Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

Isn't it nice when beautiful things happen in unexpected places?  We read this poem in English class today and I'm still dizzy from the heavy beauty of it.

Evening Hawk by Robert Penn Warren

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadows, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.

His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.

Look!  Look!  he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics.  His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense.  The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

And from one of my favorites, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot, comes this excellent ending (read the rest here?):

Yes, dancing is absurd. There is no logical reason to dance. It's awkward, especially for folks like myself. Dancing won't end global poverty. It doesn't stabilize the price of oil or fight to dethrone evil dictators. But does dancing bring you joy? Does dancing remind you of your humanity? Does dancing makes you laugh? Heck, my dancing in particular can certainly lighten the mood. I'm tired of fighting my way through life; I want to dance. To head back out on the dance floor of life armed with my four ridiculous dance faces and the intention of finding joy in the journey, finding happiness in the song along the way. Certainly, there are times to fight. There are times to challenge injustice, hatred, racism, and corruption. But most of life is not meant to be a fight. It's meant to be a dance. Victories and defeats will come and go but the joy of the dance is always available.

Also, I can't stand Bradley Hathaway's voice.  It drives me crazy.  But I've fallen deeply in love with this song, so I've learned to tolerate his thirteen-year-old-swallowing-spoonfuls-of-coarsely-ground-gravel voice.  You should also check out some of his poetry along the side of that YouTube page, because it's absolutely fantastic. 

And finally, from Brennan Manning's amazing book The Importance of Being Foolish (I can't even begin to say how much this gentle book challenged and moved me.  Go read it.  Now.):

Scripture is not about the transmission of inert ideas.  It is a call to love, and love that does not lead to action is not love.

The Year of Vision

Students run on different calendars than the rest of the world.  Everyone else marks years in spans of 12 months, 365.25 days, repeating in a cycle that flows from January to January.  Students, though, have a year that runs from August to May, with a netheryear in June and July.  When we say "last year," we probably don't mean 2011.  We mean the last time school was in session. 

And so when I say this is the Year of Vision, I'm not listing New Year's Resolutions early.  School started for me about a month and a half ago, and God and I had a date in the parking lot of Garden of the Gods (as a side note, one of my favorite things about living in Colorado is that a half hour drive takes me to places like this).  I prayed for a while, asking him what he wanted for this year.

God, I said, it's my senior year.  I'm going to turn eighteen.  I have to apply to colleges and figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.  I would really like a vision or something.

And God, in the rising bubble of God-voice that nudges somewhere deeper than my heart and finally bursts into coherent phrases, God said You don't need a vision, you need vision.

Yeah, I need vision.  Sometimes I've wanted soul-glasses so I can see clearly now.  I have problems with seeing accurately, or sometimes even at all.  I need something more powerful than Lasik to undo the blindness that keeps me from noticing the blaring neon signs that say ATTENTION!!!!  GOD IS HERE!!!! 

So this year, the Year of Vision, my divine optometrist named God has been working on correcting my sight.  I've found him in some pretty unexpected places lately.  Did I expect that being nominated for homecoming queen would lead to some excellent conversations with friends about God, security, and identity?  Or that my friend would email me a Bible verse on a day I needed it very badly?  Or how 'bout those lovely aspens beginning to glow golden on the mountains? 

Yes, God is everywhere.  I just need the vision to see him. 

Metamorphosis Mondays

Join me here on Mondays, where I'll share some words that are changing me for the better...

It's going to be a little brief today, friends, but we'll go for quality over quantity.

First, from L.L. Barkat's famous Rumors of Water:

"Want to hear my story?"  says Sonia cheerfully.  She is already moving on to her own agenda.
"Sure," I say.

The story is about a girl who is drawing a purple moth as large as a dragon.  The moth has teeth and is holding something like spears.  The girl is not paying attention in class, so she misses the lesson about the Space Race.  But she has a purple moth to show for it. 

And then a poem from Louise Gluck:

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who
Buries her head in the pillow
So as not to see, the child who tells herself
That light causes sadness-
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person-

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
On the same road, except it's winter now;
She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
Like brides leaping to a great height-
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth-

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're trying to explain, the fact
That we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
Capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition
Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering-
It's this stillness we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

(Think on that for a while..."when you love the world, you hear celestial music...")