everything will change

we'll give ourselves new names...

I kinda want my old name back.
There is something missing in me that I cannot put my finger on. I've vaguely heard its echoes and sensed the void of its presence, and though I cannot name it, I know when I lost it. This something flew the coop last year, post-disaster, when I realized that things on which I had previously counted to be stable were indeed quite shakable. And the epicenter was my soul.

Before then my eyes were cloudy, sheltered from a measure of the darkness of this temporal world. And though the clouds have been removed, I feel like I have been given scales to replace them.

Shawn said, "Someday this will be ten years ago." I had to remind myself every hour of the day:

"It is a new day."
and
"Breathe."

Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side,
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide,
In every change He faithful will remain.

We'll give ourselves new names.
The sun will heat the ground under our bare feet in this brand new colony


Shalom

"Cigarettes," or "Back in my Early Twenties"

I'm in an over-priced hotel on the Tex-Mex border for a "business trip." I ate some crappy Tex-Mex border food tonight. Then I walked to HEBplus! to get staple fruits and yogurt for the week. It was 96 degrees and I was sweaty.
Xanga sent me an email saying they missed me. Of course we all like to know we're loved and missed, so I went on my old site and read up on 'me.' I wrote this silly little bit long, long ago and I enjoyed re-reading it for humor (it's quite laughable. Notice my stretching and grasping at depth and maturity...oh, we are yet children) and history's sake. Please, enjoy it too.


It's cold. This cigarette doesn't really warm me. [Maybe when it gets closer to the filter] "Camel Light- Turkish Domestic Blend" --an attempt at glamour when the whole concept is anything but glamorous. Why did I ever even start smoking?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "smoker," not a-pack-a-day-er or anything. I'm too health conscious for that. But not so health conscious that I don't smoke occasionally. I'm pretty sure it started as an attempt to be cooler than I was. We do a lot of things with the motive of trying to be cooler than we are. I mean we Americans. I can't speak to other cultures, although I do think the phenomenon is probably worldwide- or at least among developed nations. Maybe?

It was because of a crush I'm pretty sure. The smoking, that is. He was very attractive, and cooler than about everyone I had known so far in my days of youth group and concert choir. -ha ha. Anyway, the guy was impressed [with the smoking] and we became friends. But he turned out to be not nearly as cool as he looked. I hate that. It's a whole lot easier to seem cool than to actually be cool and this can be very deceiving. And he was. It took me two years to realize just how much his looks and apparent cool didn't correspond to his actual [un]cool.


If you're looking to find a cool person [and I don't mean in order to hang out with cool people to make you appear cooler- those of you trying to boost your cool-by-association status] but if you're really wanting to be friends with someone cool, I recommend searching for someone very unassuming looking. You sort of have to go the opposite direction- going up to get down and vice versa. Plainness could be a good indicator. Expensive clothes and an awesome haircut are not.

I know two truly cool people and neither one of them give a shit about looking cool according to the standards of their peers. And they are some of the only cool people I know. And they are pretty damn cool. And they both smoke.


So I guess the moral of the story is only smoke if you're really trying to be unhealthy, but only try to be unhealthy if you're not trying to be cool. Then you'll really be cool.




I'm glad we grow up and change -some faster and some slower than others. Sometimes we need a reminder of previously learned but forgotten truths. I [too]often find, in the middle of some life lesson, that I can recall going through this stuff before...'hmm, maybe I should pay attention this time' ... I am glad we grow up and change. And I am glad for the 'me' that I was (the silly little girl who thought she was clever, trying to be a woman-- a child whom I quite often still reflect) when I wrote these few paragraphs of paltry prating.


Here's a modified moral of the story: I think I'll join the bandwagon and quit smoking.

Shalom

Things are pretty much the same here:

always changing. But oh, there is nothing new under the sun!

Ellie and I dug, tilled, mixed, smoothed, and planted a garden at the new house. Thus far, baby tomato, pepper and cauliflower transplants thrive with many brothers and sisters soon to join them.

I retreat to the swing on the farm today reading from Wendell Berry's Sabbath Poems. The beloved cottonwood above me now blocks out most of my view of the sky with her recent spring plumage-- green buds ripen to bring a shower of feathery cotton in attempt to continue her kind after her death.

The ewes crowd to the mangers;
Their bellies widen, sag;
their udders tighten. Now
The little voices cry
In morning cold. And now
the garden must be worked,
Laid off in rows, the seed
Of life to come brought down
Into the dark to rest,
Abide a while alone,
And rise. Soon, soon again
the cropland must be plowed,
For the year's promise now
Answers the year's desire,
Its hunger and its hope.
This goes against the time
When food is bought, not grown.

When I am still and quiet enough, the patterns of life emerge. Continuous cyclical change characterizes the course of all created things. What is new will be old, what is born will die and take its Sabbath rest in the earth. Where there is death and decay, even destruction at the hand of us beasts, new life will come. All things die in ways large and small, actual and metaphoric. All things pass. This is sure and trustworthy. Am I to fear this inevitable passing? Surely the answer is no! This is great reason to rejoice and hope! All things come to pass, and all things pass to come.

Don't you see? Here we glimpse the future. That of which we have read, of which we hope, long, and for which we know we were made-- the anticipated, impending, glorious future, the Kingdom which is just beyond the horizon, is also at hand. At hand in these metaphors of God’s creation. All for which we wait is coming, is certain... is here.

Bring it to life- live it into existence.

The bud swells,
Opens, makes seed, falls, is well,
Being becoming what it is:
Miracle and parable
Exceeding thought, because it is

Immeasurable; the understander
Encloses the understanding, thus
Darkens the light. We can stand under
No ray that is not diminished by us.

The mind that comes to rest is tended
In ways that it cannot intend:
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended
By what it cannot comprehend.

Your Sabbath, Lord, thus keeps us by
Your will, not ours. And it is fit
Our only choice should be to die
Into that rest, or out of it.

Shabbat Shalom

All things come full circle

Pertinent observations in these transitional days (and what days aren't?):

1. Today's date, March 15th, marks spring planting here in this southern temperate zone.
2. All frost, in reasonable hypothesis, is waiting now until November.
3. The organic material remnants from last year's abundant harvest now enrich the earth in their decay. (Death smells so sweet when it is of plant life. Go for a walk in the woods, dig about 1/2 an inch below the surface debris to the first soft soil and tiny bits of leaves and scoop some up. Then smell it with your eyes closed. )
4. Growth has crept in so gradually and now I anticipate it's inevitable bursting forth upon God's ready ground.

A friend reminded me so gracefully in a recent time of painful self-discovery and spiritual development, that all things have their season.

Now I further that message of truth and hope:

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.

All you saints, Shalom.

oh the times they are

a-changin'.

We've had several new folks arrive at the farm. One, Amy, is a kindred and we share a sink/shower. In her I've found a peacefulness and I know I've been lifted up. Gabe and I share ideas/interests and spent all morning pulling up carrots. With the others I have yet to well acquaint myself.

I'm considering the future and trying not to fight the harsh and wonderful reality that it is wrapped up in mystery.
I'm considering the beauty that is this gift of the present moment. this present moment. rather than longing for that which came before or that which will come (JMB/sud/glory)
And I'm considering forsaking all thought toward tomorrows, but I have not the strength or will to do so with success.
I'm considering the difference between following and admiring and seeking to become that which I admire.
I'm considering community service. He lived in, He came to.

I'm considering contentment
I'm considering peace