What Hinders

When my neighbor-friend spotted me, he was finishing a run along the Hudson river and I?  I was balanced precariously on some slippery rocks by the water's edge, holding a dinner roll in my hand.

"Hey! Welcome back!" he said, referencing my recent return from vacation.

"Hey! I'm back!" I said, before awkwardly stating the obvious, "I have some bread!" and continuing with a half-truth, "I'm going to throw it in the water!"

"Ok, well...cool. I'm sure the ducks will love it." (generous on his part; there were no ducks in sight)

We made plans to catch up over sushi later, and he continued on his run. I sat down on a flat rock and did what I had come to the river to do, the thing that had seemed too complicated to fully explain: the annual ritual of tashlich.

Tashlich (Hebrew for "you will throw / cast off") usually occurs on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Technically, I was a day early in practice on that Sunday afternoon, but I'm sure the rabbis would be willing to overlook my timing error. Especially in light of the fact that I AM NOT JEWISH. And am therefore not bound to observe this ritual in any way, in the slightest.

Therein lay my hesitation in explaining to my neighbor-friend just what I was doing with a dinner roll clutched in my hand.  Just what was I doing with a dinner roll clutched in my hand??

* * *

Sometimes I'll co-opt Jewish traditions or holidays (say, Passover or Hannukah) under the guise that because Jesus celebrated them, so should I.  The origins of tashlich, however, are unclear: most likely it's a medieval practice; even if it dates earlier, we still have no textual evidence that Jesus ever participated in the ritual.

And I, as a non-Jew, have no real reason to participate either.

Except that I like tashlich.  I just really like it.

There are many takes on tashlich, the most basic being that the bread represents your sin, and by throwing the bread into the water, you are symbolically casting off sin.  Then you can observe how the water carries your sin away - much like God does.

My own take on tashlich focuses more on the new year aspect of Rosh Hashanah - a letting-go of the past.  Yes, the sin, but also the hurts sustained, the discouragement, the tears.  The stuff that can weigh you down if you drag it from one year to the next.  And meditating on a God who can make all things new, who can really, truly wipe the slate clean, who says, "You don't have to carry all this by yourself anymore."

So thinking on all that - that's what I was doing with a dinner roll clutched in my hand.

But sometimes, it's just easier to let people think you're feeding the ducks.

* * * 

"As I cast this bread upon the waters

Lift my troubles off my shoulders.

Help me to know that last year is over,

washed away like crumbs in the current.

Open my heart to blessing and gratitude

Renew my soul as the dew renews the grasses. 

And we say together: Amen."

(Source)

Both, At Once

The Reservoir at dusk

My Hebrew teacher is telling me about a friend of hers - a guy she went to college with - who has been battling cancer for nearly 10 years. She just found out that he's coming home soon from the NYU hospital, hospice has been called, the battle is ending.

She is shaken up about it, as one would expect. I know that feeling - the sadness coupled with helplessness. I have no words of wisdom, but we sit and shake our heads and frown about it for awhile.

Then she asks if I read the Sunday Style section (and I have to admit that I'm a spotty Times reader at best), because there was a big announcement recently for a wedding she will be attending. She shows me the invitation that arrived in the mail: it's the fanciest, poshest one I've ever seen.  Etchings, embossing - the thing is a work of art.

As I pick up each piece of it, feeling the weight of expensive paper between my fingers, she points out the list of wedding events. The rehearsal dinner at Per Se (say what!? holy canape!), the morning ceremony, the evening dinner downtown, the next morning's good-bye brunch. The dress code is listed below each event, and it is not casual.

"I'll have to buy a new cocktail dress for this thing," she says. "My friend is dying of cancer, and I have to go dress shopping. I mean...you know?"

I do. I tell her how, when a friend was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, it was about this time of year. I had needed to buy some seasonally-appropriate shoes for work, so I stopped at a shoe store on the way home from work that evening.  But I couldn't shop.  I just stood there, staring at the displays, thinking, "This is dumb. This is so dumb. I need to buy shoes, but Bridget will never need to buy shoes again. How can I be buying shoes at a time like this?  But I need to buy shoes. This is dumb."

The thing about death is that life doesn't stop for it. It often feels like it should, but it doesn't. There are still happy weddings to attend, there are new seasons that won't be held up. It's a weird disconnect, a troubling tension to navigate.

"Joy and tears," my teacher sighs, "Well, what are we gonna do?  Let's read the bible."

And so we do, as that's our purpose for gathering each week. We pick through two chapters of Isaiah, teasing out the English meaning from the Hebrew letters on the page. We start with Isaiah 55 (a personal fave) and end with chapter 56. We read beautiful imagery about renewal, and it's mixed in with stark prophecy about the sorry state of things. Good and bad, hope and destruction, flip-flopping within chapters.  And though we look for it - there's no easy resolution to be found.  Sometimes it's just both, at once.

Memphis As Metaphor

Ceiling of the Shubert Theater

My parents were in town last weekend - a fun visit involving the requisite city activities: dinners out, a trip to a museum, a walk in Central Park, and a Broadway show.

We caught a matinee of Memphis, which was good and made me want to sign up for a dance class and buy dresses with crinolines, ASAP.  Memphis tells the story of a 1950's DJ - a white man living in the segregated South - who works to get "race music" it's due play-time on mainstream radio stations.  There are some great blues, rock and gospel tunes throughout the show and, as the plot progresses, we see this very music build a bridge between the divided races while simultaneously tearing down the walls that stood between them.  A little romance and a few group dance scenes also do their part to ease racial tension.

Over-simplified and a little hokey?  Sure.  But it's Broadway.  Don't tell me you don't love it.

And I'll admit to getting a little emotional at certain points during the show - like when those crazy teenagers met on common ground to sing the same song.  It may have been overly sentimental, but the underlying sentiment was still beautiful enough to bring a few tears to my eyes.  (Just a few - you know - in a classy, restrained sort of way.)

* * *

A few days later, after my parents headed home and I headed back to my beige cubicle, I came across these words somewhere's on the internet:

"Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next."

-Frederick Buechner

What do you think about that?

I think (if you wanna know) that ol' Buech might have something there.  And I wonder if those tears I fought in the Shubert Theater weren't just a natural product of a mushy musical, but maybe also pointed to a more innate, deep-seated interest.  Reconciliation - even a fictionalized version played out on stage - is a beautiful thing.  The promise and realization of it makes me cry, and maybe that's something to remember, something to take as a summons, as I sort through the mystery of lech lecha and search out what's next.

To Yourself, Again

Looking down W. 44th Street

Back in December, a friend and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at Discovery - Times Square.  "More than a museum" is their tag-line, and the first part of the exhibit was definitely more of an experience than your typical museum set-up.

We arrived at the time appointed on our tickets and were ushered into a small black room.  The door closed behind us; the lights dimmed.  Written on the surrounding black walls in white lettering was a quote from the Book of Genesis - in Hebrew on one wall and in English on another.  The quotes were alternatively lit by a spotlight as a recording of a woman's voice read first the Hebrew and then the English translation.  The verse was Genesis 12:1:

"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.'"

That word "go" in the Hebrew is "lech lecha" which I've talked about before.  "Lech" is the command - go!  And "lecha" means "to yourself."  Go to yourself.  It's a funny construction, and not used very often in the Bible.  I know of only two occasions - here, when Abraham is called to leave behind the known for the unknown.  And later in the book of Genesis, when Abraham is called to - essentially - sacrifice his earthly hope for the future and trust in God instead.

Go to yourself.  What does that mean?  I've been wondering ever since I learned the Hebrew.  Go to yourself.  And why does this phrase keep cropping up in my life?  I've been wondering that, too.

After a few minutes in the small black room, a different set of doors opened and we were herded into a space that was supposed to invoke Qumran and the Dead Sea: stones on the floor, large clay pots on pedestals, screens showing video footage of Israel, and an actor (dressed like every archaeologist I've ever seen in the movies) posed upon a big rock, ready to tell us more.

From there we moved into a third space, a long gallery filled with objects on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority.  Beyond that lay the star of the show - small shards of the Dead Sea Scrolls, displayed under magnifying glass.

As we wandered through the exhibit, we got farther and farther from the small black room where we started.  But for a long time, over the muffled conversations of my fellow exhibit-goers, I could still hear that recorded voice reading the Genesis quote.  "Lech lecha"...."lech lecha"..."lech lecha."

And I thought, "I hear you.  I promise I hear you."

* * *

Except I then promptly forgot about it, until recently.  Until Tuesday evening, actually, when - after our regularly-scheduled Hebrew class - my teacher asked her semi-regular questions: "When are you going back to school?  And when are you going to Israel?"

This time, though, it wasn't a passing comment, it wasn't idly or teasingly spoken.  "No seriously, when are you going?"  She followed it up with kind words about what she see's in me, offered to reach out to her contacts in Israel, wanted to press me on the issue.  "Think about it."

So I'm thinking about it.  I'm thinking about how it felt to leave an inter-faith service a few weeks ago - walking slowly out into the drizzly evening, knowing (deep in my knower) that there was something there, something about engaging in that subject, in that dialogue, that runs my motor.  I'm thinking about grad school - it didn't seem "right" five years ago, but maybe something's changed?  I'm thinking about how this dialogue - Jews & Christians learning together, studying shared texts together, drawing parallels and finding commonalities while not glossing over differences - always strikes me as the most beautiful sort of poetry.  I'm thinking about how often I've thought about this, how I can't seem to escape it (and I have tried).

I'm thinking about all that, and the driving conundrum behind it: lech lecha - what it means to go to myself and how then shall I do it?

Voices

Self-portrait. Kinda.

From Henri Nouwen's Bread for the Journey:

"The Still, Small Voice of Love 

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, “Prove that you are a good person.” Another voice says, “You’d better be ashamed of yourself.” There also is a voice that says, “Nobody really cares about you,” and one that says, “Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.” 

But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, “You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.” That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen. 

That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us “my Beloved.”"

All other goals aside, this is maybe my most fervent heart-hope for this winter season. Or, really, year. Or, really, life.  To determinedly seek that solitude and silence necessary to hear that still, small voice.  To stop listening to the "you should be's" and pay closer attention to the "you already are's."

Making Space

Grand Central Station

I quit one of my Improv groups on Friday.

It wasn't an easy decision. The guys in the group have become like brothers to me: encouraging, loyal, and protective.  And lately our practices have been going so well - things have really been gel-ing and coming together and we've been laughing a lot.

But I've been re-evaluating things recently.  My schedule in particular.

I was expecting a certain piece of heart-ache to come along (which it did) and I knew my knee-jerk reaction would be to fill up my schedule.  To supplant this loss with a million new distractions.

It occurred to me, though, that being busy would not be a new thing.  Being extremely busy has become my status quo over the past few years.  I know from busy. 

What would be new - what would be a radical departure - would be to not be busy.

* * *

I've also been recently mulling over a chapter in the book of Isaiah.  Verse 43:19 in particular.

That's where God says, "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."

I think this verse got stuck in my head initially because it sounds hopeful.  God does new things?  Yes, great.  I love new things.

But then I began to wonder, "If God were to do a new thing in my life right now, would I be able to see it?" If God were to want to shake things up and move me in a different direction, would I have space in my life - in my schedule - to recognize this? 

Now. I know God can speak as easily in loud thunder as he can in quiet whispers.  So the question isn't really whether God could get my attention, given my current schedule.  Sure, he could.  But the question is: would I have space in my life to respond?

I sensed the answer was "no."  I barely have time to respond to emails. I rarely have time to go to the grocery store.  I definitely don't have time for silence, stillness, responsiveness.

And so I'm starting to make time, to make space.  We'll see what happens.

The Road Ahead

Pilgrims in Portomarin, Spain

During my fourth year of college, I was required to take a seminar for my Religious Studies major. Several seminars were offered, but I chose to take one called "American Religious Autobiography." Not out of burning interest for the subject, but because it was taught by one of my favorite professors, a woman with whom I had taken two previous classes. 

I pretty much thought she was the *coolest*.  She was one of few professors I encountered in the Religion department who actually had a personal faith.  Sometimes she wore cowboy boots to class.  Once she brought in a guitar, and sang "Little Boxes" to 250 of us gathered in the lecture hall.  Her son was named "Benedict," after Saint Benedict and his Rule.  She was irreverant and sarcastic and approachable and caring. The *coolest.*

In the Autobiography seminar, we were assigned Thomas Merton's The Sign of Jonas, and during the discussion on Merton's life and writing, this professor passed out postcards with the following prayer printed on them.

I still have that postcard (...somewhere...) and I go back to this prayer periodically throughout my life.  It gives me a lot of comfort.  It's my go-to prayer when I don't know what/how else to pray.

Just thought I'd share today :)

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

Lech Lecha

Grant's Tomb

My Hebrew teacher invited me to attend a class last night at a local study center, where a rabbi was leading a course on the parashat ha’shavua (weekly Torah portion). My teacher couldn’t stop raving about this rabbi’s skills, his ‘encyclopedic knowledge,’ and both the literary and spiritual approaches he took to the texts. I decided to check it out.

He was indeed impressive – speaking for an hour and a half on one chapter of Genesis, without notes or supporting documents. He casually threw out inter-textual references, midrash correlations, and the Ramban’s commentary as easily as one might recall what they had for lunch that day. (Me? Turkey sandwich. You?)

It just so happens that the parsha for this week was Lech Lecha, the story of how God calls Abram to “Go forth from your land…to the land that I will show you.” After the class ended, I told my teacher how this passage keeps popping up in my life lately.

The idea of Lech Lecha (literally translated: go to yourself) was one that I had chosen to meditate on while doing my pilgrimage walk in Spain last month. When my walk ended in Santiago, I attended a pilgrim’s vigil at the cathedral there. The officiating priest, Padre Ricardo, asked participants to read parts of the liturgy aloud and he called on me to read the Old Testament scripture. Which passage? Lech Lecha.

Riverside Church

My teacher responded, as she does every couple of months, “Ok, now, I don’t want to “Jewish Mother” you, but…when are you going to go to seminary?” She knows I was considering it, way back when, and she knows I’ve left the issue tabled for the last several years, wrapped in indecision and a vague sense of of “well, maybe, some day.”

What she doesn’t know, though, is that lately the consideration has cropped up again. Last week I visited a church that meets in the chapel of a nearby theological school. And as I walked through those halls, I was struck by a loud, persistent wondering – “Why??” Why am I not in school? Why am I not studying this subject matter in a more structured way? Why am I not pursuing this?

(Unfortch I heard no answers. Just the questions.)

As we left the study center last night and headed towards Broadway, my Hebrew teacher said, “Well, think about it. Because I think you have a teacher inside of you. Maybe that’s part of your lech lecha.”

I could have cried (because I’m a girl; it’s what we do) but instead I said, “Well, maybe, some day.”

Maybe. Some day.

Pilgrims in the Mist

My second morning of walking

On the road to Portomarin

I have edited a grand total of one (1) Spain picture, and you're looking at it.  More to come, along with my thoughts on the whole experience.

But for now - here are some thoughts from someone much wiser than myself:

“Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. 

Audacious longings, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind - these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell.” 

 (Abraham Joshua Heschel, from Man is Not Alone)

Ashes to Ashes

(Taken Autumn, 2009)

I went to an Ash Wednesday service yesterday at Riverside Church.  How have I managed to live in this city for >5 years and never attend a service at Riverside Church??  Not sure.  But glad to have corrected that omission last night.

Riverside is historic.  The current building was partially funded by John D. Rockefeller.  Martin Luther King spoke there.  Mary Travers' memorial service was held there.  It's beautiful - inside and out.

On a holiday that focuses on repentance and mortality, it was nice (and by 'nice,' I mean 'helpful') to sit in Riverside's cavernous sanctuary and feel small.  Small under the yawning ceiling of that big church, which itself is small in comparison to the looming skyscrapers of the big city outside, which itself is toy-sized to our great God. 

Sometimes feeling small is a comfort.

Inside & Out
December Photo Project Day #16

Lansky's, on Columbus Ave

The headline "Crime Fighting Priest" caught my attention on CNN.com today, but it was the location of the story - Youngstown, Ohio - that kept me reading until the end.  Youngstown is where my family comes from - where my mother grew up, where my father went to school.  And from all accounts over the last few years (decades?), it's become a scary place to live.

The article tells of a parish priest who, frustrated by senseless crime in the Youngstown neighborhood surrounding his church, takes to the streets to do something about it.   Currently he is petitioning the city to tear down nearby abandoned properties - vacant houses that have been used by criminals, abused by arsonists, and generally contribute to the unsafe climate and impoverished atmosphere of the neighborhood. 

What I found most interesting about this article, and about this crime-fighting priest, is that apparently urban flight, unemployment, poverty and crime aren't the biggest challenges that Father Maturi is facing:

"Surprisingly, with crime and murder happening right outside his front door, Maturi says battling the hopelessness among his parishioners and the community is his toughest fight yet.

'My biggest problem is not fear of being attacked by gangs or whatever. My biggest problem is keeping people from falling into despair and becoming cynical,' he said. 'That is a tougher fight than a physical fight.'

By putting such a public face on a dangerous battle, some now fear Maturi has also put a target on himself. But almost like a superhero in the comic book, Maturi quickly responds, 'That may well be the case, but that's not going to slow me down...This is why I became a priest. This is what a priest does.'"

I love Father Maturi's holistic approach: while working to have the city tear down physical walls on vacated lots, he's also working on tearing down the metaphorical ones in his parishioners' hearts.  I think the church has often failed to strike this balance in the past, instead swinging too far towards one extreme - addressing either this world or the world to come, focusing on either social justice or spiritual revival.

But what good is fixing the outside if the inside remains broken, and vice versa? Rather than an either/or approach, physical and spiritual needs should be given equal weight and addressed together.  After all, there's often an important interplay between the two.

In Youngstown, perhaps Father Maturi's outward actions in bravely tackling crime will foster inward responses amongst his parishioners, melting cynicism and giving them reason to believe things could be different.

I don't know.  But I hope for them.

For me, too.

Some Days


Some days, when you are busy and focused on other things, you feel ok with this stage of life. You paint it with colored words like “exciting” and “audacious” and “full of possibilities.” On those days, being alone is not “lonely” - it’s “beautiful” and “romantic” (in a wistful, emo-drama, Emily Dickinson kind of way). You do a-ok.

But some days, that perspective gets lost and being alone just hurts. It’s ugly, and it’s hard to accept, hard to sit with, wishing (as you do) that there was something that could just be done about it. It all feels impossible, or at least improbable. You think about addicts going through withdrawal and wonder if that’s in any (small) way like what you feel now – creepy-crawly skin and an inability to sit still.

Luckily, these days are not the majority of your some days. And when they arrive – unwelcomed – you keep busy until you run out of busyness. Then you grab a paperback novel and some sunglasses. You go and sit on a bench by the river and you pretend to read, but really you’re just breathing. In and out, repeat.

Your mind races and you dabble in bad theology, wondering why God has it out for you. You cry a little; that’s what the sun glasses are for. You hope the passing roller-bladers and bicyclists don’t notice your trickling tears. They don’t. (Listen, girly: Think you’re the first person ever to sit on a bench by the river, shedding sorrow? Nope.)

And so you sit, and sit, and sit. And you breathe your way back to an even keel. And this is how you pass the afternoon, because sometimes the only thing to be done is to pass time. And time will pass. And bad theology will recess. And anxiety fades. And eventually you pick yourself and that paperback novel up off the bench and start walking.

That’s just how some days go.

(Hypothetically speaking.)


Yahrzeit #2

A River in Indiana

I don't have words or insights or even well-formed thoughts to share.  No morals or messages or conclusions.

But I was thinking about you today, because it's been two years now that you've been gone.

And I still find that hard to believe, and I still don't understand.  And sometimes I still break down - at unexpected times and, invariably, in inconvenient locations - when I think about how cancer came like a quick, ugly thief and stole you.

I'm also still so in awe of how you handled it: with faith, hope, and love. I hope I never get complacent about what I witnessed.  I don't want to not be changed by it.

Two years later.  You are still my hero.

Drum Lines & Detachment

I dig this video for OK Go’s song, “This Too Shall Pass.” Does it make you happy? It makes me happy.

Maybe because I, too, was in a marching band. Once upon a time. Back in high school. Did I ever tell you that? Yup, it’s true. I unabashedly loved marching band.

(Although if I was really so unabashed about it, would I bother to point out that I was unabashed? Wouldn’t I just tell you “I loved it”? So maybe I am a bit abashed. Nevertheless – I loved it. Truly.)

Watching this video brought back some fond memories. Our band wore purple jackets and white hats, kinda-sorta like they wear in the video. Only we didn’t have spats nor plumes. Because we were more sophisticated than that. Yup - sophisticated.

I was drawn to this video by the marching band (and because I love a good OK Go video), but I stayed for the song’s refrain: Let it go. This too shall pass. When the morning comes.

All thoughts I’ve been trying to embrace lately.

Despite the Heat It'll Be All Right

Church doors on E. 22nd Street

It was hot (h-o-t) at church on Sunday. Well, it was hot everywhere in the city, but it seemed especially so in the un-airconditioned auditorium where my church meets. As I had to be there early (to help set up) and stay a little bit afterwards (to help break down), it made for a very sticky 2.5 hours. I picked a seat strategically near a fan and sipped on iced coffee during the sermon. I have summer strategies, you see.

During the passing of the peace (mid-service) I stood in a group of four, as we talked idly about the heat and fanned ourselves with our church bulletins. I always feel very “southern lady” when I fan myself with a church bulletin.

And I am always reminded of that line from To Kill A Mockingbird, comparing southern ladies in the summer to “soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.” I don’t know what it is about that line, but it’s been lodged in my brain since seventh-grade English class. I guess it just paints a good and true picture. (Also, I love alliteration.)

Towards the end of the service it was time to take communion, so I peeled myself off my chair and went forward to help serve. Our church is small, so I know a fair percentage of peoples' names. As people came forward, I extended the communion cup towards them, personalizing the offering when I could: "Lou, the blood of Christ, shed for you." and "Sue, the blood of Christ, shed for you." and so on. Extend the cup, let them drink, receive the cup back, repeat.

After awhile, Max approached. I would say that he 'walked,' but Max never seems to just 'walk.' He is a singer and a dancer and an artist - he ‘moves,’ he is ‘in motion,’ but he never just ‘walks.’

After receiving the communion bread first, he moved in front of me. I extended the cup towards him and said, "Max, the blood of Christ, shed for you."

He took the cup from me, and paused. "Really?" he asked.

I wasn’t expecting a question. I’ve never before gotten a question when serving communion. Just extend, drink, receive, repeat. But Max wasn’t on auto-pilot on that sticky hot Sunday. He may have been in motion, but he wasn’t just going through the motions. I had said weighty words, and he was about to do a weighty thing, this taking of communion. So he paused and asked that important question.

And I smiled and answered, "Yes, really."

Because - yes. Really. The blood of Christ, shed for you.

This Tricky Plan

East Quogue, The Hamptons

I was recently reminded (via Trish Ryan's "40 Days of Faith" project) of "The Wood Song," by the Indigo Girls.

Listening to this song again took me on a trippy trip back to high school, when Swamp Ophelia was in constant rotation on my stereo (I had it on cassette tape, 'cause I'm old like that).  Funny how a piece of music can connect you so quickly and viscerally to a point of time in the past.

I remember liking "The Wood Song" (IG's trademark harmonies are so prettily employed throughout it) but it was overshadowed by my love for other songs on that album - "Power of Two" and "Least Complicated" in particular.  Those songs spoke louder to me, back then.

Now though, when I listen to "The Wood Song," the lyrics hit me in a new way.  And they seem so true and beautiful.  The Girls are singing about the courage it takes to face a journey where the outcome is unknown or uncertain, where we don't always get answers to our questions.  They acknowledge that growth is often a result of weathering life's storms, rather than avoiding them.

A nice reminder.  A great song.  Here are some of the lyrics (in case you'd forgotten like I had):


From The Wood Song, by The Indigo Girls

No way construction of this tricky plan
Was built by other than a greater hand
With a love that passes all our understanding
Watching closely over the journey

But what it takes to cross the great divide
Seems more than all the courage I can muster up inside
But we get to have some answers when we reach the other side
The prize is always worth the rocky ride

But the wood is tired and the wood is old
And we'll make it fine if the weather holds
But if the weather holds then we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go

Sometimes I ask to sneak a closer look
Skip to the final chapter of the book
And then maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took
To get us where we are this far

But the question drowns in its futility
And even I have got to laugh at me
No one gets to miss the storm of what will be
Just holding on for the ride

The wood is tired and the wood is old
We'll make it fine if the weather holds
But if the weather holds we'll have missed the point
That's where I need to go

Much More

Liliana Porter's mosaic in the 50th Street subway station

Question: Have you seen the latest “Alice In Wonderland” movie?

If ‘yes,’ good. Because I’m going to make a few references to it.

If ‘no,’ feel free to keep reading anyways. I won’t give anything important away.

But if you’d rather not hear about the movie before you've seen it, please stop reading and watch Zach Galifianakis’ recent SNL monologue instead.

Now for the rest of you's, let's continue...

And the World Spins Madly On


The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

If you have five free minutes, you might enjoy watching this video.  I know I did.  In addition to the photography being uber-nifty (info on the film-maker's technique here), it was just plain good for me to see New York from a different vantage point.¹

So often, I run back and forth in the same rut - keeping to the same neighborhoods, the same streets, the same train lines.  I can't tell you the last time I was down in the Financial District or Little Italy, or up in Harlem.  I know it's been a long, long time since I caught a glimpse of those heliports and water taxis, not to mention that handball court and baseball diamond you see in the video.

It was good for me to see all of that stuff, to be reminded that New York is a big town with a lot going on - even if I don't often have the opportunity to witness each and every thing.

It was good for me to lift my head out of my daily rut routine and remember that just because I don't see things happening, doesn't mean they aren't happening.  I haven't seen the Statue of Liberty in awhile, but it doesn't mean she isn't still standing watch in the harbor.  Obviously.

But to extrapolate that thought to a spiritual plane - just because I don't see God working, doesn't mean he isn't working on my behalf, moving mountains outside of my periphery, pulling strings behind the scenes, orchestrating things beyond my comprehension.

And therein lies the test of faith - I may not see, and I may not feel, God moving in my life right now, but I'll try to believe that he is.  If New York never stops, never slows, never sleeps - how much more so can I trust that God doesn't either?

"Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake." -Victor Hugo

¹ Fun Fact (for me): I used to spend a lot of time looking at the city from the building you see at around 2:19 in the video. See that building on the right, behind the scaffolded church?  My old office was on the 2nd floor - that's my window!

Epiphany

On my birthday, a sweet former employer wrote on my Facebook page, "Hope the year is filled with...crazy moments that make you laugh until you cry."

Quite prescient of her - just hours later I was doubled over on a South End sidewalk, nearly unable to breathe, tears streaming down my face, as the Trafmeister Jenneral told the most hilarious steak dinner story you've ever heard in your life.

Good golly, that girl is funny.

But before that, earlier in the day, I was in the North End with MadDawg. We sought refuge from the cold, huddling around a back table at Caffe Vittorio (above). And as we sat there, comforted by coffee and cannoli, I heard a familiar voice.

It was Mr. Frank Sinatra, singing an unfamiliar song on the stereo.

Now, let me tell you something (and I'm not bragging - this information is vital to understanding the gravity of the situation): I own one 4-cd boxed set, one 3-cd boxed set, two 2-cd boxed sets, and seven individual cd's (plus one Christmas album) of Ol' Blue Eyes' music. I'm no stranger to the Sinatra oeuvre.

And still - still! - the song playing in Vittorio was new to me. Never before heard. An undiscovered gem.

I thought it was a pretty swell birthday present.

And then I thought: if Frank - a mere mortal who has been gone nearly fifteen years - can still surprise me with goodness, how much more so can the living God surprise me with goodness?

Gotta remember that. Gotta really remember that in 2010.

Here's to thawing cynicism and daring to walk the scary tight rope of hope in the new year.

For All The Saints

Docks at the 79th Street Boat Basin

I went for a walk yesterday morning through Riverside Park, took an inadvertant turn, crossed under a bridge, and ended up down next to the Hudson River. I love that I live so close to a large body of water.

I kept walking and (re) discovered something else I love: creaking docks. You know the sound that docks make as they're bounced by the river waves, bolts clinking and boards creaking? It's all very nautical and lulling. I suspended my stroll and just stopped to listen for several minutes.

Then I went home; then I went to church. And there I heard sounds even sweeter than creaking & clinking docks.

It was Membership Sunday, or Covenant Entrance Day, or whichever you prefer. Several people became members and our church family got a little bigger. They lined up along the stage and - aided by a few questions from our pastor - told the rest of the congregation a little something about themselves.

I loved hearing their stories, which were all unique, and all kind of...quirky? Which means they belong, they totally fit in our family, because we are nothing if not...quirky.

Two of the new members also got baptized during the service. I tried really hard not to cry during that part, but it was a losing battle.

[Three things never fail to make me cry: this Sesame Street song*, the ending of "Sleepless in Seattle," and adult baptisms. So beautiful.]

It was a sweet Sunday morning, and by the end of the church service my heart was pretty full for this quirky band of imperfect misfits, who are a perfect fit for me.

As we sang our closing hymn, I felt more tears welling. I reflected that many, many a Sunday morning had seen me standing there with tears in my eyes - but those had all been heart-achy tears. And my tears on this Sunday were overflowing joy for the sense of belonging that the church (both local and catholic) gives to me.

I was immensely grateful to feel that shift from heart-achy to joy. Thanks to God and my group of fellow misfits.

And a heart-felt welcome to our newest saints/misfits. I was glad to hear your stories as you stood up on stage; gladder still that I'll get to watch them unfold further as we "do life together." As they say.

I considered ending with an analogy between the creaking docks and the membership service, something about how we're the docks, and we're tied to one another, and sometimes we bump into each other and make noise (discord), but ultimately we keep each other from drifting away and out to sea. But I think that may be a stretch. And life doesn't usually fit into a neat little analogy. Life is messy.

So instead I'll end with someone else's words, and a vision of life beyond the messiness:

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day:
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His Way
Alleluia! Alleluia!

*I don't know why. I really don't. But tears are guaranteed, EVERY time.