Halloween Nostalgia, and All Saints Day

This is the first time I've been home for Halloween night in a number of years, and I'm feeling nostalgic. Perhaps this isn't surprising for someone who spent 20 years of her life with identity firmly fixed in "momdom." Today (raking up leaves into piles but realizing there were no small people to jump in them -- and haven't been for some time) I have been remembering my children's pre-teen years when Halloween was a BIG deal in our household and neighborhood. We spent weeks before the event planning what my son & daughter would be for Halloween and figuring out how to help them "be" that was one of my creative challenges -- (I was one of those moms who usually put together some kind of homemade costume). This was a particular challenge with my son who when he was in elementary school tended to want to go out as one of his imaginary friends, whom no one had ever seen. So I had to work with his instructions. My daughter would look forward exuberantly to the day, from the time she was very small, and our neighborhood -- and the neighborhoods of her friends, later on -- were very hospitable to trick-or-treaters. So it was a fun, family time. And since in those days all the neighborhood kids went to the same elementary school, it was a neighborhood time, too. It seemed as if it would always be that way though of course it was just 7 or 8 years of our lives, probably, all together. But it was a special time.

It also marked, for me, the beginning of "holiday season" -- when it was part of my role as the Mom to engineer the various special family traditions. That role persists, & I still love it, though now I'm observing it in less visible ways, e.g. by making the plane reservations for everyone to come home for Thanksgiving. And I'm recognizing that to the kids in the neighborhood our house is now one of the ones where people they don't really know live -- those slightly older people who appreciate visits from children. I'll need to leave the light on so they know they're welcome. It's fine being in this role -- but I'm remembering the other times, too, today.

And tomorrow is All Saints Sunday AND All Saints Day -- one of my favorite days of the church year. It was the celebration of All Saints, with its vision of a vast communion that extends through and beyond the boundaries of life and death, beginning where we are right now, that brought me into the Episcopal Church and its liturgical tradition, many years ago. (For a very good summary of what All Saints is all about read Peter Carey's post here). There have been years when I've been indifferent to Halloween, or even irritated or creeped out by some of the excesses in its celebrations -- but I always do look forward to the celebration of All Saints, the opportunity to renew my commitment to my Baptism and a vision for human life that is hopeful and strong beyond our wildest imaginings. (See last year's post for some more formal theological thoughts on All Saints Day) In the Celtic calendar, November 1 marks the turning of a new season, and it works that way for me, too. Moving into November, toward Thanks-giving and Christmas, I find myself anticipating good things, family, home-comings, reunions and various kinds of feasting. Our trick-or-treating days are long gone, but it is a turning-time for me, this weekend, this season, for various reasons, and one that I welcome.

Hearing the Words of the Greek New Testament

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Call me a nerd if you like, but this past August, my end-of-summer treat to myself was to sit in on the three week intensive course in New Testament Greek that the seminary offers to incoming students. Students required to take a Biblical language expressed some surprise that someone would choose this, but people who know me and my love of language and languages predicted: “You’ll get hooked.” And they were right.

Even now, with my time more limited by the regular semester, I am trying to show up once a week for the continuation of the introductory course. It’s an exercise in humility; my brain is getting pretty full-up with verb forms and noun endings and vocabulary, and I’ve got a generous colleague and student TA reading my often muddled papers and quizzes. But I’m also finding that it’s a return to “vacation mode” for me when I can spend a couple of hours drilling on my flashcards, and solving the intriguing word-puzzles posed by the Greek-English translation exercises, and the “aha” moments that come with translating passages from the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament.

The reward, for me, comes in moments of exquisite clarity, when a passage from Scripture, familiar in English, suddenly makes sense to me in its own language. It began with learning to read and pronounce the alphabet. Words which previously looked like hen scratches on the page began to sound, and sing. Our teacher wisely provided us with the Greek of the first chapter of John, mixed in with the course materials, not assigned, but just there for our perusal.. Within the first week, I found I could transcribe and read: “En arche eyn ho logos” I puzzled it out: ”En Arche” “En" for “In” “arche” like “archeologist. In the beginning. Then a little word – likely to be a form of “to be” and a word I recognized: “Logos” - Word – and there it was – with the sudden immediacy of poetry: “In the beginning was the Word”.

Naturally, I looked further down the page, wondering what John 1:14 would look like in Greek. I could just sound out: : “Kai ho logos sarx egeneto” (And the word was made flesh) “Sarx” – like sarcophagus. Flesh, mortality. I remembered Bible studies where someone told us that there are 2 words for “body” in Greek – “sarx” and “soma” – and this is the one that is the gritty, fleshly, mortal one: even the sound conveys it: “sarx” – the sound sharp and guttural next to the smoothness of “logos”. There it was: the poetry emerging from what was once looked to me like secret code: now the words were singing.

“It’s like being there,” a friend remarked to me, telling of her experience gaining fluency in Biblical languages and reading the texts. I doubt I’ll ever reach her level of fluency but I’m learning enough now to receive in a new way the poetry of the New Testament – in the language it was written in – and so in the word themselves, now new gifts to me.

All this has me reflecting further – in ways for which I there are no words – about a reality that we meet, by God’s grace, within our humanity. Reading Scripture, I am receiving in words the revelation of a God who has chosen to come to us in ways that meet our humanity--our language--our bodies. En arche eyn ho logos. . . Kai ho logos sarx egeneto. It gives me the shivers. It’s like being there

A Poem from my retreat last month

I have been meaning to post this -- a poem that I found last month when I was on retreat at Holy Cross Abbey. It is by one of the monks there, Fr. Mark Delery, with whom I had some good conversation. As I move into the business and swirl of fall and all its demands it is helping me to remember the centering experience of that lovely weekend of silence in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Here's his poem. Food for thought in quiet moments.


Dear one,
What have you
Come to the desert
To see? To hear?

Cistercian monks
Of former times were known
To write it thus:
“Tell them,”
They said,
“Tell them
What the wind
Says to the crags,
What the sea says
To the mountains

Tell them
That an immense goodness
Penetrates the world

Tell them
That God is not
What you think He is

He is a wine one drinks
a banquet shared
where each one gives
and receives

Tell them
That He is your loneliness
And your night,
Your wound
And your Joy

Tell them
His Voice alone
Can teach you
Your true name.”

(Originally published in Hallel 18:(1 (1933)

Watching the Birds

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My spiritual practice in the summer is to begin each day on my patio, in the cool of the early morning, sip my first cup of tea of the day, sometimes write in my journal, and watch what is going on in my back yard. We have a regular wildlife sanctuary this year, on our fifth-of-an-acre suburban lot. In the yard of the abandoned house next door (awaiting new construction), grass and shrubs have grown up, and a family of deer has taken up residence there. There’s now so much growing next door that they don’t even come into my yard any more. The rabbits, on the other hand, have eaten down just about whatever will grow – and yet there is something lovely, peaceful about them, browsing on the clover in the grass, in the early morning light. As I watch them, and the growing light, the sound of birdsong around me increases – cardinals, catbirds, crows and mourning doves, gradually drowning out the not-so-distant hum of cars on the capital beltway, half a mile away.

But what I most love is watching the birds on the feeder each morning. Though the English sparrows and grackles can be aggressive, a wonderful variety of birds visit each day, sometimes fighting over the black oil sunflower seeds, sometimes perched beside each other, simply being fed. Purple finches, goldfinches, house finches, cardinals, sparrows, downy and hairy woodpeckers, a flicker and occasionally a red-headed woodpecker, the occasional blue jay – and, this morning, hovering briefly over the bright pink and orange potted zinnias beside me, a tiny hummingbird!

I don’t get tired of watching them, even when they’re fighting over roosting spots or charging each other off with a flap of wings. Rather, I have the sense that I am being admitted into another world, watching them from my patio. They have their issues and their competitions but there is such a variety of species, colors, shapes among them – all birds, but abundant in their diversity. I find myself delighting in just seeing them all there together in all their variety – and I wonder, sometimes, how they see each other – across species and families yet within their bird-world. My feeling, watching them from the outside, is delight. They seem to be giving to another way of being, beyond my understanding. They invite me to watch and pay attention.

William Blake wrote somewhere, “How do you know, but every bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?” He’s on to something there. Watching the birds each morning is a contemplative practice, bringing me to the limit of what I can see and observe, fascinating me, offering a glimpse into a beauty, a mystery, I cannot name, and teaching me to sit still and pay attention. In this way it is a contemplative practice. It is one of the things that I love most about the summer months –this time to sit outdoors, before the air becomes too warm, to watch and wait for the birds to invite me into the mystery of prayer.

Invitation and Exclusion

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NB: Read information on my new book, "Waving Back", and pre-order information, here

Several weekends ago, I spent a refreshing and prayerful time on retreat at Holy Cross Abbey, a Cistercian monastery near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. As one might expect in an atmosphere infused with the monastic tradition, I felt thoroughly welcomed and quieted, and was nourished by the opportunity offered to enter what T.S. Eliot called “time not our time. In the one conversation I had with a monk, I was reminded of the Cistercian devotion both to prayer and to the intellectual life, two parts of myself that I’ve been a long time in bringing together. (A favorite book title of mine, about the monastic tradition, is called The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. I think that does describe something important about my vocation).

Sure of the divine welcome in the place (and of creation’s welcome, among the meadow flowers, birds and mountain scenery), I became vividly aware on Sunday of the obstacles to welcome that still exist in a church that is still far from the unity for which Jesus prayed. As a Roman Catholic order, the Cistercians abide by a discipline that limits participation in Eucharist to Catholics. I knew this. I knew I could present myself for Eucharist and no one would speak or object, but I was interested in the way that the non-invitation to Eucharist was worded. “The Catholic bishops do not allow us to invite non-Catholic Christians to receive Eucharist. We ask that you respect the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church and join us in prayer for the unity of all Christians, for whom our Lord Jesus prayed on the night before he died.”

My own operative theology is scandalized at the idea of excluding anyone from Eucharist, believing that we go at Christ’s invitation, rather than at the invitation of a human community, however organized or faithful. And the careful wording of the placard I’ve just quoted suggested to me that whoever wrote it might even share the same operative theology. I’m certainly glad that the Episcopal Church has pushed back against any statement that would begin “The Anglican Communion does not allow us to invite. . . . " But there was also in this sad non-invitation a solid piece of truth-telling that I appreciated. I was grateful to the community for honestly naming the brokenness. It caused me to experience, as I have not before, what it is to be excluded from a rite that is our central expression of belonging. It was wrong. But it was true to how things are in the Church for whom Jesus prayed, and died.

So, I accepted, and learned from, the invitation to “join us in prayer for the unity of all Christians, for whom our Lord Jesus prayed on the night before he died.” As people lined up to receive the Body and Blood, I remained kneeling, praying fervently and deeply for the unity of a broken church, the whole church catholic, Anglican, orthodox, whatever our sad divisions may be. I heard in my heart snatches of hymns: “Bid thou our sad divisions cease/ And be thyself our king of peace. . . . . “ “By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.” It was a rich, full and genuine participation, in its way – a sharing in the broken heart of Christ, in the midst of the assembly. I wouldn’t want to make a habit of this way of prayer. But at least on this day, it was an unexpected gift.

"Waving Back": My New Book of Poems, is coming out!

My chapbook of poems, called Waving Back: Poems of Mothering Life, is available now for pre-order at the website of Finishing Line Press. The poems come out of the years when my children were growing and reflect my sense of the richness and challenges of that time of life -- the volume also includes a series of poems that came out of my experience with breast cancer in the midst of all this, in the 1990's. They tell a story of a time of life, one that I hope will speak to others' experiences.

Now begins the self-promotion that has to come with the appearance of a new book. The book is available for pre-order now, and will be out November 13, 2009 (in time for Christmas, I hope!). I'm hoping for several readings and booksigning opportunities in the DC area once the book is out and will keep people posted about that. But I'll be very grateful to friends and fans who are able to pre-order a copy, since the publisher decides how many copies to print based on the # of pre-orders. Just go to the website, scroll down the books (alphabetical by author's name) and you'll find it!

Enjoying August at Home

We aren't getting to the beach this year - which I'm sorry about even though it's because we took a great vacation earlier in the summer instead. Will have to rely on Wordsworth (see my post from last August) to remind me of what I need to remember.

Being at home in August, I can understand why most people around DC are at the beach or somewhere else if they can be. It gets pretty hot, and there's a lazy feeling. But I'm savoring this week, which amounts to my last week of really "open time" at home -- I start regular class meetings next week (will be studying NT Greek with the incoming seminarians - something I've always wanted to do and in that way a "vacation activity" still for me - but it will be hard work and a daily commute). I just want to post a few things about today - my favorite kind of summer day - so I'll remember the peace of this week.

I started the day on the patio watching the birds, as I do every summer morning when it's not raining. It becomes my contemplative prayer time, with that, a cup of tea, a journal, sometimes some reading. Then I came inside, got coffee & lunch together for my husband (a daily ritual), and settled down at the computer for my "butt in the chair" time working on the book I've been writing this summer (I'll be looking to readers of this blog to help me publicize it if I ever get a publisher interested -- working title is something like "Fully alive: Discernment for Discipleship in the 21st cantury" -- lots of themes that started on this blog, and workshops I've been doing, especially with young adults but the audience for the book spans generations I hope).
Anyway, I poked along at that - (yesterday was a really blank day as far as writing went -- couldn't get anything down so I just gave up and did other stuff around the house, feeling frustrated; it paid off b/c I woke up this morning with an idea about how to regroup and fix the chapter I was struggling over).

By about 11:00 I knew I couldn't spend any more time on the computer, and the writing wasn't really going anywhere. It was relatively cool today, so I went out for a walk, taking the printout of my whole MS with me. (It's still very rough but I think I have something down now for all 6 chapters - about 100 pages). I stopped off at my congresswoman, Donna Edwards's office to tell her how heartily I support the passage of Health Care, and her handling of the issue and her response to opposition (more about this in another post) To my astonishment, ran into her in the hallway and was able to say my piece to her, which was fun. Then went in and talked to a staffer. I really feel strongly about this issue. And it felt like "democracy in action" to be able to stop off at her office on a walk around my neighborhood near downtown Silver Spring.

I wound up at Starbuck's, where I bought a "for here" skim chai and spent a couple of hours with my MS and a pen, seeing what parts of the very rough draft work and what parts don't. Discouraging in spots, encouraging in others, but at least I had a little distance and could see what I have -- it is almost the end of the summer and this was to be my "summer project" so it's time for some stock-taking.

Anyway, after that pleasant "writer's time" in Starbuck's, I took a pleasant route back home, one that took me past my neighbors' well groomed yards and lawns. One thing I love about the DC area in August is the crepe myrtles, blooming everywhere, I don't have one in my yard but I love my neighbors' -- Walking through the neighborhood and the park, listening to the cicadas who are singing all day now that it's August (crickets mixed in, perhaps), I have been enjoying the summer day. The rich magentas of the crepe myrtles, the brilliant gold of black-eyed Susans in a sunny garden -- even the somewhat reassuring observation that like me, a lot of my neighbors have been pretty much defeated by the wild grape vines that grow over pretty much everything by this time of the summer. But it's familiar, it's home, it's been a comfortable day to be out enjoying the beauty of my neighborhood, and the fruits of my summer writing-mode - a part of the pattern of academic life that I love, and have never lost track of.

Again a familiarline from Wordsworth comes to mind, one I usually remember late in the summer, from "Tintern Abbey" where he reflects, revisiting a familiar landscape in summer "That in this moment there is light and food/for future years." Looking back I see I quoted this and other parts of that poem in last year's August blog! I guess there's always a certain wistfulness, mingled with the quiet joy of the time, that comes to me in these later weeks of the summer. I still have hours ahead of me now today, and a stack of reading to do - but glad to have the time to give it my full, luxurious attention without any plans or interruptions. Nice to have a little time for blogging, too!

May I remember the pleasant openness of this summer day as the fall routine heats up and this kind of open day for walking, writing and reflecting becomes rare indeed.