Incubating the Impossible in an Unlikely Place

Today is the Feast of the Visitation, a church festival day which has only recently become important to me. This feast day celebrates the time that Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Both women are pregnant in miraculous ways: Mary hasn't had sex, and Elizabeth is beyond her fertile years. Yet both are pregnant. Elizabeth will give birth to John the Baptist, and Mary will give birth to Jesus. For a more theological consideration of this day, see this post on my theology blog or this article by Heidi Neumark in The Christian Century.

In the churches of my younger years, we never celebrated feast days. What a loss. I love this additional calendar that circles through the year, this calendar that reminds us of what ordinary people can do.

I also find these days inspiring in so many ways. Today, let's think about what this day teaches us as we approach our creative processes.

In our age that worships fame and celebrity and insists that if they haven't come early, then what we're doing isn't worth much, this feast day reminds us that there are times when we may need to sit with our projects. It may be good if it takes months, years, or even decades to bring a project to completion. We may need periods of distance to see what we're creating with fresh eyes. It may take time for us to know what we're doing. We may need to wait for the surrounding world to be ready.

In short, when I find myself feeling despair over how long it's taken me to meet my publication goals, I remind myself that time to incubate is not bad.

I also love the idea that these two women have each other. They're both taking similar journeys through very unusual territory, and they can use support.

We live in a culture that doesn't support much in the way of creativity, unless we're harnessing our creative powers to make gobs and gobs of money. It's good to have fellow travelers. On this day, I'm offering up gratitude for all those who have given me encouragement while also working on their own projects. I'm grateful for the ways that their creativity has nourished mine.

This feast day also reminds us of the value of retreat. I love to get away on the writing retreats that I take periodically. I get so much done when I'm away from the demands of regular life. And even during those years when I return with not much done, I often have a blaze of creativity shortly after I return. Those retreats nourish me on multiple levels.

This morning, I'm feeling most inspired by the possibility of the impossible. The world tells us that so much of what we desire is just not possible. Our work will never find favor, our relationships will always disappoint, we will never truly achieve mastery over what hurts us--in short, we live in a culture that tells us we are doomed. We swim in these seas, and it's hard to avoid the pollution.

Along comes this feast day which proclaims that the not only is the impossible possible, but the impossible is already incubating in an unlikely womb. It's much too easy for any of us to say, "Who am I to think that I can do this?" The good news of this feast day is that I don't have to be the perfect one for the task. By saying yes, I have made myself the perfect one.

The world tells us of all the ways that things can go terribly wrong. We need to remember that often we take the first steps, and we get more encouragement than we expected. God or the universe or destiny, however you think of it, meets us more than halfway.

Today is a good day to think of all the times we've been afraid to take those first steps, those projects and dreams to which we've said no. Maybe it's time to go back and say yes. It's not too late. As long as there is breath in our bodies, it is not too late.

So today, on this feast day that celebrates unlikely miracles, let's practice saying yes. For one day, let's quiet the negative voices that shout at us. Today, let us try to remember all of the dreams we might have discarded as improbable, impossible. Nourish all the possibilities. Let's choose one possibility and try it on for size. Let that dream incubate a bit. Let it swell and grow into a full-blown alternative.

The Sonnet Cycle and the Surrealist Independent Prosecutor

A week that begins with a Monday holiday shouldn't feel this long.  I woke up thinking it was Friday.  So, let me record a few thoughts which might make a longer post later, but probably won't.

--Yesterday's big news was Robert Mueller's press conference (really more of an announcement) to talk about his report and his return to private life.  He said that everything he had to say was in his report, but the language of yesterday led me to believe that he has plenty more to say, but he's not going to say it.

--I have a vision of a person who wrote a sonnet cycle who knows that if he tells you what he really knows he will veer into a surrealistic poem from which he might never make his way back.

--I have seen a copy of the Mueller report, soft-covered.  I know that I will never read it.  My life is too short, and my list of worthy reading too long.  I would like the very short form, in bullet points.  You might see this as an indictment of an attention span shortened by modern life.  You might be right.  But I suspect I would not have read The Pentagon Papers either.

--In other signposts of modern life circa 2019:  last night on my way back from Total Wine, I saw a building under reconstruction.  It had been a place that sold upscale tile, marble, granite and quartz for all your remodeling needs.  Now the building has a sign half the size of its front wall that declares "Cannabis." 

--Florida is not Oregon.  I think that we've passed a law to make it legal to have a few state-sanctioned dispensaries for medically prescribed pot--but the legislature has been tied up in knots about how to make that happen.  As far as I know, there are no permits yet.

--I'm not Googling to get the facts on this law because I'm afraid of what kinds of advertising I'd get after doing that kind of search.

--Once I thought about certain Internet searches because I worried that the government might be keeping track.  Now it's advertisers that I want to avoid.

--I have seen several pot-themed shops being created as I drive through various streets in Broward county.  I am deeply uncomfortable, and I'm intrigued by my discomfort.  I'm already distressed by how many people go through life zombified by their cell phones--and now we'll add pot to the equation?

--Are we self-medicating/self-obliterating because we can't face our lack of resiliance?  I read a great article that argues that our self-help culture gives us false expectations of what self-help culture can do for us.  It concludes this way:  "The science of resilience is clear: The social, political and natural environments in which we live are far more important to our health, fitness, finances and time management than our individual thoughts, feelings or behaviours. When it comes to maintaining well-being and finding success, environments matter. In fact, they may matter just as much, and likely much more, than individual thoughts, feelings or behaviours. A positive attitude may be required to take advantage of opportunities as you find them, but no amount of positive thinking on its own is going to help you survive a natural disaster, a bad workplace or childhood abuse. Change your world first by finding the relationships that nurture you, the opportunities to use your talents and the places where you experience community and governmental support and social justice. Once you have these, your world will help you succeed more than you could ever help yourself."

Let me now go for a walk, a way to feel nurtured before the hectic day begins.

Listening Across Divides: Tony Horwitz Will Be Missed

We lost another great writer this week.   Yesterday we learned that Tony Horwitz died at the very young age of 60.

I am most fond of his book Confederates in the Attic, but I've always been impressed with his ability to immerse himself in whatever story he's telling.  It's a technique that allows him to dive deep and avoid the errors of shallow thinking.  He's followed many a trail, literal trails, like in his latest book Spying on the South, where he took the same trip as Frederick Law Olmsted, a nineteenth century architect and designer of Central Park.  He went from New York City to Mexico, trying to duplicate the pre-Civil War journey of Olmsted, while reading Olmsted's account.  What a fascinating approach!

Until reading some of the remembrances of his work, I hadn't realized how many of his books have found their way into college History classes.  He gives an essential piece of insight for History students:  "'I think part of what I wanted to do is restore a little bit of the unpredictability to history.  . . . It didn't have to unfold this way, it could well have gone very differently'" (in this NPR piece).

As I've spent some time reading about him this morning, I feel the sorrow that comes when we've lost a rare voice that seems essential for our time.  Instead of resting in stereotypes, Horwitz went out to meet people and record their stories.  He shows us where we might have common ground.  Very few people are interested in doing that these days.

In a recent op-ed, Horwitz says, "Our current national fracture isn’t over slavery and freedom, or so clearly defined by region. But I came away from my travels feeling that there’s still great value in seeking, as Olmsted did, to cross geographic and ideological divides and engage with fellow Americans as individuals rather than as stereotypes."

He goes on to say that he had the occasional insult but far more common was the genuine curiousity:  "In almost every other instance, I’ve been met affably, by drinkers open about their views and curious to know mine, as a visiting writer from “Taxachusetts.” Often I hear opinions I don’t expect, like self-described right-wingers dissenting from Trumpian orthodoxy on health care or a border wall. More often, we disagree across the board, vigorously. In two years of travel on Olmsted’s trail, I doubt I changed anyone’s mind, nor did they sway me from my political stance."

But changing minds doesn't need to be the point.  If we could just listen to each other, for a change, that might be enough.

Tony Horwitz was one of those writers who knew how to listen and how to tell the stories that people gave him in a way that showed respect and love.  We have so few people who know how to do that.  What a shame to lose one of them.

Holy Hospitality and the Dusk of Indecision

Some of us carry our homes on our backs:

Others need shelves to hold what is most precious:

What shows holy hospitality?  Is it a good reading light?

Or an abundance of mugs?

We wish for a clear path, for all the gates to open:

But some years, a clear path requires a time to dwell in the dusk of indecision:

Even in those times, grace abounds, if we have eyes to see:

Memorial Day Memories and Prayers

Memorial Day looks to be bright and calm down here on one of the southernmost tips of the U.S.  We will have cooler temperatures than many in the Southeast.

I'm thinking of past Memorial Days.  Once we would have spent the week-end in Jacksonville with old college friends. During some of those years, we had to leave on Sunday, because I taught in South Carolina, a state which didn’t have Memorial Day as a state holiday. Memorial Day began as a day to honor the Union dead, so many southern states had an alternate Confederate Memorial Day.  And my school didn't have many of the federal holidays off at all.

But I digress.

That tradition ended when one friend's marriage ended.  In more recent years, we've stayed down here and not done much special--although we often meet up with friends at least once during the week-end.

I do find myself missing the places I've lived that had a longer history, even as I've learned all the troublesome aspects of that history.  As we've traveled from place to place,  

Air Force dad made sure we understood that our freedom came at a real cost, a lesson that too many people seem to have skipped.

Nothing drives home the cost of war more than a visit to the Vietnam Memorial and seeing those 58,000 or so names carved into a black scar of granite.

How might our thinking about war change if we also added the names of all the maimed war veterans? What a cost.

And then there are the civilians. And the family members. So much wreckage on so many sides.

I'm thinking of the 2005 trip to France I took with my mom and dad and our stops at a variety of WWI cemeteries.  That effect, too, is similar to the one that the Vietnam Memorial--those graves, stretching on as far as we could see.

So, on this day which has become for so many of us just an excuse to have a barbecue, let us pause to reflect and remember. If we're safe right now, let us say a prayer of gratitude. Let us remember that we've still got lots of military people serving in dangerous places.

Let us remember how often the world zooms into war. Let us pray to be preserved from those horrors.

Here's a prayer I wrote for Memorial Day:


God of comfort, on this Memorial Day, we remember those souls whom we have lost to war. We pray for those who mourn. We pray for military members who have died and been forgotten. We pray for all those sites where human blood has soaked the soil. God of Peace, on this Memorial Day, please renew in us the determination to be peacemakers. On this Memorial Day,we offer a prayer of hope that military people across the world will find themselves with no warmaking jobs to do. We offer our pleading prayers that you would plant in our leaders the seeds that will sprout into saplings of peace.

Faithful Writing Practices

Today was my last day of the week to meet my goal of writing 3 poems this week.  I needed to write 2.  I had an idea for one, but not the other.

I went back to what has served me well:  take a story that's established, and take a minor character.  See what happens.  Fairy tales and mythology have often been fruitful.  But again, I had no ideas.

I thought about another avenue that's been fruitful.  Fast forward with a character.  For example, years ago I wrote a poem about Nancy Drew who returns to teaching in her later years.  You can read about it here.

This morning, for some reason, I thought about Goldilocks and the 3 bears.  I thought about the baby bear.  What happens when he grows up?  Does he always feel that what he loves will be stolen from him?  Does he have 3 locks on the door?  Does he feel a gaping hole of need that he can never fill?

I had a delightful time imagining baby bear.  And the poem has potential.

I also want to record another type of success.  I was talking to a friend who's been a colleague for over a decade, at more than one school.  We talked about the middle of the night, where our brains wake us up with worries about all that needs to be done.

She told me about her approach of keeping a pad of paper by the bed.  She wakes up, writes a bit, and drifts right back to sleep.  We talked about the value of hand writing vs. typing.  She said, "Of course.  You taught us that in the faculty development session you had years ago."  I wrote about that session in this blog post.

What a gift to hear that something I planned was not only useful at the time, but continues to be useful.  I plan faculty development sessions in part because we need to have something free and easy to attend, and in part because I am interested.  But I rarely know for sure that they're useful to others in their regular lives.

And now, my regular life dictates that I get ready for church.

Friday Art Adventures

One of the delightful parts of the online journaling class that I took last fall has been the continuation of the relationships.  I am now Facebook friends with most of the participants, and as with most of my Facebook friends, I'm always interested to see what they're up to.

Earlier this week, one of them posted some art that reminded me of the art that she'd created for the journaling class.  I went back to the closed Facebook page that was created for our class, and I spent some wonderful time scrolling back through our posts.  We did some amazing work.  It's no wonder that I've found myself missing the energy of that time.

Last night I went to a gallery opening.  It was interesting to go to the opening with the work of the journaling class on my brain.  Many of those journal entries could have held their own against the artwork that I saw last night.

I'm not saying that ours was better, and I'm not denigrating the art in the gallery show.  I'm not the person who exclaims loudly about children I know who could fingerpaint better than that piece of art.  But I am the person who is puzzled over some of it.

Most of what I saw last night I could see the skill/talent evidenced in the work.  Some of it, however, just baffled me.  For example, there was a white panel on the floor, a panel that was about the size of half a door.  In neat rows were castaway metal:  a variety of old springs primarily, along with other scraps.

I spent some time wondering what it meant, what the artist was trying to do/say.  The title didn't give me a clue.  The art didn't sing its purpose.  Some assemblages have an inherent interest:  the shapes of the objects, in terms of what goes together and what doesn't, the colors.  This piece didn't speak to me.

It was for sale.  I always question the price of art.  Some of it makes sense to me.  Spending money for the old springs didn't make sense to me.  I don't need talent or an MFA to be able to replicate that.

I did see a piece that interested me in terms of what I might try assembling.  It seemed to be a piece of woven scraps of paper, along with an upside down page or two of a book, with various paints over it all.  The top part of the piece was beige, with only a whisp of the words showing through.  The bottom of the piece had more color covered with paint.

The cost was $700.

The gallery opening was small and crowded, so we didn't stay long.  Still, I'm glad we went.  It was on our way back from dinner, and it was free, so I didn't feel bad that we weren't as inspired.

We did have a lovely dinner.  We ate at the Chimney House in Ft. Lauderdale, near the performing arts center.  We shared a half pitcher of sangria, and we both had the skirt steak.  It was all delicious.  And we ate on the outside deck.  The rest of the southeast is about to have suffocating heat, but down here, it's still comfortable with a great ocean breeze.

I came home and sketched a bit.  It is time to think about doors and thresholds, the theme of the online journaling class, again.