Finding "Advent Stanzas"

I started late on my annual New Year's Day walk. I never really have an agenda for this walk -- no time frame or length or even location. Just go for a walk somewhere in the neighborhood and take in the fresh, sharp winter air, along with some sunlight if possible. I had maybe 30-45 minutes of sunlight left when I started out, and I just went where my gut told me to go. 

One of my favorite things in our neighborhood are the mini-free libraries -- wooden boxes on posts that look like enlarged bird houses containing books to take, or places to leave books looking for a new home. Even if I don't intend to take (or leave) anything, I always like to look inside. It really is like walking into a bookstore just for the sake of seeing what's on the shelves. This time, one title caught my eye: Best Spiritual Writings of 2005. Considering who I am and a title like that, I couldn't not at least look through the table of contents. That's when I found "Advent Stanzas" by Robert Cording. 

There, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, with the winter light fading around me, the air already sharp and cold, a stark yellow crescent of moon above and colorful Christmas lights on the surrounding houses, I found this reflection on the season of mystery that pierced an opening in my heart. I let my tears fall freely as I read the following lines:

"And will you intercede with sighs too deep for words
Because you love us in our weakness, because

You love always, suddenly and completely, what is
In front of you, whether it is a lake or leper.

Because you come again and again to destroy the God
We keep making in our own image. Will we learn

To pray: May our hearts be broken open. Will we learn
To prepare a space in which you might come forth,
In which, like a bolt of winter solstice light,
You might enter the opening in the stones, lighting

Our dark tumulus from beginning to end?"

I did not take the book with me. I didn't need to. Besides, someone else might need it, if not for that poem, then some other writing featured in it. But I have no doubt I was meant to find that book and that poem, to remind myself of the mystery of universal LOVE and our ability, however meager, to accept it without full understanding. 

For the text in its entirety, see below. 

Oh, and happy new year. 

I.
Are we always creating you, as Rilke said,
Trying, on our best days,
To make possible your coming-into-existence?

Or are you merely a story told in the dark,
A child’s drawing of barn and star?

Each year you are born again. It is no remedy

For what we go on doing to each other,
For history’s blind repetitions of hate and reprisal.

Here I am again, huddled in hope. For what
Do I wait? – I know you only as something missing,
And loved beyond reason.

As a word in my mouth I cannot embody.

II.
On the snow-dusted field this morning – an etching
Of mouse tracks declares the frenzy of its hunger.

The plodding dawn sun rises to another day’s
One warm hour. I’m walking to the iced-in local pond

Where my neighbors have sat through the night
Waiting for something to find their jigged lure.

The sky is paste white. Each bush and tree keeps
Its cold counsel. I’m walking head-on into a wind

That forces my breath back into my mouth.
Like rags of black cloth, crows drape a dead oak.

When I pass under them, their cries rip a seam
In the morning. Last week a life long friend told me,

There’s no such thing as happiness. It’s ten years
Since he found his son, then a nineteen-year old

Of extraordinary grace and goodness, curled up
In his dormitory room, unable to rise, to free

Himself of a division that made him manic and
Depressed, and still his son struggles from day to day,

The one partial remedy a dismal haze of drugs.
My friend hopes these days for very little – a stretch of

Hours, a string of a few days when nothing in his son’s life
Goes terribly wrong. This is the season of sad stories:

The crippling accident, the layoffs at the factory,
The family without a car, without a house, without money

For presents. The sadder the human drama, the greater
Our hope, or so the television news makes it seem

With its soap-opera stories of tragedy followed up
With ones of good will – images of Santas’ pots filling up

At the malls, truckloads of presents collected for the shelters,
Or the family posed with their special-needs child

In front of a fully equipped van given by the local dealership.
This is the season to keep the less fortunate in sight,

To believe that generosity will be generously repaid.
We’ve strung colored lights on our houses and trees,

And lit candles in the windows to hold back the dark.
For what do we hope? – That our candles will lead you

To our needs? That your gift of light will light
These darkest nights of the year? That our belief

In our own righteousness will be vindicated?
The prophet Amos knew the burden of your coming.

The day of the Lord is darkness, he said, darkness, not light,
As if someone went into a house and rested a hand against a wall,

And was bitten by a snake. Amos knew the shame of
What we fail, over and over, to do, the always burning

Image of what might be. Saint Paul, too, saw
The whole creation groaning for redemption.
And will you intercede with sighs too deep for words
Because you love us in our weakness, because

You love always, suddenly and completely, what is
In front of you, whether it is a lake or leper.

Because you come again and again to destroy the God
We keep making in our own image. Will we learn

To pray: May our hearts be broken open. Will we learn
To prepare a space in which you might come forth,
In which, like a bolt of winter solstice light,
You might enter the opening in the stones, lighting

Our dark tumulus from beginning to end?

III.
All last night the tatter of sleet, ice descending,
Each tree sheathed in ice, and then, deeper
Into the night, the shattering cracks and fall
Of branches being pruned by gusts of wind.

It is the first morning after the longest night,
Dawn colorless, the sun still cloud-silvered.
Four crows break the early stillness, an apocalypse
Of raucous squawks. My miniature four horsemen

Take and eat whatever they can in the field
Outside my door: a deer’s leg my dog has dragged
Home. Above them, the flinty sun has at last fired
A blue patch of sky, and suddenly each ice-transfigured

Tree shines. Each needle of pine, each branch
Of ash, throws off sparks of light. Once,
A rabbi saw a spark of goodness trapped inside
Each evil, the very source of life for that evil –

A contradiction not to be understood, but suffered,
The rabbi explained, though the one who prays
And studies Torah will be able to release that spark,
And evil, having lost its life-giving source, will cease.

When I finally open my door and walk out
Into the field, every inch of my skin seems touched
By light. So much light cannot be looked at:
My eyelids slam down like a blind.

All morning I drag limbs into a pile. By noon,
The trees and field have lost their shine. I douse
The pile of wood with gas, and set it aflame,
Watching the sparks disappear in the sky.

IV.
This is the night we have given for your birth.

After the cherished hymns, the prayers, the story
Of the one who will become peacemaker,
Healer of the sick, the one who feeds
The hungry and raises the dead,

We light small candles and stand in the dark

Of the church, hoping for the peace
A child knows, hoping to forget career, mortgage,
Money, hoping even to turn quietly away

From the blind, reductive selves inside us.

We are a picture a child might draw
As we sing Silent Night, Holy Night.
Yet, while each of us tries to inhabit the moment
That is passing, you seem to live in-between
The words we fill with our longing.

The time has come
To admit I believe in the simple astonishment
Of a newborn.

And also to say plainly, as Pascal knew, that you will live
In agony even to the end of the world,

Your will failing to be done on earth
As it is in heaven.

Come, o come Emmanuel,

I am a ghost waiting to be made flesh by love
I am too imperfect to bear.

Reflections on a Year of Seeking Joy

A year ago today, I wrote about my coming in to finding my theme for the year: Seek joy. You know that old adage of things being easier said than done? Yeah, well it turns out that applied to this as well...in a lot of ways. Nevertheless, I think it's still worth reflecting on how this all went and what I gained from it.

First off, similar to other years when I had a certain theme, I found that the word "joy" kept popping up everywhere -- on signs, books (see my previous post re: Mary Oliver), even in Brene Brown's Netflix special ("The Call to Courage"). Maybe I was just paying more attention to it because it was my theme, but I still can't help but think it was somewhat serendipitous, just a little.

Second, I came into contact with the phrase "The Devil's working overtime." You ever have a goal in mind and it just seems like so many obstacles get thrown in your way to keep you from accomplishing it? That's basically what happened during the first part of this year. I aimed to seek joy and I kept finding stress, sadness, and heartache. Work was awful, my dating life sucked, and then to top it off my grandmother died before a third of the year was through. Devil. Working. Overtime.

And then, after not even being halfway through the year, my wallet was stolen. While I was in the midst of a very joy filled conversation about my sense of calling in life, no less. Fuck. But, strangely, this was a turning point. Because it was on that day, before said wallet was stolen, that I had resolved to start a gratitude journal. One of the points Brene Brown made in her talk was that people who are joyful all share one thing in common -- gratitude. So I decided to start making lists in a journal, as often as I could. And it just so happens that it started on the day I felt the most vulnerable, violated, and helpless.

What's interesting is that I didn't feel forced to start the journal even after what happened that day. Instead, it was because of what happened that I felt even more motivated to start it, because I had so much to be grateful for. Everything from the sun shining on my face that morning to the above mentioned conversation, from the staff at the cafe who were so helpful and generous to recognizing everything I already had, despite what I had lost. This was the beginning of what I see now as my life long journey of seeking joy.

No, I haven't been perfect with my gratitude journal, nor have I suddenly transformed into a semi-permanent happy and joyful person. Dude, sometimes life just sucks. It's hard to be joyful in such a hurting world. It's hard to be joyful when you've had a bad day or when you're reminded of what you don't have...or when your cat decides to attack your arm when all you want to do is cuddle with her. (Sorry, I digress...) But what I have noticed is the difference I experience when I do write down what I'm grateful for, even if it's just five things. I feel calmer and less cynical. I'm not minimizing my own struggles or the pain that I and/or those in the world experience, either. I just feel more balanced and less stuck. Maybe that's part of what joy looks like.

Joy is an option, just like anything else. But it takes work to choose it, because to do so is to be more vulnerable. There's no risk when you're feeling cynical and bitter...you're protected then. But to have joy is to risk having it be taken away. Then again, maybe that's why  what's underlying the joy is gratitude -- the recognition of the fact that life is fleeting, so it's important to enjoy what we already have right now. But it's not based in fear or anxiety, either.

One of the things I most often write down in my lists is my cat, Ashley (even when she's been a pain in the butt or bites me without cause). I mention her because, for one, I am truly grateful to have her as my companion, but also because I know that, someday, I won't have her anymore. I know someday I'll miss not telling her for the 100th time to get off the counter, or I'll miss not hearing her little bell or her meow throughout the house. I know it sounds so cliche or insignificant, but I truly think this is what gratitude can look like to an extent.

Seeking joy isn't about seeking that next high or extraordinary event (though I have to say that meeting one of my favorite poets and theologians, Padraig O Tuama, and seeing a live recording of On Being with Krista Tippet and Shane Claiborne, were definitely some highlights for the year). It's about the ability to stay present and recognize the good that already exists, in whatever form that takes. And yes, sometimes it is about seeking out those experiences that will give us a sense of happiness and belonging, especially when doing so causes our comfort zones to be expanded. Overall, though, it's taking in the good, no matter how fleeting, and giving thanks. It's so simple, but so challenging, especially in this consumer culture of ours where we're constantly told we're not enough or we don't have enough or we don't have enough of the right things. It really is like seeking out a high, and it's probably one of the reasons why we're often so unhappy in our romantic partnerships -- we're hooked on the dopamine of romance instead of being committed to the people we're choosing.

Joy isn't dopamine or some permanently happy state that can't be taken away. Joy is a choice, and it's a state of being. It's a practice of gratitude. It's a practice, period. For most of us, anyway. I came into this year hoping to seek joy, and I found it. Over and over and over. I found other things, too -- loss, pain, sadness, heartache, stress, depression, rejection. But I think the important thing was that I was able to recognize what joy can look like and how to integrate it more into my life. So, it is in this way, that I will always be seeking joy.

Where I Meet You

You are the one that I meet in the sacred places ---

In the cool shaded woods where ancient pillars have erupted from the earth,

And singular notes from bird's song echo as if in a hallowed cathedral,

And the soft sweeping sound of a brook's dancing 

Over stones can be heard as an eternal whisper;

Under a wondrous night sky where infinity could not be better explained
Than in the silent staring back
Of thousands of eyes that have long since closed 

Before our beginning;

Within the cavernous wombs of vaulted ceilings holding ---

And nearly bursting from --- 

The limitless words poured forth in hushed petitions and shouts of praise

To that which still remains unknown;

In a flock of starlings at twilight, moving together as one heaving, breathing,

Miraculous organism;

Between the lines of a poem that read like a prayer;

Within the notes of a song that seems to have always existed inside of me;

In the rooms of the dying and the tombs of the dead

With air hanging heavy from all that remains

Unspoken.

You are the one with whom I can exist in the spaces without words.

But you are not to be encountered in the everyday of living ---

The morning routine of awakening,

The preparations made for the predictable day ahead,

The simplistic reporting of what we experienced when out of each others' sight . . .

Your body I will never know in the act of

Folding & enfolding

Of skin together in a playful dance.

Yet when I stand in the space where time stands still

And stillness falls over me like water,

Where the infinite becomes visible amongst the finite objects

Of our existence,

And I can do nothing but do nothing

And breathe . . .

I can say with clear knowing:

You are here  

You are here. 

Reasons

Because I was tired from a long day

Because your dad died

Because I had only just discovered my grandmother was dying

Because the energy from yet another one of his emails was too much

Because fluctuations in hormones are a thing

(Google it)

Because absence may not always make the heart grow fonder

Because finding someone as available as you was 

terrifying 

in all the subconscious ways

Because maybe you were so used to being mistreated
that I scared you too with my
emotional softness

Because swipe culture

Because us both being empaths meant we absorbed each others efforts 

to be ok when 

maybe we weren't

Because the dancing didn't move our souls

Because maybe you never fully outgrew the schoolboy belief that
chemistry is about big reactions
instead of noticing 

the slow, subtle changes of molecules dancing and bonding to form 

something new

Because maybe we opened up too quickly and devoured too readily 

that not much else was left 

to be discovered

Because I felt it as soon as I tried to hold you close

Because I knew immediately after our lips met for the last time 

that it was the last time...

Still...

I'll never fully understand why...

Felicity or For Mary

If you read my previous post, you would know that my intended theme for the year is "Seek joy." Not quite three weeks in and, like most people attempting to complete their new year resolutions, I found it more difficult than I anticipated. I felt depressed, I was more tearful (for reasons not always completely clear), I was unhappy with the direction of my life, I experienced a loss, etc. Joy seemed to have evaporated almost as soon as the idea to seek it had occurred to me.

And then, Mary Oliver died. I've been a fan of almost anything I had read of hers, but not an avid one. I did not own any of her works, even though I had told myself numerous times that needed to change. So today I resolved, barring too many others having the same idea, to finally correct this error in my personal library. Little did I know what would be waiting for me on that shelf...

Felicity. As in synonymous with joy. I sought Mary and I found joy...Mary's joy. Because of course I did! This revelation sparked something within me, and a poem found its way into my consciousness which could not be contained. So I did what anyone would do with something like that...I released it. Here it is.

I started out the year
As most do
With intention.
I hoped to will myself
To seek the good, the positive, the sacred
That is involved in everyday living.
But this joy was not so easily 
Come by
And I found myself overwhelmed
With waves of dullness, despair, and despondency.
It was much like trying to gulp down 

Single droplets of water
While still dying of thirst.
Then, not long into the imagined newness,
I heard of your going and the news hit me -- 
Not with a sharp blow -- 
But a soft sigh.
Ahhh! You have gone to join that which you sought to bring 
To us...
The heart of God.
I knew then that I wanted 
(Needed)
To hold some piece
Of you -- 
Something of which to return to again and again
As often as the changing seasons within me.
So out I went searching,
Only to find you waiting patiently as if to say
"Here have I been all along."
Now, as I hold this part of you that was released into the world,
With its stanzas beautiful and brief,
I say, "Come, my friend, and pierce my soul with your blade so
Light...
And let us see what will become of this brief and sacred life."

Ode to Joy

Our washing machine is broken, so I made a trip to the laundromat around the corner to do a quick load before transferring it to the dryer at home. While there, my ears were blessed -- or possibly cursed -- with the sound of a young violinist, probably no more than seven years old. Upon first hearing the sound, I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I looked around and happened upon a young child with their back to me, sitting in a small chair, their feet resting on their violin case, and a sheet of music hanging on a wheeled laundry basket. 

Their playing was rapid, squeaky, and sloppy. Over and over and over again. Not only that, but they kept playing the wrong notes without correction. It was like hearing someone speak using the wrong words or the wrong order of words and wanting to desperately correct them. (Side note: years ago, I was given the moniker of "Spellcheck" by my roommates for the exact reason that I tended toward correcting verbal grammatical errors. I've since stopped this habit for the most part.) What's more, they were playing the beginning lines of Beethoven's Ode to Joy; their playing was anything but joyful. 

As I listened to this child and their playing, it became increasingly difficult not to intervene. Not because I wanted them to stop playing, but because I wanted them to really play. I could hear the ignorance of the piece in their fingering and bowing, and their lack of love for it in the speed which they played. I looked over at one point, and they had stopped looking at the sheet of music -- a possible attempt to memorize the short piece. 

I can remember being a young child learning to play the piano. From day one I was frustrated because I wanted to be a virtuoso (same thing happened when I tried to learn the violin, too). I was more preoccupied with "learning" a piece and getting all of the notes right instead of loving the music itself. I also considered it to be a triumph if I could play something really fast while still having note accuracy. Don't get me wrong, there were still pieces that I loved, some to the point of repetition ad nauseam. I think I loved them in part because I knew them so well, and the notes flowed easily beneath my fingers. Learning new pieces was not as much fun. I disliked having to feel out the fingering, count out the tempo (gawd I hated counting!), coordinate the movement of both hands, etc. I eventually grew tired of it and the discipline of practicing itself, and stopped my lessons completely. I loved music, but I no longer loved playing it because it was a chore and not a joy.

While I understand that learning anything is a discipline, if there is no joy then the discipline no longer serves a purpose and creates no depth in life. It merely becomes something that is done for its own sake or even for the sake of others (e.g. parents wanting their child to learn music or gymnastics). I wish I had been taught to love the act of learning music in addition to playing it, instead of dreading having to sit on the piano bench for twenty minutes a day going over scales and attempting to master a piece I couldn't care less about. Maybe then I wouldn't have given it up...maybe.

Listening to this child and their repetitive bowing and butchering of this song to joy, I wanted to go over and tell them: "Pause your playing. Set your bow down. Close your eyes. Breathe. Hold your violin in your hands and gently feel its every curve. Run your fingers over its strings, noticing the differences in thickness. Trace the line of the holes. This instrument, its parts, were created to make beautiful sounds. Your song was written as an expression of praise. Do not rush in playing the notes. It isn't about the notes. It's about the sound they make, the sound you make with each stroke of your bow. Play a song, not the notes. Allow your instrument to sing."

I did not do this. I don't know how it would have been received if I had. But it made me think of how often we go through life wanting to appear masterful of the things we do (or how we can hide the things we don't do so well). We are not always so openly committed to learning -- to finding the joy in learning itself. We are perfectionists and task oriented in our pursuits. 

We are at the precipice of a new year (less than 12 hours from now, in fact). How many of us will carry over resolutions to do better in some aspect of our lives? How many of us will abandon them before the first month is over? (According to this source new year's resolutions last longer than six months for less than half of those studied.) And yet, we keep making them, subconsciously expecting overnight results, not recognizing the process often involved in creating new habits and achieving new goals. We do this with expectation and persistence, and maybe hopefulness, but hardly ever joy. We are determined to master the notes, but not to play, not to sing.

Five years ago, I wrote another piece on how I was no longer making resolutions. Instead, I would come up with a theme each year to reflect on and how it related to what was happening (or maybe even what should happen) in my life. Sometimes this has worked out well, and other times it doesn't seem to have made that much of a difference. I'll sometimes forget the theme I have come up with for the year, though this is not always a bad thing. Still, the purpose is to set an intention.

My theme from 2018 was "let go." There was no way for me to know how much this would come into play this year. Not long after the year started, I lost a family member to suicide. I've since come to terms with his death, but it still involved having to let go of someone before I was ready. I also had to give my cousin's cat, whom I loved dearly, back to her, which was a separation I already knew would happen but was no less painful. I had to let go of some of my emotional protections and experience vulnerability with people I could trust in order to allow myself to be fully seen and loved. These are just a few of the examples for how this theme has come into play. I'm sure there were others, but I won't name them here.

I thought I had my theme for next year already figured out. It was small and simple, just a single word: Seek. However, upon reflecting on my recent encounter at the laundromat, I've decided to add one more word to it. Joy. Seek joy. 

The intention is not to only seek that which gives pleasure, or to seek to be happy every day. In a world of so much darkness, doubt, deceitfulness, viciousness, and violence, it seems counter-intuitive and maybe even naive or futile to have such a theme. But how are we to have hope if we cannot have joy? I am a believer in social movements, grassroots organizing (and not just for electoral campaigns), the power of the masses, etc. I know it takes real work for the world to change, and often the work of those who have certain social privileges, such as myself. However, the work means nothing if there is no joy. Burnout, discouragement, apathy, and compassion fatigue all become inevitable without it. The work becomes only notes, but not a song. 

I do not know how this year will turn out. There is sure to be tragedy, periods of darkness, moments of doubt and disappointment, occasions of violence, injustice, disaster, etc. as there is every year. And there will likely be periods of monotony and dullness, too -- days where tasks take priority, busy-ness ensues, and time passes without thought or awareness. This is to be expected because it's life. But it isn't the full picture, either. 

My hope is that running through and underneath all of it -- the tears and disappointment, the monotony and dullness -- there is a song, a hymn of praise. For the light of day each morning, for the love felt by others and the Divine love which surrounds us, for the opportunity for connections, growth, and change; for the simple gift of breath. There is joy to be found, even in times of darkness, if we attempt to seek it. 

May we all seek joy and come to live our lives as a song. 

Home

You felt like home
And every day without you
Has made me homesick.