Friday Poetry the Sixth

Washington Square Park - NYC

People
Flowing in currents. Swirling, billowing down sidewalks.
Caught in eddies gathered around performers.

People
Still. Immobile. Watching, sketching, leering, dozing. Being.

Taking pictures, playing chess, playing catch, running dogs, strolling babies.
Alone in introverted thought. Close knit: alone as a couple. Alone in a watchful daydream. Alone as part of a crowd.

A river of sounds: talking (language one), guitars jangling, laughing, mumbling, talking (language two), singing, barking, hollering, talking (language ten)...

People swirling.
Conversations mingling.
Activities overlapping.

Everyone known.
Every one heard.
Every one witnessed.
Everyone loved.

Every. One. Loved.

Promotion

Is it weird that I am SO proud of my daughter's promotion?
....in Sunday School nursery class?

Eliora's been "held back" in the tiny baby room. They say the criteria for moving to the next room is seven months old and can sit up unaided.
She is, she can. She has been (both) for a while.
But, she was held back.
The official, perfectly reasonable, explanation was that the next room had too many babies, and some had to stay behind in the tiny baby room.
There was a "glut" of sitter-uppers.

That explanation is perfectly reasonable, but something told me that the real reason she couldn't move was that she cries in her Sunday School room.
Not a little cry. Not a momentary passing "wah". Not the, "my Mom is leaving but I'll be okay as soon as she's out of sight" cry of most in her age bracket.
Nope, Eliora's cry is often a screaming wail from the moment I hand her over until the moment I come back. I get her after the service, and almost always one of the workers has had to take her out to walk and pat.
They tell me its not that bad, but it is. I've seen it and heard it -lurking around the corner, trying not to make it worse. I've kept her home many times thinking, "None of us (Eliora, me, or nusery volunteer) wants to live through that today".

Today we got the card that says Eliora can move up.
Coincidentally, last Sunday she managed the whole morning in the nursery without dramatic separation anxiety.

I think I'll wear a cap and gown to church.

Parents

Tonight, Tressa was talking about parents.

Mimi and Papa are parents.
-Yes, whose parents are they?
Dada's!
- Tressa, who are your parents?
I don't have parents, yet.
- Are you going to get some later?
Maybe....maybe I'll get some later.

I hate to tell her, but that's what I think, too. Maybe some day she'll get parents.
The real parents must be lurking out there somewhere. I'm just winging it. I can't really be in charge.

(Not in New York -- but, definitely not to be left out.)
laura

Yes, that IS the Friends fuse-ball table. We also sat on the couch at Central Perk.
laura

Manhattan will never be the same. - We had a great time!
laura

Eliora - 8 months
laura

Hi Shelley!

Shell,
We had a great time!
Thanks for hosting us and showing us The City - "Shelley-style".

Love you!

Friday Poetry V

Eliora...

I lift you up to the sky.
You are halo-ed by the bright sunlight.
Clouds drift in the background on a canvas of bright blue.

I lift you out of the sling.
I stretch and twist so your tiny feet clear the fabric where
you were nestled.
Somedays, as I lift, your face shows just-waking befuddlement,
Somedays intense rapture or maybe calm observation.

I lift you up.
Lift you away from close warmth
Away from my heatbeat.
Away from our easy companionship :
My every move is shaped by you and
You adjust to each motion.

I'd rather keep you here.
But, life goes on.
Time marches and skitters and jumps on.
So, I lift you up to the sky.

I see the silhouette of your perfect body
Head to toe.
I see the morning sky frame your face.
Clouds drift in the background.
I hold you close for one more moment.

Breaking News.....

Tonight Chris and I were talking about life and our house and things we need to take care of.
But wait, here's the MARKER REPORT on the news. No more talking!

Yep, KAMR Channel 4, the "Faith and Justus Report" News had a segment on markers.
The new erasable kind. Do they work?

I'm sooo glad for the in-depth reporting we get here.

Well, maybe I am glad that there's not a whole lot to report, but come on! Markers?!

What are you?....

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative 100% Postmodernist 56% Romanticist 38% Fundamentalist 25% Existentialist 13% Modernist 6% Materialist 0% Idealist 0% What is Your World View? (corrected...hopefully) created with QuizFarm.com

Whew! I was scared I wasn't going to be post-modern enough. It appears I'm post-post-modern. Although I thought seriously about hiding my "fundamentalist" score. I've decided that that doesn't mean what I think it means...
I love these things that categorize and label me.

Friday poetry IV

....for Tressa


Beauty runs naked through my house.
Footfalls splatter down the hall in her flat-footed, stompy run.
Arms akimbo- awkwardly held at her side,
Windmilling around corners or to gather steam.

Beauty runs naked
With her golden hair streaming behind.
Fluttering in the breeze she creates.

Innocence careens around the living room
Careless of falls or sharp edges.
Leaning forward at a precarious pitch.
She hasn't fallen on her face enough to learn circumspection.
(Wish there were another way to learn that lesson!)

Beauty runs naked through my house.
Squeals and giggles spread wall to wall and as high as the ceiling.
Joy resounds in her wake.

FP (excuses, excuses...)

Friday poetry was ready.
It was honed and polished and spell-checked.

And, now its gone. And there is no hard copy.
Cyber neverland.

Working on resurrection.

Blessings everywhere...

Did anyone else notice how often faith was referenced during the last episode of the Amazing Race? Each one of the three teams prayed out loud or talked about their faith "pulling them through" or said that they had been blessed. ("We need a blessing, we really need a blessing here.")
I didn’t watch the whole series, and I know that its heavily edited to present a “storyline.”
But.
I don't think the contestants had as much to say to or about God until they were within sniffing distance of the million dollars.

Alternatively, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of HP referenced scripture as a resource during the time since her very public ouster from Hewlett Packard. I’d never heard any mention of her faith before this.

So, on the brink of millions, we ask for help. After we lose our job making millions, we remember God.

I'm not saying I'm any different. I definitely look around for God when I need something.
Glad God is a lot more patient, and a lot more gracious than I can imagine.

Winged Migration

Wow -

Incredible visually and musically.
Its the kind of thing I would like to have in the background in a loop for worship.

Winged Migration

Going to NYC

Shelley is in an off-off broadway show in Brooklyn.
Jennifer, Julie Kay and I are GOING.
In two weeks, we're heading to New York for the weekend.

High school friends - the first time we've gotten together in eleven years.
-- Weddings don't count. They're too stressful and not quite the same as unstructured friend-time.

We're leaving our six kids behind and sleeping on Shelley's floor in her fifth story walkup in the west village.

Should be fun. We've made a deal -- What happens in New York stays in New York. Although blogs may be excluded....

Friday poetry - on Saturday

Sanctuary

Jewel-toned walls. Bright light outside, dim within.
Distant from the busy streets.
Space to be.
Empty seating. Overheard conversations to contemplate.
Space to think.
Art to observe, consider life, watch light playing with hue and texture and form.
Memories come and go. Thoughts connect. Time stills.
Space to listen.

An aroma drifts through, permeating the space.
Breathe deeply, relax.
Baristas joke and smile, the grinder punctuates the hum of the parishioners' conversations.
Here is filling up, drinking down, emptying, cleaning, waiting, talking, being with others, being alone.

Here I can still.
Here is space to fill with thought, space to remain empty and hear.
Space to be.

U2 Theology

"Don't know if I will make it, I'm not easy on my knees...."

That line in a U2 song, and some other things, have perked through my brain lately.
I used to want to be a leader, one of the "giants" -- the winner of some Christian contest; the one who gets to sit closest to Jesus at the big dinner party.

But - I think lately it seems like enough just to make it. Just to get through life.

I said something along these lines to some friends the other day. I don't think they got what I was trying to say. I didn't elaborate, and I don't think I have words for it all yet. But, after I said "I just want to make it" I realized that is easily misunderstood -- making people think I'm settling for mediocrity, or looking for a life that is not really about Christ.

I want to get through life, and have it be Life -- an existence lived with and for and about Jesus. But, I've decided that that Life is not as easy as we try to pretend. Its not a checklist of doing the right things. Its not a set of things we deny ourselves. (Uh-oh, paradox: maybe its not as hard as we try to pretend, either.)

For me right now, making it the best I can means leaving behind all the pretense and the things that made me feel like I was getting closer to that "double-gold-star-with-Jesus" status.

The thing is - I'm not sure what's left. If you're not trying to earn your way and make your mark...If you don't measure up to all the ways that we humans measure ourselves and each other -- how do you know you're doing the right thing?

So, I've decided to just try to make it. Live humbler. Live without the approval ratings that make me feel like I'm doing things right. -- If I finish this life with Christ, that will be enough. And, if I finish it with Him - there won't be any question that it was all His doing.

Just because

Posting mostly because I want to move my pigeon thing off the first visible page of the blog....

Yesterday morning I got up and got going. I was in Tressa's room when I first looked out the window.
"Oh. My. Gosh!!"

There was an inch or so of snow on the ground and on the roof. -- And on all the flowers that we've planted for spring.
This was yesterday.
May 2nd.

Glad I didn't use a stronger colorful phrase, because all day whenever Tressa saw snow she said,
"Oh, my gosh!"


The worst part is that Friday night Chris and I spent an hour meticulously covering all our outdoor plants with sheets and other protection. We carefully brought in all our hanging baskets and potted plants. And, you guessed it, there was no frost.