Note To Self:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

-C.S. Lewis

Looks like I'm on a roll!

I frequently go back and read old journal entries, partially as an indicator of forward motion, a mile-marker of sorts for the emotional journey. It's helpful in seeing where I've grown and stayed the same, accomplished or not, come back around to where I was before, made it through one more crisis, had a good moment of insight, et al.

Here's a portion of one from April (I wish I was still thinking this way consistently):

I've been thinking a lot lately about redemption, how it really is the end goal, how it permeates all things - the reconciliation of all things. And I don't just mean spiritual redemption. We are all saving each other every day. But I do appreciate the perspective I have wherein this goodness exists in relation to a gracious God I don't understand. I love that we move in great mystery. Lately, I wonder a lot if I don't confess enough - although I'm regularly throwing out token apologies. And my deep confession is usually brief and centers around the same faults; I have not loved well and I have expected too much. And every once in a while I can't stand up under the weight of a grace that is so dense, so saturated, almost oppressively present. I feel close to my frailty - just as I should. Not guilty, per se, but broken down and so far from goodness. I love what Greg said about the way (he speculates and I agree) God relates to humanity. He said God's will is not like a vase that we can knock off a table and it's shattered and irreparable. God is always looking at the messes we've made and saying, "we can work with this."

I love that God is dynamic like this, that His will is never static, that it's not unaffected by the choices we make, that when He says "here is the way, walk in it," He knows we'll take the scenic route, has made provision for all the time we will spend hiding in caves and sleeping with the enemy and wandering into the valley of the shadow of death.

And not only does God make provision, but He sorrows with us over our brokenness - not like a distant and wrathful despot. He is here in the midst of us, dwelling among and within us. So inasmuch as we can't be separated from ourselves, we can't be separated from the One who dwells in us. I don't talk about these things much with people, except in general discussion at church. It's sticky and vague. People are sensitive. They don't want to be affected. Or they don't think they do. I know I don't. I make it too much of a priority to seem unaffected. But I see here how I'm softening - a necessary dissolution of a sometimes harsh exterior.

And one from early June:

Leaving my house this afternoon, I turned back toward the door to lock the deadbolt, happening to look up and notice the reflection of a most unexpected gift in the back yard. Nestled gloriously and furtively in an understated flower pot next to the hopelessly algae-ridding pond was a gardenia bush. The sight of it actually caught my breath for a second for surprise, and I had to wade carefully through kudzu in order to reach the blossoms with my nose - to ensure that this was, in fact, my favorite flower, right in my own back yard.

Instances like these are, to me, a statement of God's lovingkindness and good will toward me. I remember, again, that I have not been forgotten.

Welcome to the end of Summer, where everything moves in slow motion in the hot rain and fading light.

Fin.

Peace and Be Still

Found this last night and it brought me peace.

II

Another Sunday morning comes

And I resume the standard Sabbath

Of the woods, where the finest blooms

Of time return and where no path

Is worn but wears its maker out

At last and disappears in leaves

Of fallen seasons. The tracked rut

Fills and levels; here nothing grieves

In the risen season. Past life

Lives in the living. Resurrection

Is in the way each maple leaf

Commemorates its kind, by connection

Outreaching understanding. What rises

Rises into comprehension

And beyond. Even falling raises

In praise of light. What is begun

Is unfinished. And so the mind

That comes to rest among the bluebells

Comes to rest in motion, refined

By alteration. 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 understanding, thus

Darkens the light. We can stand under

No ray that is not dimmed 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.

-Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997

Paradox. One of Many.

I don't really understand how or why, but these days it seems like I spend most of my time experiencing, simultaneously, the sense that I am shutting down completely and the sense that I am coming alive like never before.

Then again, I've always seemed to make myself quite at home in the house of paradox.

Hymn To Home

I haven't had much to say in the blogworld lately. I realize this, in fact, just looked at the date of my last post and cringed. All that to say, I have actually been writing, just not the rambling sort of prose I normally produce and occasionally stick here for you to do with it what you will. Lyrics have been my main stride lately.

So, if there's even anyone left who's still interested, here's a little of what's been washing over the floors of the Crescent music room (it kind of feels like cheating since this is a few months old...but it may be new to you). In case you want to get the feel of it, the music is uncomplicated and moves along in a hymn-like manner.

Hymn to Home (Sing to Me of Love and Home)

We'll hang pictures on the wall

The family tree that lines the hall

A forest of our history

Reminds us how we came to be

We'll pick out the hardwood floors

And build our dreams with two-by-fours

The table that your father made

And blankets for the window shades

So sing to me of love and home

So I will know I'm not alone

And we'll spin tales both loud and long

So we remain when we are gone

We'll hang laundry on the line

And pray it doesn't rain this time

And if clouds gather in the sky

We'll build a roof to keep us dry

I can play mom's old upright

And serenade you through the night

And once the stars are tucked away

Then hand in hand we'll greet the day

And we'll sing songs of love and home

Reminding us we're not alone

And we'll spin tales both loud and long

So we remain when we are gone.

Fin.

Of Editing and Edification

I’ve always had the writing bug. It bit me early, and for as long as I can remember, my thoughts have always just made more sense on paper.

As I’ve grown older, this expression has taken on various mediums, most recently combining with another love (necessity) of mine – making music. As several of you know, I bought a 88-weighted-key keyboard last fall, sort of on a lark, as an expensive motivation for writing more music (and to scratch a particular inspirational itch). It has been one of, if not the singular best investment I have ever made.

As with any activity, I still go through alternating spells of drought, stagnation, and open-floodgate deluges of creativity – almost like a musical manic-depression. But in those instances when I am flooded with ideas, I get on a roll and it’s hard to stop myself, which is, overall, a positive thing.

The downside is that writing music can be really scary; it makes me really honest – I can’t help it. I have the inability to compose without it being at least partially personal. Sometimes I sit down and start inventing, totally unprepared for what is about to come out. I realize things about myself through writing as much as I do through interacting with people or reading or watching others live their lives. So I start running with an idea, then suddenly I’ve gained so much creative velocity that I can’t put it down, can’t extract myself from the productive process, and before I have the sense to stop it, all kinds of beautiful and uncomfortable inklings and melodies and convictions and stories have taken on literary flesh and bone.

And I love that they bring me insight and clarity, because songwriting, for me, always contains some degree of edification. But I often hate that they’re true.

This is why editing takes place and why some songs will never make it past the doors of my music room.

I Love this Understanding

"I hope no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of existing communions--as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and, of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and panelling. In plain language, the question should never be: 'Do I like that kind of service?' but 'Are these doctrines true: Is holiness here? Does my conscience move me towards this? Is my reluctance to knock at this door due to my pride, or my mere taste, or my personal dislike of this particular door-keeper?'
"When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house."
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity