Food (August 2014) by Josh W.

Dough

 

I enjoy eating dough.  Dough or batter of any kind: bread, piecrust, cookie, biscuit, roll, scone, brownie, cake, pancake, any uncooked goodness.  Thinking about it now makes my stomach growl.  I don’t really understand my affinity for it.  It does have some nostalgia associated with it.  Helping my grandma make pies.  Or hovering while my grandma made pies is probably more accurate.  She would throw in the ingredients without measuring, mix it up and taste a little.  Add something and taste again.  I thought it was fascinating.  That she knew what to add based on taste.  She would let me taste the final product.  And I couldn’t get enough. 

 

Another memory is making sugar cookies at Christmas time with my mom and brothers.  There’s always a little bit of scrap once you cut out a cookie.  That piece can’t be wasted.  So I salvaged and savored each morsel of leftovers. 

 

Also, as a kid, we would have cinnamon rolls out of a tube each Sunday morning.  And my brother, who knew how to work the oven, would take them out early so they were still stringy and doughy.  And we would utterly destroy them.

 

So maybe my affinity for the stuff is related to home.  I’m transported home when I consume a nice chewy glob of raw dough.  And sometimes it’s nice to be home. 

Food (August 2014) by Katie

We really jumped around this summer. From Finland, to Palestine, to Nepal, to Thailand. Each destination a culinary delight. And each stop with its own vice.


In Finland it was ciders and beer. Our friends were eager to show off the lush-ness of Finland. And we obliged.


In Palestine it was shisha. I'm not normally a fan of 'sweet'. The more it tastes like smoke or just like 'burning', the more I tend to like it (I have a theory this is why I wasn't as bothered by the tear gas as Keith). But the hookah I like.


In Nepal it was fried food. Especially Josh's Didi's fried cabbage and potato cakes. Mmmm.


And in Thailand, it was the sugar. I hadn't remembered what sugar-laden menu I enjoyed in Chiang Mai. Sweet teas and coffees. Banana and corn rotti. And sugar on the garlic bread. But then again, they sprinkle salt on their strawberries.

Food (August 2014) by Josh W.

My neighbor Jackie is an amazing cook.  She teaches a cooking class every week to interested individuals.  I’ve never been.  Cooking is not one of my favorite things to do.  I’d rather just do the dishes after someone else cooks.  Jackie has cooked for many years. Her mother is Burmese while her father is Indian.  She looks Nepali.  She has lived in India, Bermuda, Australia, the UK, and now Nepal.  She garnered cooking techniques and ideas from each of these places.

 

One day Jackie made a pumpkin curry with a secret ingredient.  For a super taster it wasn’t too difficult to determine that peanut butter had been added to the mouth-watering sauce.  It was garnished with cilantro and the pumpkin pieces were pleasantly plump.  It wasn’t difficult consuming three servings.  She served it on local Basmati rice cooked fluffy and pure.  Afterwards she served a coconut custard pie with passion fruit.  It was a blend of sweet, tart, and coconuts.  It was the best meal I ate in Nepal.

Tunes (June 2014) by Josh W

This reminds me of middle school days on the bus. Woof...

Currently, my most listened to song: 

Tunes (June 2014) by Katie

Courage (May 2014) by Josh W.

“When problems overwhelm us and sadness smothers us, where do we find the will and courage to continue?  The answer may come in the caring voice of a friend, a chance encounter with a book, or from a personal faith.” –The White Stripes album Elephant “Little Acorns”

Courage is a visceral sensation, somatic and spiteful.   Many corporal words can be substituted for it: intestinal fortitude, guts, nerves, heart, balls.  It stems from the pit of your stomach, you retch it forth in spite of your situations.  Life goes on and you persist.  It’s whimsical, uncalculated, and illogical. Shirking a draw towards complacency, despair, apathy, avoidance, and self-preservation.  It’s a fire from within, a stubborn persistence to act.  Tenaciously, problems are faced head on.  There is nothing to fear, except for the seed of fear taking root and choking out courage.  But even if you are fearful, life goes on.  And the choice is to courageously plow forth or begrudgingly trudge onwards.  

Courage (May 2014) by Katie

When the sun and all its visions slips around the corner to trick the other side of the world, step out, look up, and see. Really see. We are standing in eternity. One dot, staring out at a thousand others, with more emptiness than substance between. 

When the sun returns, she draws the blue shades, and turns on the lights, to illuminate that which is immediate and close. 

Is it more fearful to be tethered to this rock, or floating in space? 

There will be a day when it ends for us. There can be no other way. A day when one generation will not beget the next; when a generation will be the last generation. 

And who can say what is worse? The horrors of that moment, or all the horrors around the world on any given day, or all days cumulated throughout time. Our time. This strange human existence. 

Both day and night, we are powerless. We are as clueless about meteors and black holes as we are about relationships and our own ambitions. 

It doesn't feel like our choice. We just have this life. And this black and blue sky. And this awareness. 

And, it seems, awareness will always have fear as its shadow

and courage in its bones.

Courage (May 2014) by Katie

Most of our lives have progressed with help. Our journey was mapped out. Begin school. Move from first grade to second. Years were marked with change, and we had no say in it. We graduated high school and could continue with undergrad or begin working, but we couldn’t stay seniors. We graduated college, and the world was open to us, but we had to move somewhere. As an adult, it is different. There is no one telling us when it is time to take that next step. I think it takes a lot of courage as an adult to try something new. And it takes courage to not follow your cohort. To stay.

Courage (May 2014)

Prayer (April 2014) by Josh E.

 (prayers from a distant life - Josh)

 Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

 

Help me to remember what I should remember and forget what I should forget.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Mary, help me to see women as created by your son; holy, pure, beloved.

"May my life attest, what my heart and mouth confess."  -St. Anselm 

Come down
we beseech you, O Lord
upon this house and 
drive from it all the snares of the enemy.
Let your holy angels dwell in it
and keep us in peace.  And may your blessing
be with us always.
This we ask through 
Chris our Lord.

Prayer (April 2014) by Renee

When the weather breaks

prayers seep through my soul

like warm air mysteriously forming

where winter still abides.

At first it is simply breath.

Then the breath is noticed,

and then all the senses rise -

What I see, what I hear, what I smell

is holy. Is spirit. Is life.

Every hungry vulture, circling the perished;

every horny frog, competing with croaks;

every rotting leaf vanishing into the dirt

and a putrid smell is beautiful. Is me.

Is this consuming hole at my core

that is emptiness and loneliness and

also what it means to be alive.

And then words form, imperfect

like a child in the arms of their mother

droning, “I want Mommy”, when they are tired

or ill. What they mean

is something else. Security

that no human can offer another.

A well-being that we already have,

though we don’t remember where we put it.

And so we pray. Please. I need. I want. I hope.

Even the Thank You is a longing.

And in Spring, the Earth replies,

Yes. Here. Now. You are bone of my bones,

And flesh of my flesh. You are woman.

The winds come, and the seasons cycle,

and change brings answer to our prayers

and reason to pray.

On the night (s)he was betrayed... (March 2014) by Josh W.

On the night he/she was betrayed….

…he was trying to come up with a title for his memoir.  Ideas included “This Fastidious Life,” “Only Turtles Wash Themselves Like That,” and “Hands Off My Avocodos.”

…she remembered the importance of pretending that she didn’t care.

…he forgot to call his mother and tell her that he had reserved her a room at the hotel next door.

…she was wearing the pearl earrings that he gave her.

…he wished he had remembered his jacket, it was getting chilly.

…he said, “It would be best – for all involved – if we just lower our expectations.”

…she forgot to refill the ice cube trays.

…he had a funfetti cake in the oven.

…she was just beginning to think her troubles were behind her.

…he said, “I’ll give you something to cry about.”

…there was a turkey in the oven.

…she was humming the “Ducktales” theme song.

…he wished he hadn’t had that milk on such a hot day.

…she remembered that she had forgotten to file her taxes.

…he had passed the Dutchy one too many times.

…the moonlight on the canal was setting off a romantic glow.

…the upstairs neighbor was stomping around in her high-heels again, and it was becoming difficult to concentrate.

…the blueberries he snacked on earlier were beginning to manifest themselves again with a pungent odor.

…she wished that neighbor boy going at it on his drums would realize he’s no good and shut the hell up.

…he remarked, “Who’s paying for all this alcohol?  Because I sure ain’t.”  

Another World (February 2014) by Keith

Many of you know that I enjoy my work, that I find meaning in it, and that it is thus a difficult thing to leave. But I don't feel that I've shared a lot about what I do, so I'm going to follow in Katie's footsteps and describe some aspects of my job. This may be part of the process of verbalizing aspects that will be helpful in mourning and moving on.

When I first started at Messiah, it was a means to an end, namely to get Katie through grad school. When this position I'm in opened up, it was supposed to be temporary- just one year. Then it turned into 2...then 3...now 4. I remember talking about how I never wanted to be someone that ended up at Messiah. Though I understand that, and still generally feel the same sentiment, I also would be lying if I said that this move to WV is not without it's daily doubts and pain.

Today, a student dropped in to share what's been going on in her life. She isn't someone I supervise, but I've met with her a bunch the past 2 year. We often talk about how much she takes on, what balance looks like, and how to care for one's self. This time, we ended talking about the differences between her and her very traditional Cuban family, and how it was difficult to come home and have a different perspective on life than what she had growing up. While she was talking, she was coloring with markers (a helpful means of processing for her). It ended with her feeling relieved, relaxed, and listened to.

One of my student directors is the most phenomenal administrators I've ever met. Her skills of organization and management make me look like I'm a spontaneous Type B. But she needs work on an interpersonal level. She's worked at the center for 3 years now, and often begrudgingly sits in our meetings when I make suggestions of how relational skills are as, if not more, effective to logistical skills.  This past semester, every other meeting we have ends with her in tears because she feels like she's grown so much through this role, has come to understand healthy work relationships, privilege, and poverty in ways she never considered (she comes from a rich family...like Katie), and how much her service at Paxton has changed her life.

Here's the thing- this has been one of the only places where some of my natural tendencies have really shined as strengths, whereas other times they seem to be more pejorative.  For instance, my ability to be challenge people, to be contrary, this is something that has helped to push my students beyond their usual expectations and to help them succeed beyond what they would normally.  This is one of the things that the student director has said has most changed her.  I try to pull out strengths from my students that they often don't recognize, but also challenge areas that they may be unaware of.  

I feel like I'm good at my job. I'm more type A than I like to admit, but that helps me to balance and juggle 4-5 mtgs a day, with constant emails, and unexpected drop-ins from students. And I love that. I love a job that capitalizes on both my skills of organization/management and relationality. Despite the busyness of my work, I normally still watch parts of the Daily Show during lunch, take time to relax, and enjoy the barefoot walks to and from work. 

Maybe I'm drawn to feeling self-important, and having students value my thoughts and opinions (surprising that I like to share both of those!). But I also love seeing students transform through a year or two of mentoring. Through the 3 years I've supervised and mentored the student director, I've tried to strike the balance that I attempt with all my students: support and challenge. I support her where she's doing great, help supplement her where she needs help, but also push her and confront her desire to stay where she's at and to work on enhancing her skills in new ways. This is what the job has been for me too. I've been pushed and challenged beyond my own comfort zone, but also supported by an incredible community that loves me and cares for me.

This sounds like a lot of self-important BS. But it's more than that to me. I know I have skills that are a good match for the job, yet I know many people could do as good a job. It's just rewarding to be in a place where you can see people who didn't care about inclusive language turn into feminists (last year I had a student burst into my office yelling, "Keith, I think I'm a feminist now!!!"), or a white student sharing how difficult it is to process privilege, or a black student feeling comfortable enough with me to share a painful racialized incident, or another student of color challenge me into recognizing how connected I am to current elite power structures, despite my language saturated with "justice". I love that I also feel challenged and supported in my work. I have grown immensely in the 5 years I've been at Messiah. I'm sad to leave it, but I hope it has prepared me for what's to come.

Video (Fall 2013-Winter2014)

Another World (February 2014) by Luke

Every day I walk out my door up and over two soft hills, turn right and follow a short trail to a piece of ground tucked in among box elder, spicebush, maple and honeysuckle.  This is my sit spot.  For almost 5 months now I have returned to this spot daily with a simple objective- to watch and open my awareness to what is happening in this place.

 

I've been in other worlds like this throughout my life.  What I have never done is anchor myself to one particular spot, where I return every day.  This other world has been a safe place.  It is a place where I am sometimes startled, other times amazed.  Here I dance other dances.  I try to relate to individuals whose language I don't speak.

 

Some of the main characters I visit with in this world are Blue Heron, Box Elder, Pileated Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Squirrel, Lesser Celandine  and Deer.  I observe these characters in a way I never have before.  The repetition of my visits offers me the opportunity to notice patterns.  Who is where, when and why...Pileated Woodpecker likes to visit in the morning. He likes to dig into the aging maples.  Deer visits and browses the winter creeper vine but not too often.  Kingfisher is busy most of the day and loud.  Squirrel sleeps for days when it is too cold, but knows exactly where to dig through the snow when it comes time to eat again. Blue Heron has particular spots she returns to time and again.  Box Elder grows wherever it can and also breaks a lot.   Lesser Celandine will start to grow in December even between snow storms.  

 

Here I also meet myself.  I meet my moods, my thoughts, my fears, my energy.  I like this setting and approach to meditation where I am not trying to conquer anything or shut anything out.  I am not trying to silence or shut down my senses.  I am welcoming them and engaging them, focusing and shifting focus.  Filling rather than emptying.  

 

This world is the other world I'm trying to make not other.  There is much I don't know about it.  But some things I am starting to see.  And that is very nice.

Another World (February 2014)

A Video

The scene on the bike loosening the shirt near the neck struck me.

Another World (February 2014) by Joy

With routine days spent in such proximity, my daughter and I live in a unique world where a toddler and an adult inhabit the same space.  At times I’m overtaken by my connection to her- my firstborn.  Even though our contact is constant and overwhelming, I still want her close.  At night, when I wake scared (When despair for the world grows in me/and I wake in the night at the least sound/in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be –Wendell Berry), my first thought is to slip into her bed, cuddle close, imbibe the rhythm of her nighttime breath, and whisper thanks over and over and over for the moments I’ve had with her.  And I beg for more, for as many moments as we can have.  Sometimes I hold her so close I imagine absorbing her back inside me so that my body might again be her safe place where she is closer to me, and a bit more removed from that ‘outside’ world I find so hard to trust.

She dances around the house creating her own small worlds from blankets, discarded papers, stacked books and any old thing she imagines life into.  She talks through her every thought and I have to guess nothing about her ideas, fears, hopes or intentions.  I listen to her soliloquies and notice how she will weave in such little details of the day.  When I listen, I can hear what she’s learned and how she absorbs it all through play:

• Once, when I fix her toy with glue she pretends to break and repair household objects for several hours thereafter. 
• After a trip to the hospital and the pharmacy she carefully explains to a throng of dolls and stuffed animals that they should be sure to drink lots of water and juice so that they can feel better.
• I drop my phone in frustration grunting, “What the heck?!”  A few hours later she tells me in snotty frustration, “Mom, I have boogs.  What the heck?!”
• I can hear her arguing with Luke in the dining room and he tells her she’s ‘unbelievable’.  So she climbs the steps to the second floor to report, “Mom, I’m undeliebable”.

Always learning, repeating, asking, refining, testing.

Exasperating and illogical as her toddler world may be, I feel privileged to spend my days in and out of its periphery.  I can feel- it’s palpable- that in her world there is no pretense or hatred or dishonesty.  In her transparent curiosity, she is light to me.  She is love and hope and every good thing I long for in the adult world I generally inhabit.  She and her 30 lb ilk are beyond precious.  There is no word for it.  Sometimes I just think that if every person in the world would look a toddler in the eyes and listen and hear – Oh, how could they do any of the ungodly things that we do?  How could anyone do an ounce of evil to threaten all the shiny, hopeful, unblemished goodness of a tiny human who’s just piecing it all together?

There’s no war in those eyes.  No rape.  No industrial mayhem.  No slavery.  It’s a world of possibility.  I teach her, true.  But it’s no cliché to say that perhaps she is the true teacher here.

And yet daily I find myself faced with the task of letting her go (because surely she belongs to no one, not even me), of walking near her, but not an obstacle to her growth, independence or strength.  And worst (scariest, hardest?) of all, I must find some way to loose her into a world I do not trust with her.  Obviously she’ll meet countless loving, wonderful, art-ful others who will feed her soul and buoy her.  But what about that one or two or three who might mean her harm, or see her as a means to an end?

Oh world, let her live fully here.  Let her be free in as many ways that there are.  And let her shine through whatever darknesses lurk on her path.  Help her know herself, trust herself, love herself deeply.  Give her clarity and assurance.  Let her and her peers teach us all, for we need to inhabit their curious world more than we’ll ever acknowledge.

Another World (February 2014) by Josh W.

Who nose my world?

 

This world smells.  I could describe to you how to get from my house to the office merely by following your nose.  First, go straight down the path until you begin to sense the calming sandalwood trickling from the shop on the corner.  Turn right.  Go past the burnt popcorn smell.  Turn left once the aroma of stale animal urine and rotting flesh pierces your nose.  Go past the intoxicating fresh cardamom, cumin, and curry being ground by hand.  Continue on beyond the fishy, earthy smells that will be on your right.  Once you begin to choke on diesel fumes you’re nearly to the next turn.  But wait until you sense the loaf of bread fresh out of the oven to turn left.  Carry on and it will smell like an amusement park, you know, the old vomit and woodchips utilized to soak up the vomit smell, near that ride that goes upside down and backwards.  The diesel fumes will be back at this point, ignore it, just keep going straight.  Now you’re in for a treat.  Go past the pungent aroma wafting in your unassuming nostrils – it’s kind of like the stench of a hundred brutally used Porta-Potties after a well attended, undercooked meat serving, Indian wedding.  Don’t worry; you’re nearly there.  Turn right once the burnt popcorn odor reappears.  Left at the garlicky dal being cooked, and if it’s morning, cardamom and cinnamon will stimulate your olfactory bulbs.  Wander past the stink of scaled chicken skin, stale urine, and feces.  Finally, turn left at the diesel fumes.  And if you have a cold, then I guess you’ll just have to use a map.

 

Another World (February 2014) by Kate

I'm not really a writer, but here's a few things I can share with you all about my world right now:

This new place is not as I expected. I am different here, I spend my time differently. I care a lot about the quality of wood for the fire but not as much about my to do list for the day. I feel the gravity of our decision to come here, but I don't worry as much.

I love chopping wood and hanging the laundry, but I find dreaming and planning exhausting. I feel welcome in these woods and I've discovered that I don't mind stinkbugs. But I don't deal well with the cold.

I'm not at home. It feels like I'm living in someone else's house. ..someone tall and strong, and braver than me. I'm not sure where my home is. I had thought I would feel settled and this would feel like home by now. But I can see now that I'm here that it may take a long time. I suppose this is ok.

I have a lot of hopes for who I can be here and what I can do. But I think I need to go about it all gently. I feel most at home now with you all, dear friends. 

Another World (February 2014) by Jonathan

I was reflecting with a friend the other day that I inhabit many different worlds in which I am the only common denominator. This is not a great revelation, I realize, but rather a truism.... everyone has this same experience. Nonetheless, since I have people around me that are picture-takers, and a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd share a bit about the world I'm in right now: Puerto Rico.

One of the highlights (as you might expect) of being home is that i get to hang out with my niece. She is 2 1/2, like puzzles and has a ear-piercing scream when she doesn't get her way. Here, Tío (Spanish for uncle) is cracking almonds with Amaiyah.

Its also been great to loaf around the house with my sister (Raquel, down from Harrisonburg) and my brother David (proud parent of the little face).

Puerto Rico is a colony of the US (we still have colonies?? WTF!) and has seen rapid societal changes in the past 100 years (like a lot of the world, I guess) My grandmother, at 93, has seen a lot of that. She told me while we were visiting this past weekend how she bought her first pair of shoes at 10 years old when she made enough money harvesting tabacco to buy them herself. She started first grade in school and dropped out when an American came to the classroom and she was terrified that the tall white man was going to eat her. That is the total of her formal education.

However, there are still a few ancient traditions that are fighting their death. A "parranda" is the Puerto Rican version of Christmas caroling where the neighbors gather and play traditional instruments (cuatro: the guitar-looking thing; güiro: the hollow gourd; maraca: you've seen The Mask) and sing folk music, sometimes terribly out of tune. The girl in the salmon shirt is my sister-in-law.

This man is my crazy uncle who, after a long professional career retired to a "traditional" life-style where he cooks over open fire and plows land with a team of oxen. You've probably heard me talk about him. Also, he looks just like my late grandfather did at that age.

Of course no trip home would be complete without letting my mother shower me with nice things and an off-season (It's winter!! Cant you tell?) trip to the beach.

If you care to know, ask me sometime about "becoming an adult" both in a family context and in a societal context (the last time I lived in PR I was 16). So there, 7,000+ word email! Wow, that is the longest email I even wrote!

Much love.

Vanity (January 2014) by Jonathan

Short story long:
My group of friends that I affectionately call the Hippy commune is a collection of relatively like-minded people. Some of us lived in a house together in college and have managed to remain each others support system through travels abroad, marriages and children and miscarriages, through changes is work and spirituality. We have hurt each other plenty and are helping to raise each others kids and are still learning how to value each other in our differences. 
For a while there, we were actively looking for a way that we could live out our desire to be part of each others lives on a day-to-day basis. We started working on a book designed for people starting intensional communities, formally met to work towards this every two weeks, formed work-groups, looked at land and legal procedures and beat each other up trying to articulate our "common vision" that would be the centerpiece of our lives together. 
We soon discovered that our live vision, whether individual, or as a family, or as a group were very hard to talk about. It turns out that even after some 7-10 years of being good friends, our vision and desires and expectations are so intimate, so close to our hearts that they were hard to speak and hard to have critiqued. But we knew it was supposed to be hard, so we kept right on going. Round after round, we kept looking for new ways to see ourselves and our troubles and to try to make our visions compatible. We made charts and drew pictures and had one-on-ones and cried and called each other out on our bull shit (I got a lot of this, by the way).
In the end, it fell apart. In a whirlwind of exhaustion and eagerness and longing, we stopped our formal meetings. Over the next couple of months, we had a lot of "what you said was hurtful" and "what did we do wrong" and "so what does this mean now" conversations. In retrospect, one of the things that happened is that the formal process high-jacket our friendships. We were so invested in what we were trying to do together, put so much energy into getting somewhere, that we lost each other and we lost the time and energy to care for each other and to accept each other. Thankfully, by the time we tried this formal process, we had years of love and affection and working-through-stuff built up in the reserves, so the hurts of this mess we made were not insurmountable. 
The happy ending to this story is that our relationships survived. And some small changes have been made in our living situations, and we are healing from that process (and gone through some others since) and that whatever it is that keeps us needing each other is still true. I'm grateful for this.

An off-topic but relevant post by Jonathan

Early in the morning, before the sun can touch the dew, two farmers walk the narrow roads out to their fields. They have always been farmers, like their fathers and mothers before them. But they are not alike. One loves her field, loves her work, loves Gods gifts that come through her little plot. To her, the farm is alive, and she herself is part of it. The other sows begrudgingly and waits impatiently and harvests without gratitude. To her the plot is an object, a means, and she does not spend time there if she has a choice. The affectionate farmer will observe the field, see what grows, smell the soil, watch the seasons. She is attentive and will adapt her ways as the field asks her to. The dismissive farmer, on the other hand, will be blind to her field: she will plow when the soil is too wet, water on schedule regardless of rain, and not know the difference between good bugs and bad bugs. The affectionate farmer is a dynamic farmer, a farmer who will make mistakes and learn from them, a farmer who will be satisfied with good work. The begrudging farmer looks for opportunities to take shortcuts, does what she has always done, and suffers the work she must do.

“All work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.” 1 In this parable it is the attentive, dynamic farmer that works with love, who's work is a labor of love. We are called by God that is Love to enter into God's work like the affectionate farmer.

We are like the dynamic farmer when we join those who came before, who heard God speak “behold, I will do something new”: behold, I've created out of nothing; behold, I go before you, travel light; behold, I have made you a people; behold, I AM, even without a Temple; behold, my mercy extends even to your captors; behold, I come to you helpless; behold, death will not have the last say; behold, you are free from appeasing Me (and each other). Behold, New Heavens and a New Earth.

This is our story: the story of a dynamic God coming to us, speaking to us, saving us, in ways expected and unexpected. We belong in this story where God does something new. Even our individual lives reflect our Makers dynamic nature. I am not who I was twenty, five, or even one year ago. Neither are our friendships or families or marriages. Neither are our congregations or our towns. The ancients named the dynamic nature of the world when they said “you cannot step into the same river twice”2.

So it is with love (and because of Love) that we seek to become like the affectionate farmer who understands that the field is alive. We, like the farmer, belong to a tradition that has an open posture. She is attuned to things that she knows, like the coming of the seasons and the names of the seeds. But she is also on the lookout for things she has not seen before. Because she loves her field and is part of it, she will seek out ways to be a better farmer. In our modern age, we call this “life-long learning”, but don't be fooled by the sterile-sounding name: it is nothing short of love for our fields.

However, most of us are not farmers and our “love being attentive” can look many different ways. Maybe its more time in silent places that sharpens our senses, maybe its the stimulation of books and schooling. A hobby that is far out of our comfort zone might shed light on our work. Or a mentor might guide show us a direction in which we can grow. Trying to find common ground with someone that we “can't relate to” might sharpen our eyes to see how the Spirit is at work.

Whatever the path, whatever the field, we will act faithfully as we grow attentive to the new things that God is doing in our midst. May the God who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust give us eyes to see and courage to join in to the coming forth of the New Heavens and New Earth.

1 From The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
2 Heraclitus of Ephesus

Respectfully, Johnathan Schlabach

Vanity (January 2014) by Renee

There it is again,

That finger pointing inward,

calling forth a retchedness

hiding within. I want it out! 

People can see it

swelling up in my gut

and rolling from my chin.

I'll point that finger of blame

at myself, until it scores the gullet.

I know this is wrong.
I am so ashamed.

But shame is just one more motive.

The crying isn't self-pity. 

It's scary, but the tears
are not from fear.
 There's an acidity suiting
to this corrosive experience.

It stains my nose. Great. 

Now I stink too.

Once that feeling of drowning

passes, I feel better. For now. No,

forever this time. No more of this!

But I am too indulgent. Too impulsive.

So blindly ambitious.
I'm just like my family. I feel

that choleric inheritance land,
like a knighting sword, squarely 
on my shoulders as I kneel

 in front of a white throne

where I must purge myself

of myself and my true hungers

for that insatiable appetite for perfection.