An Unlived Life

I’ve read this poem many times (and perhaps have posted it on this blog a time or two) and it always has something to say to me. Pay attention, pay attention, whisper the words in between the lines. It came to me again this morning and I’m paying attention. Maybe it has something to say to you as well?

I will not die an unlived life,
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise…

-Dawn Markova

On the Way to Sight

I’ve been working on a jigsaw puzzle, a good thing to do on a cold, late winter’s evening. It’s only a 300-piece puzzle, one that my children did, but all the pieces are so very busy that a few minutes into it I felt as if the puzzle would humiliate me, that I’d be unable to do it. I think of social media posts I’ve seen of people sharing completed 1000-piece puzzles. I could do this one, I told myself.

After the edges were in place, I got in the groove as I was filling in a hot air balloon in the top right corner. Find your way by spotting the patterns, I told myself, one pattern at a time. The bright zigzag stripes of color of the balloon. The dark blue of the waves. The cords of the sailing glider. The red streamers the children are holding. Look at the chaos of the pieces on the table but set your eyes to see. To see the patterns. To see even the hints of patterns.

Look long enough and you realize there is more to see. I used to be a cytogenetic technologist, analyzing chromosomes, a mass of black and white and gray bands on each of 46 paired chromosomes, with each pair different and sometimes differences within pairs. How is it possible, I thought at the start of that training. But you look and look and look and look, and practice, practice, practice, practice, and eventually you see each of the hundreds of bands and know exactly where they should be and when something is not as it should be. You just know.

I’ve learned this lesson so many times in the past, but it’s something I seem to need to keep learning. To trust that keeping my eyes open will eventually lead to sight. I’ve also learned that sometimes I need help seeing something right in front of me. A second pair of eyes might see the spiral in one corner of the chaos that connects to the piece I had overlooked. Just this week I read a line of prayer, something I’d read—even recited—a hundred million times, and saw it in a whole new way thanks to what someone else wrote about it.

~~~

[Photo: A space station Playmobil set that my children played with when they were little, now being enjoyed by my grandson.]

Moving Your Hand Across the Page

What is needed on mornings when you sit down to write but have no idea what to write is the simple movement of your hand across the page. Your fingers grip the pen. Up and down, up and down. Right to left and back again moves your hand. This is what writers do first and foremost: they move their pens across the page. Isn’t it true for most of us that we do motions of things over and over and nothing of note emerges, but over time or here and there in the routine movements evidence of the development of something wonderful emerges. The creation of a life, the care of other lives, an idea that changes the world in one of its teeny tiny corners, or helps a child, which indeed is changing the world. Who can know what a life faithful to its routine will affect?

~~~

[Photo: taken of stained glass window, made by the Mosaics Art Shops of Minneapolis, for the Merchant’s Bank in Winona, MN, designed in 1911 by William Purcell and George Elmslie.]

Standing in Line for Ashes

This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Maybe for you this day will be like any other. Or maybe you will go about your day but imagine a swipe of ash across your forehead. Or maybe, like me, you will go to a service, stand in line with others—likely some who are stripped bare or who carry a quiet grief or any number of everyday anxieties—and a minister or priest will make the sign of a cross on your forehead using ash from palms burned from last year’s Palm Sunday.

My friend Daniel Thomas has just released a new collection of his poetry, Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn. The poems explore how a long relationship of love is like a spiritual practice, and this exploration often comes disguised as narrative about forging streams and climbing mountains. A couple weeks ago I started reading his book and came upon the poem “Ash Wednesday.” I read it. Then read it again. And again. I closed the book and opened it and read it yet again. Please read it now yourself.

Go to this link. Read.

Then scroll to the bottom of the page and listen to Dan reading the poem. Reading and listening are two different things.

Carry the words with you and the way they made you feel into the beginning of Lent. Read and listen in imagination or anticipation of ash on your forehead, of standing in a “ragged line,” of carrying or observing “grief concealed.” 

~~~

[Photo: a field in February.]

When you don't know what to do

I have a friend—a beloved woman, some years my senior, for whom I’m so grateful—who shares her wisdom with me from time to time. Back in November, after a difficult move of my father from his apartment into assisted living, which had been preceded by a couple difficult months, she sent me an email of encouragement. She included the words of a verse from the Old Testament, the book of II Chronicles. It’s a verse I’ve long loved, but it hadn’t come to my mind in a while.

“We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

The story of the verse is that the people of Judah were surrounded by a vast enemy army and the King didn’t know what to do. So he prayed aloud a prayer that asked the Lord for help, ending with this admittance of helplessness yet a face turned toward God.

After he had prayed, someone announced he had a message from the Lord. “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s….[S]tand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.” Then the King and his people fell to their knees and worshipped God.

The next morning, the men went out to face the opposing army. Instead of taking up weapons, the King told them to sing praises to the Lord. They began, and while they sang, the Lord set ambushes for the invading army. The people of Judah were saved.

That’s the story in which this wonderful line is anchored. My story doesn’t match that story, and I’m sure yours doesn’t either. There’s no enemy invasion on my block, no need for marching out to battle or the setting of ambushes. Yet, life is complex and often heavy. I’m so glad my friend reminded me of this line. In turn, I’m passing it on to you.

“We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

~~~

[photo: polar bears at Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, Minnesota ]

Daniel Bowman's On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, & The Gifts of Neurodiversity

Daniel Bowman, associate professor of English at Taylor University, editor of Relief Journal, has written an important and captivating memoir in essays, On the Spectrum: Autism, Faith, and the Gifts of Neurodiversity (Brazos Press), about his experience as a creative writer, professor, husband, and father after receiving a diagnosis of autism at the age of 35.

Through his experiences, he guides the reader to think about autism not from a pathology model but from a paradigm of neurodiversity.

Here's the thing: Neurodiversity is real, it's not going away, and people ought to be excited about such a momentous breakthrough. We are unveiling layers of mysteries about what it means to be human....

[L]et's be curious; let's be in awe of how complex we all are. Let's get excited when the frontiers of knowledge open up even just a little. And let's be aware of what it means: that for the first time in human history, a certain group of people have a better chance to be understood and affirmed and to get what they need in order to flourish and contribute to the flourishing of the culture. That's a wonderful thing.

After reading Bowman’s book, I’ve been thinking about relationships I’ve mishandled or people I’ve misunderstood. About how easy it is to wrongly assess a person or situation—or to be wrongly assessed oneself. On The Spectrum teaches its readers about autism but it also models and calls out humility and compassion, persistence and calling, friendship and joy.

 

How Not to be Afraid: On Fear and Loving Our Neighbors and the World

When I opened How Not to be Afraid: Seven Ways to Live When Everything Seems Terrifying, by Gareth Higgins, founder and editor of The Porch (“a slow conversation about beautiful and difficult things”) I expected to discover ways to not be afraid of tornadoes or flagged biopsy findings or pink slips or out-of-control worldwide pandemics. I thought the book would deliver ways to circumvent the pounding heart or racing mind on sleepless nights. But that wasn’t exactly the book Higgins wrote.

Higgins didn’t write to describe ways to combat fear but rather to describe living in a way that is bigger than fear, a way so full of love and care for this often oh-so-scary but rich and beautiful world, that fear is dwarfed. Here’s how to take your eyes off the fear that holds you and instead open them outward, Higgins is saying on these pages.

Early in the book I was attracted to what Higgins wrote about the stories we tell ourselves:

“Stories of connection, courage, creativity, and the common good are more true but less frequently told. Given that the brain more easily recalls shocks than wisdom and notices spectacular more easily than gradual change, these better stories need to be spoken more often with more imagination. That doesn’t always mean they need to be longer. Love your neighbor as yourself is a very short story indeed, but it may contain the secret of how all life can experience its own abundance.”

As I kept turning the pages, I realized more and more that Higgins is calling his readers to attend not only to the stories we tell ourselves but to the stories each of us are helping to write for our neighbors and the world.

~~~

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