Yes… yes. I needed this. Today would have been my father’s 66th birthday. It is a rock-em-sock-em day… but in the midst of it, I will remember him.
God, I am rushing, just brushing by, passing
my life on the street without greeting,
breathless and ceaseless,
skimming my life without taking it in,
distracted and fractured and shallow.
Be the lead in my life,
the molasses, the waist-deep snow.
Be the awkward weight, the icy walk,
the dark room with rearranged furniture
that forces me to go slow and pay attention.
Give me a weak heart, a breathing condition
that makes me pause now and then
and begin again, slowly.
Be my fine print, a foreign language
so I lean forward, listening to each word.
Be the unseen voice for which I look around,
the smell of baking bread
that makes me back up to an open door.
Be my stillness, my Sabbath, my stopping,
the Enough that it is to be here.
Even as I go, give me courage to give up,
to accomplish nothing,
to get deeply, truly nowhere at all
but here.
Can you believe this is my 108th Link Love? That’s about 2 years of collecting bits and pieces of stuff. Like a magpie. I should probably go on hiatus at some point. Don’t want to get stuck in a rut. Maybe this summer.
Courtesy of The Dish and a good adjunct to my post about perfectionism and failure the other day, an animated clip of DFW talking in 1996 about perfectionism, ambition… and tennis:
After filling me in on some of the latest and greatest ideas she’s had about the church she leads, she stopped and said, “You know, you’re about the only person I know who doesn’t think I’m crazy when I talk this way.”
“Actually,” I replied with a smile, “I think you’re crazy too. But the church needs crazy right now.”
…My friend is perceived as a little crazy. She’s not content with the same old thing, only better. She wants something new. So she has the youth of her church lead worship and participate in the sermon. She doesn’t do confirmation anymore, but instead finds ways to gather her youth around conversations about faith, life, and life lived faithfully. And this summer they’re not singing hymns at her church, but pop songs. And talking about popular YouTube videos. And other crazy stuff.
~
On that note… maybe this is an example of the good kind of crazy, albeit from another era:
The First Lutheran Church of Oklahoma City dug up and opened its Century Chest, a time capsule that was buried under the church 100 years ago.
The artifacts inside the copper chest were remarkably well intact. Credit for that goes to the church’s Ladies Aide Society, the group that buried the capsule a century ago. The group buried the chest in double concrete walls and under 12 inches of concrete, according to Fox News.
As my friend Alex Hendrickson said, ”Varsity level church ladies.” Seriously.
My favorite class in seminary was The Preacher and the Poet, so Robert sent this to me with the subject line “MaryAnn bait.”
I read a lot of theology, both for my degree and for my professional track, and sometimes I think poetry, whether or not it’s explicitly religious, is one of the best modes that theology, or talking about God, can take. … Poetry is a form where the language is under so much pressure, and that can really bring about these wonderful surprises and insights in our ways of talking about God or thinking about our faith.
The author describes the experience of having a newborn and always having to think about the next thing. Ohhhh yeah. That kind of extreme time maximization is part of what led us to Sabbath, when we can turn off (or at least mute) those endless calculations:
I was always planning ahead for the next step of the operation. It’s breakfast time. Eat because we have to get dressed! Get dressed because we have to go to baby class! Finish baby class so we can get home for nap! Get nap started so I can have writing time! Hurry, hurry through writing before the baby wakes up! Get ready so we can go to the park! Finish up at the park so we can get home so I can make dinner! And on and on…We were still on that hamster wheel, still always urgently moving forward to the next item on the agenda.
It wasn’t my schedule that was the problem. It was the fact that during every activity we engaged in, my mind was already on the next one.
I’ve gotta think that zero gravity tourism will happen in our lifetimes. Which is irrelevant for me since I get motion sick on a porch swing. So I’ll have to content myself with videos like this:
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Have a wonderful weekend, everyone. We’ve got a party Saturday night and I’m leading a retreat after church on Sunday. A full weekend but a good one. Peace.
Who among us are the most happy? Newly published research suggests it is those fortunate folks who have little or no excess time, and yet seldom feel rushed.
This busy but blissful group comprises 8 to 12 percent of Americans, making it “a small and unusual minority within the general population,” writes University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson.
According to his analysis, the happiness level of this group is 12 to 25 percent higher than that of those of most Americans. What’s more, while the general population’s happiness level is going down, theirs is increasing…
So the question is, how does one cultivate this busyness + lack of hurry? Is it a person’s temperament? Or is it a matter of circumstance?
And what might Sabbath—an intentional time to stop, look, and listen—have to do with it?
I’m keeping it light on the New Year’s resolutions/intentions this year. I’m already running a half marathon, promoting a book and planning the next one—that’s plenty to keep me busy. Plus I’m all about the improv and less about the major planning. But I can get behind these:
Be a Little Kinder. I think that 90% of the spiritual life is being a kind person. No need to have any advanced degrees in theology or moral reasoning, and no need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s religious traditions, to get this: Be gentler and more compassionate towards other people.
I like the one about enjoying nature more. Reminds me of one of my father-in-law’s practices. When he comes home from work, he takes a moment between car and house to look up. Just to see what the sky looks like. I love that.
This one gets in my craw. It’s not the most pressing issue we face, but it is a justice issue and a spiritual issue:
Like many of you, I am on vacation this week. For most Americans, Christmas week represents about half of the time off we will enjoy all year long. Compared with Australians (at least 4 weeks off, plus 10 public holidays), Brazilians (22 days of paid leave with a 33 percent salary vacation bonus) and the French (at least 5 weeks off and as many as 9 for many public employees), we are seriously bereft.
I’m still using Toggl to keep track of how much time I spend on creative work, connecting with people, and doing logistics. Read more about that process here.
But based on this article it would be interesting to do an audit of my time to see how much of my day is spent on Reactionary, Planning, Procedural, Insecurity, and Problem-solving tasks. Good tips here for how to bring things into a frutful balance for your situation.
The book itself is called Listening for Madeleine. From the BookForum article:
L’Engle’s faith was deeply untraditional. A mathematics professor who advised her on A Wrinkle in Time says the three beings who guide Meg on her interplanetary journey—Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which—were meant to be angels, but they could just as easily be mistaken for witches. And the novel’s dominant image of evil is an undefined blackness that casts its shadow across a wide band of the universe, including Earth. Camazotz, a planet controlled by the blackness, is not a hotbed of violence and depravity but a vision of perfect order. All the houses are identical, the children bounce their balls in perfect unison, and anyone who refuses to submit to the program is punished. “I am freedom from all responsibility,” the evil power croons to Meg. But she recognizes that this is a false consolation, a substitution of conformity for equality. “Like and equal are not the same thing at all!” she screams.
The fundamental lesson is that it’s OK—even desirable—to be a misfit.
Looking back, I’d say that A Wrinkle in Time formed my early theology as much as (or let’s be honest, more than) the Bible.
Incidentally, I’m putting this post together on Thursday, and Caroline is in the chair next to me with the new graphic novel version of A Wrinkle in Time. I gave it to her for Christmas and she’s already on her second reading of it.
I expect there is more of this going on in the animal kingdom than we want to admit:
In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes.
The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat.
~
May your weekend be filled with a small hoard of chocolate chips… or whatever delights you.
A Brooklyn-based creative firm has come up with a clock that shows the passage of the seasons. It makes one revelation every 365 days. [Edit: I meant "revolution," but nicely played in comments Mary!]
Oh, how I love it. The concept, the execution…
To be clear, I’m not the kind of gal who has a $300 clock, unless you count my iPhone, which also does a lot of other stuff.
But I am the kind of gal who’s captivated by the idea of a clock in which you can’t detect time passing, but you can see it having passed.
Isn’t that the way we experience life?
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P.S. Reminder that the Sabbath blog continues to be open for business. This week, we’re featuring Winnie the Pooh (here) and Renita Weems (check it tomorrow.)
My friend Becca passed this along to me. It’s a poem/prayer by Steve Garnaas-Holmes on his Unfolding Light blog. Go there.
