A Sea Made Blood. A Sky Run Dry.

I'd considered these matters in depth

in ninth grade, when I was looking for distraction

from my changing body and my shy lust. Ran my fingers

across the spines of books that worked my nerves.

Whispered my eyes across titles so

charged I could almost feel electricity pumping my heart.

Whore of Babylon. A Holy Remnant. The Beast and the Lamb.

Synthesizing theologies, scanning news for false prophets,

searching myself for certainty; I spun my theories and I spun

my wheels with no where to go - never buying books,

but reading them in store. Five hundred dollars

wouldn't have paid for the volumes my appetite lavished

on me, cross-legged and curious on the carpet.

Postmillenialist. The Thousand Year Reign. Iron Scepter of

the Antichrist.

The Antichrist.

The Antichrist.

In the corner of the Family Bookstore

I trained my mind, refining my ability to recognize

this man (?) who would conduct a symphony

of slaughter while the world shattered, sure I would be sentient

to his origin before his first appearance onscreen.

It's not as clear as I hoped it would be, though. If this is really 
the first of the last days.

The Great Tribulation. The Last Battle. God's Wrath.

But I'm ready to figure this thing out. I have to believe

the year I spent in the stacks will count for something. I'm ready

for tomorrow to be worse than today. And the next

seven years to kill me and mine more likely than not. Because after -

AFTER the wounds of heaven mar the Earth to its core -

I will hear what "sounds like a great multitude,

like the roar of rushing waters and like loud

peals of thunder, shouting: Hallelujah!

For our Lord God Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!

For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready."