March

There isn't anything in this world but mad love. Not in this world. No tame love, calm love, mild love, no so-so love. And of course, no reasonable love. Also there are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?...

Today, on the beach, an old man was sitting in the sun. I called out to him, and he turned. His face was like an empty pot. I remember his tall, pale wife; she died long ago. I remember his daughter-in-law. When she died, hard, and too young, he wept in the streets. He picked up pieces of wood, and stones, and anything else that was there, and threw them at the sea. Oh, how he loved his wife. Oh, how he loved young Barbara. I stood in front of him, not expecting any answer yet not wanting to pass without some greeting. But his face had gone back to whatever he was dreaming. Something touched, me lightly, like a knife-blade. I felt I was bleeding, though just a little, a hint. Inside I flared hot, then cold. I thought of you. Whom I love madly.

I think about all the times I have chosen "easier." For to love is to feel the knife-bleed of true living. I mean, really, who wants that day in and day out? If I were to take that path, wouldn't opening my heart allow the knife to sink only deeper? Exactly! Last night I saw the movie, "The Road." It is a apocalypse movie where a father and a son journey through the desolated earth along a road that takes them to the sea. The only beauty you see in the whole movie is the love between the two, and the innocent love of a child who was born after the world began to die. Their love grows as does their pain. Are the roads we take in our own lives much different? There is desolation and armegheddon threatening all around, and danger around every bend in the road. Yet we, if grace allows, stay on the road that takes us to the cleansing sea, even if once we think we are there, the waves froth with pollutants and defilement. We keep going. Until the cleansing "see" lets us know of mad love.

Who or what do you love madly?

Lonely, White Fields-May 19, 2010

Every night

the owl

with his wild monkey-face

calls through the black branches,

and the mice freeze

and he rabbits shiver

in the snowy fields-

and then there is the long, deep through of silence

when he stops singing, and steps

into the air.

I don't know

what death's ultimate

purpose is, but I think

this: whoever dreams of holding his

life in his fist

year after year into the hundreds of years

has never considered the owl

how he comes, exhausted,

through the snow,

through the icy trees...

turning this way and that way

through the mesh of every obstacle-

undeterred by anything

filling himself time and time again

with a red and digestible joy

sickled up from the lonely, white fields-

and how at daybreak,

as though everything had been done

that must be done, the fields

swell with a rosy light,

the owl fades

back into the branches,

the snow goes on falling

flake after perfect flake.

Tomorrow is my 10th wedding anniversary. I awoke this morning, in the lonely dark hours hearing the Barred Owl hoot, wistful and yes, saddened, that the ten years have gone by so quickly. Every one of those years, every week, day, moment, a precious gift that is gone. Perhaps not gone, but shifted for as I think back on the joy of that day, I can still taste the joy. Our wedding cake was topped with two owls, who were not just the theme of our wedding, but became the theme of our marriage, and our shared ministries. The gift of time pasts then is not gone, just given over to a better thing. Here is a poem that was included in our order of service on that day, ten years ago...

The owl has special wing feathers that quiet its flight,

So the prey never detects the predator.

One noiseless flap, two, and the small mammal is caught.

As out of the soul's dark night, love is suddenly there, upon us:

Talons and beak.

We succumb,

And turn our bodies over to the nourishment of a grander thing.

A Visitor - March 23, 2010

My father, for example,

who was young once

and blue-eyed,

returns

on the darkest of nights

to the porch and knocks

wildly at the door...

Finally there came the night

when I rose out of my sheets

and stumbled down he hall.

The door fell open

and I know I was saved

and could bear him...

And I greeted him and asked him

into the house,

and lit the lamp,

and looked into his blank eyes

in which at last

I saw what a child must love,

I saw what love might have done

had we loved in time.

A young Mary wakes in the night and goes to stare at her father, perhaps passed out on the sofa. If she feels safe enough or if grace visits her night, she might love her father and know in the center of her being that her love is enough, even if his isn't. In her loving she is saved, and in her saving, perhaps there will come a night when she can open to her fears, to her wounds, to her disappointment, and bear the world upon her worn shoulders, love reborn.

Just yesterday morning at 5:30 a.m. a young man that we took in from Honduras came knocking at our door. He had lived with us for two years, called us ma and pa, and we had managed to bear one another until we asked him to move out due to his issues with drugs and breaking laws and home covenants. I had not seen him for a year, and there he was. We invited him in, poured him a cup of coffee, and was reminded how easy he was to love, even if his actions could not be born. He reminded how in the midst of my disappointment and hurt, how easy it is to love.

Who in your past might come knocking at your door and how will you greet the reminder of what might have happened if love could have found a way?

Alex - January 15, 2010

Where is Alex, keeper of horses?

Nobody knows.

...Well, maybe he's in the madhouse,

And maybe he's sleeping it off..

Dreaming of horses and leather.

And maybe, with luck, he's dead.

I know an Alex. We took him in one day shy of 18 years of age, an undocumented minor from Honduras with a history of domestic abuse from his father who forced him to work at 8 years of age, his mother having left him at 2. We knew him by another name, but he told all his friends he was Alex. He was such a wild beautiful heart and I imagine his dreams were of wonder and possibility. But in this world he was a breaker of hearts. We finally asked him to leave the house, too many broken promises amidst a background of substance abuse and run-ins with police and jail. I have not seen him in over a year, and I wonder where he is, sleeping on the streets, in jail, dead? I almost dread that he will come by again, for this brings chaos and pain into our home. And yes, love.

Yesterday I learned what I could of the horrific earthquake in Haiti. One picture showed a little girl, dead, half buried in rubble in the street, her head in her arms. It would be so much easier if the dead and broken were all the way buried so we wouldn't have to witness their lives.

Since reading these poems, Mary has shown the tension of beauty and death, grief and abundance. In this poem, where is beauty? In the brokenness? In death?

Who do you wish would go away from you so you wouldn't have to witness their brokenness or suffering? What is your response to the pain of the world?

The Swimming Lesson - January 8, 2010

...Somebody, I suppose,

Remembering the medieval maxim,

Had tossed me in,

Had wanted me to learn to swim,

Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back

From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising,

ever learned anything at all

About swimming, but only

How to put off, once by one,

dreams and pity, love and grace,-

How to survive in any place.

Below is a story of how once I threw in a juvenile penguin into icy waters so that she would be forced to learn to swim. At that time it was joyous to hold and release such wildness. Now I recall how with so many animals, friends, and family I have "forced" them to learn something so that they learn to survive, while I unlearn love and close the door to grace. I, the inheritor of ancient maxims, long to live beyond laws into love.

From: http://liberatingwings.typepad.com/liberating_wings/2008/11/penguin-toss.html

I have loved penguins since I was a small child. They are birds and can swim, and can withstand harsh ocean environments. This combination made them irresistible and heroic to me. I was a swimmer myself who sometimes felt, like the penguins, a little round and off balance on land.

When I was in my early thirties, I lived in Alaska and California. I traveled often up and down the West Coast. One of my favorite stops was the Portland Zoo. A good friend worked there and would let me wander around with her while she fulfilled her obligations. One day she invited me into the Penguin enclosure. There the penguin caretaker introduced me to the fledgling Humboldt penguins and let me feed them their silver, slippery fish. After we fed the young penguins the caretaker picked up one of the young, somewhat fluffy birds and threw her or him into the swirling mass of penguins swimming around the rocks. The shock to me was as great as it must have been to the bird. "Why did you do that?" I asked.

"It’s because the birds need to learn to swim and need to socialize with the flock, and they won’t go into the water unless there is a physiological impulse, which we don’t have here in captivity. So we have to throw them in. Would you like to throw one?" I was appalled and shook my head no. I watched her throw a number of penguins. It didn’t seem to hurt the birds. The urge to throw one began to grow along with the awareness that I might never get another chance. So I stepped up the mound of rock upon which the remaining dubious looking youngsters huddled, choose a likely candidate, did my penguin pitchers wind up, and let her fly. With a satisfying plunk the bird entered the water, came up bobbing, and scrambled onto the rocks next to me. I smiled deeply and broadly, my glee originating in imagining someone picking me up and throwing me in so that I could swim with these mighty ocean goers.