Sight Lines.........seeing God in all of life

Inward & Down: Our Tunnel to God

"I had always imagined God to be in the same general direction as everything else I valued: up.  I had failed to appreciate the meaning of Paul Tillich's description of God as the "ground of our being." I had to be forced underground before I could understand that the way to God is not up down."   Parker Palmer in  Let Your Life Speak, p. 69.

As I reflect on my life I have not so much encountered God on the glorious mounts of transfiguration, not outward and upward in lofty places and experiences but inward and downward, when I felt pushed  down, compacted and pressed down like coffee grounds in a French press. I'm reminded of Paul's words in 2 Cor. 4:8 "We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed..."

I don't mean to sound gloomy but I have not found God so much leading me to elevations with dizzying views as much as accompanying me when I was buried in the rubble of collapsed security and I felt lost to rescuers.

I'd like you all to meet...

I'd like to introduce you to my teacher and mentor, Stellasue Lee.      www.stellasuelee.com

Stellasue Lee's work is published in the nations' top literary journals and her book of poetry  Crossing The Double Yellow Line was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A native of California, she received her Ph.D. from Honolulu University (that must have been rough ) and has taught creative writing on the collegiate level and in workshops and with private students for 25 years. Now Editor Emeritus at RATTLE, a literary journal, she serves presently on the editorial board at Curbstone Press. Stellasue continues to write, and mentor writers from around the country from the cozy confines (via phone & e-mail) of her Spring Hill, TN home where she lives with husband, Eric Hansen (www.ericLhansen.com)  a renowned visual artist, and two cats who are really in charge.

I credit Stellasue for helping me find my poetic voice again, a voice I feared was permanently lost from my being immersed in the reading of non-fiction and the writing of non-fiction articles, books, and columns. With weekly instruction, readings, assigned writing projects, daily & detailed feedback, accountability, nudging & pushing, and generous doses of encouragement & affirmation I have felt something dormant come alive again.There is a place of expression that no other genre can reach quite like poetry, save music. In recent months I've rediscovered that the human heart hosts a deep well of thought, emotion, and mystery; and it is poetry that provides the pail capable of disappearing into the dark and bringing back water.

Rethinking Romance

This poem is a tongue-in-cheek follow-up to "I Could Live Without Romance" posted on Nov. 22.  ( which really should be read first) I performed a wedding last night so it was on my mind.

Rethinking Romance

What if romance is overrated

like the Beatles,  Maya Angelo,

and Paris?  

 

What if you’re really just paying for the name?

What if passion is just effective branding with an Apple logo,

slick marketing like Starbucks that has

 everybody paying four dollars for frizzed coffee

when it’s half the price at Waffle House with free refills?

Maybe the benefits of romance are over-stated,  

twirled by spin doctors and it's all just hype

like the newest diet book or acai berry colon cleansers?

What if romance is nothing more

than a campaign promise?

 

How many of you out there, raise your hands, did passion

promise the world and didn’t even deliver Utah?

Do you really want to pin all your hopes on a fairy’s tail?

And how do you know that romance won’t go out of business?

If the government doesn’t bail out GM, what chance

does big R have if passion doesn’t make budget?

What if we’re holding out like virgins or vegetarians

for scented candles, wine, soft jazz, and shaved legs

and we’re all gonna die before the honeymoon?

 

What if we’re all binging on sappy love notes, kama sutra,

real conversation,

and cuddling during movies, and the truth is

this shower isn’t big enough for two?

 

Maybe Victoria’s Secret is that Hanes is just as good

when running errands

or cooking for a man who doesn’t notice

that when you reach for a glass in the cupboard 

a black knit top has a way of rising

and revealing

the creamy curve of hips.   

               

Passion Play

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."   --- Ferdinand Foch

     While God as conductor enthusiastically leads and calls forth the music AND enjoys the music called forth, I am the musician. You are.  It is to us that the gift of music is given. It is to us that the call comes, not to angels, to poise an instrument, to take these ordinary objects of wood and brass with holes, strings,and valves and deliver the glory hidden within the grain. Therefore, to play the instrument without passion is an insult. Playing your life imperfectly is no sin; doing so without passion is an offense to the creator. Said one of the early church fathers, "The glory of God is man fully alive." 

In the film Serendipity Jonathan's close friend tells him that in the ancient Greek culture at the end of a man's life the question was not merely whether he had been a good man but had he lived with passion? I certainly desire to live well and to be good but I also desire to live with such passion that flames can be seen coming out the sides.

"Men live by intervals of reason under the sovereignty of humor and passion." ---Thomas Browne

 

God as Maestro

 

 

 

I’ve been doing some further reflecting on the Nashville Symphony experience (see Nov 21 post God in Beethoven) and specifically my observation of maestro  Giancarlo Guerrero  and guest violinist Stefan Jackiw.

 

 

God as Conductor

One of the things that struck me about the maestro was

1) his passion in leading the music and

2) his visible responsiveness to the music created.                                                          

        It seems to me that God is fully engaged in his leadership of creation, especially his people.  God as conductor is attentive to every note but this should not be construed as God micro-managing our lives. Leadership is not dictatorship or tyranny.  The bottom line is that God, like the maestro, is intimately and actively involved in the music that He invites us to play….

 

….which leads me to my second observation about God as conductor.   God is immersed in, energized by, and responsive to the music he hears (from us).  Look at the photo of Guerrero. Does that look like a man just punching a time clock? From my vantage point in a founders box seat on the second level  ( think great seats on 20 yard line when your team is driving for a score ) I could see the facial expressions of Guerrero and I saw a man in ecstasy.  Romanced by the genius composition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto he was enraptured by the music swells he was hearing.  Could it be that God is not only leading and calling forth the music from us but that he is visibly delighted with the music that is coming forth? 

 

Why is it so hard to imagine that God is pleased with us?  Yes, we’re flawed.  But can an orchestra member really hear the symphony ( given he/she is most attentive to playing & hearing his/her own instrument and is surrounded by similar instruments) as clearly and completely as can the conductor?   No.  Does the musician in the second row playing the French horn hear the same symphony as the conductor?  No! There’s no way he can. I must remember that I cannot presume to know what God hears nor what is his level of delight. But I think it may be safe to say that his joy with us and his enjoyment of our music is greater than we of finite ears and distorted hearing do imagine.

Today I met Hoyt, but everybody calls him Chicago cause that's where he's from. He was holding the Circuit City sign in Thompson Station at the intersection down from my house. I brought him hot chocolate and we talked college football after I questioned if his orange & blue sneakers & ball cap were betraying him as a Florida Gator. Fortunately not. We talked about the FSU Seminoles and his favorite player, Deion Sanders. About Bobby Bowden retiring.

I asked him if he would be watching the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma game tonight back at the mission and it turns out the TV is a touchy subject because the TV is turned on only for the 5:30 a.m. early morning news. ( I bet that's a riveting program. )  The residents get up at 5 a.m. and shower and dress to eat breakfast at 5:30. Hoyt has been there only a month and was affirming and appreciative of the facility, program, and staff. He is a bit critical of "some guys who've been there for years and aren't trying hard to get jobs during the week; just wanna sit around and play cards or dominoes."

I asked Hoyt about whether he got to take any breaks, go inside the CVS drugstore and get warm.      "I brought my lunch and I just ate it out here. We get one 15 minute break but I don't like to go inside cause it just makes it seem that much colder when you go back out."   So for 6 straight hours Hoyt stands there in the cold turning the sign to the northbound then the southbound traffic. But he wasn't complaining. "I'm glad to have some work cause I'm saving my money to get a roof over my head again."  

I Could Live Without Romance

          Sure, I could live without romance.

For centuries people lived without

electricity, running water, or

even walls to hold up a roof

 that could keep out the gods’ wrath.

 

Entire cities, hell,

some nations wring out a living

from their wet rags without

benefit of clean water, education

or professional health care.

 

 

I guess  I could live

without passion

if most people can live without poetry,

even if I can’t.

I can’t go a day without riding wild mares

with Billy Collins or

spying on Stephen Dunn’s affair.

 

Some people survive with

only one kidney or just

one good eye, or

with no feeling in their legs

 

More people than not somehow

have survived without ever tasting

Moravian sugar cake, or

a fresh peach so sweet

it doesn’t need sugar. 

 

Imagine

not hearing so much

as a single note of Mozart or

never making love  in candlelight

while guided by Vivaldi through

tastes and touches unknown to angels.

 

People have lived very productive lives

without ever having seen

Colorado in autumn when

entire slopes of aspens

spin their green leaves into gold.

 

I have it on good authority that

there are people right here

in Franklin who

have never tasted a really

good chardonnay,

people whose thirst for beauty can be satisfied

by trips to Gatlinburg.

 

So yea,

I could probably live without romance.

A life without the kind of passion

that makes me  spin around in circles

with my  eyes closed until I  fall

dizzy and spent

against her neck.

I could try living without all that.

IF you call that living.

God in Beethoven

     

The Nashville Symphony ( www.nashvillesymphony.org) with guest violinist, Stephan Jackiw, a 20 year old international phenom, presented Beethoven's Violin Concerto in what was the most astonishing display of talent and genius I've ever witnessed in a concert of classical music (and I acknowledge my limited experience). The audience was mesmerized, people seen shaking their heads, and we sat on our hands and clamped our mouths shut to keep from exploding into applause and Bravo's before the appropriate time. And upon the final note of the concerto the entire hall of sophisticates lept to its feet and erupted like a Titans crowd after a game winning touchdown. Nashville knows what is good music and what is GREAT music ( of any genre ).  We truly earn the title Music City.

     I have a very ecletic musical taste ( classic rock, jazz, gospel, country, folk, R & B, etc. ) but the genius of classical composers such as Mozart, Beethhoven, Bach, Handel, & Vivaldi, the complexities of the symphony, the absolute mastery of an instrument such as Stephan Jackiw demonstrated, and the full spectrum of emotion contained in a single piece and the clarity of emotion held in a single note, to me most obviously reveals the sparking touch of the Divine Hand upon the human body and spirit. 

It is a solo violin's capacity to be on the verge of speech, a flutist immitating the rapid flutter of hummingbird wings, an orchesta crecendo bringing mounting tension to release...which convinces me that the wordless arts will be the evident ones in heaven because where else will words be less needed? One implication...I best write all my poetry with my skin on.

Coffee with Walter

 I see these people a lot, standing at intersections, on street corners, just holding these tall commercial signs---always some store having a going-out-of-business sale. Up to 70% off!  Everything Must Go!!  They stand there, in the cold, in the rain.  Just stand there for hours, maybe all day.

I saw a guy today all bundled up, holding the Circuit City sign toward the traffic in Spring Hill. It also served as a flimsy shield to partially block the chilled wind from hitting him directly in the face and chest. High of 44 degrees today minus whatever the wind chill makes it.

I turned the car around and went to McDonald's and got him some hot coffee and an apple pie. Came back and he hadn't budged. What do they think about while standing there all day?  Where do these stores find people willing to do this?  I made my way across traffic to the sign holder.

His name is Walter. I offered to hold the sign up while he added cream and sugar to his coffee. Drinks his coffee black. He was very polite and appreciative. Walter is homeless. The stores go to the rescue mission and find people willing to hold the signs. They pay in cash the same day so it's attractive. Walter is in 50's and has been sober for 11 months "by the grace of God" he told me. He volunteers at the mission. He has a warm, safe place to stay and is around some good people. It was the program at the mission that helped him stop drinking. Walter is mainly concerned now about his adult daughter who is married to an alcoholic.

Tonight we're going to the new state-of-the-art Schermerhorn Center in Nashville to hear Beethoven's Violin Concerto performed by the Nashville Symphony. We'll play dress-up. We'll walk from our car to the Center and complain about the cold stroll. We'll be surrounded by mostly wealthy white people so we'll feel a little out of place. And I'll think about Walter at the mission tonight playing cards and watching TV. And the kicker is that he'll be as content and grateful in the moment as I will.  Maybe more.

Newest Book

I'm delighted to announce the release of my newest book with Abingdon Press.

Actually I am one of 12 authors who each contibuted a month's worth of devotionals centered around a theme of the author's choosing. I'm Mr. March. (Wait, I think that's a different kind of publication.) Anyway, I've written the devotionals for the month of March with my central theme being the different metaphors that Jesus and Paul used to describe us and our relationship to God.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0687651980/1n9867a-20

Excerpted from March 1:

        The Bible is a very visual book, filled from Genesis to Revelation with symbols, analogies, metaphors, and word pictures. To help us understand who we are in relationship to God, Scripture invites us to role play an extensive cast of characters that includes occupations, animals, and common objects. The inspired authors urge us to think of ourselves as an athlete, soldier, tree, sheep, builder, salt and light, conqueror, artwork, account manager, vine branch, alien, ambassador, child, shining star, and a prize fighter, just to name a few.

   The Biblical writers thrust us on stage to act out multiple roles in a production that resembles a school play more than a Broadway show.  The point is not to impress an audience but to become and learn from each character. Professional actors call it “getting into the role.”

   Each day this month you’ll be ushered backstage to get into costume. There are no lines to memorize but rather lessons to be learned from both positive and negative examples of the characters.  Are you ready?  The curtain is going up.

 

Voice Lessons

Megan, I understand that you are taking

voice lessons on Fridays after school. 

Thirty minutes one-on-one

with a retired professor from Juilliard

in her Tudor home where nothing

is out of place except

a worn husband and too many cats.

 

 

Megan, I think you should know that tamed

and trained adults

with holes in their swimsuit pockets

where the wonders fell out, will tell you that

your sandcastle voice is built

too close to the surf.

They’ll offer you a relocation package

and help rebuild your skill set,

even guide you in digging a moat

that love cannot cross.

 

 

Having lost my own voice off the tee somewhere

in the tall grass when I was about your age,

can I whisper to you some subversive advice?

Run Megan!  Run sweetheart!

 

Run for the door, run over

your teacher, past the used-up man,

through those stupid cats, out the front door

with its Mozart doorbell, carefully

but quickly down the calculated steps

and when you get to the swept and pressure washed sidewalk

don’t look back.

 

 

Your Mom will be there in the driveway,

trying to stay warm with the engine turned off,

faintly singing a tune you wouldn’t know,

her eyes moist, her nose pressed against her window like a child

peering into an aquarium, wondering what it would be like

to be a fish.

 

 

Megan, this is your getaway car so tell Mom to step on it!

Because you just robbed the bank where they were holding

all the play money,

magic, and silliness of childhood.

 

She’ll hesitate, your mother will,

but tell her to drive

and to keep driving.

Tell her to head to the park--

the one with the bridge

and picnic table near the stream,

the one with the monkey bars

and swing sets lit up in primary colors.

 

She’ll start to get it, Megan.

She has more to pass on to you than

imported olive skin

and silky brown eyes.

 

She understands more than you think, 

which is why she often wears sunglasses

on these overcast and overspent days.

But don’t probe her on that.

Instead I suggest that you invite her

to pick out a CD and a favorite song

for the ride.  And the two of you

should sing along quite loudly.

 

 

By the way, don’t let anyone convince you that

singing too forcefully will cause you to lose your voice.

On the contrary--that’s how you’ll find it.

 

So sing loud, missy. Belt it out,

and if you miss some words

and massacre a few notes, all the better.

Don’t sing precisely, but passionately!

As if your life depended on it

because it does.

Congratulations to Cameron and his soccer team for winning the league championship in tonight's final-- a showdown between the league's top rated teams.  It was a well-deserved 4-2 victory in bitterly cold conditions. Parents were huddled on the sidelines in hooded jackets, blankets, hot chocolate, and chapstick while their sons ran up and down the field in nylon shorts.  I think perhaps when you're 10 years old and your team is on fire in the 2nd half of a championship game it's just not that cold.                                            

                                                      

  This is a special moment as it is Cameron's first team championship and he is thrilled. It's hard to believe that with all the sports he's played for so long that this is his first championship. His teams have come close many times but have never taken home the big trophy before tonight. 

   His indoor soccer team is undefeated (6-0) and he's having a blast with the indoor fast-paced version of the game--which is on a much smaller field (about the size of basketball court) of artificial turf with walls, smaller goals, fewer players, shorter halves. It's human pinball is what it is!  He's played goalie twice and has allowed only 1 goal in two complete games, his first game being a shutout. So he was bummed when the opponent scored a goal in game #2.  But then he turned back two  one-on-one penalty kicks where the opponent gets to dribble in and take a shot.  Both times at just the right moment Cameron rushed the kicker, staying low and spreading his arms, which surprised the kicker plus cut off his angles to the goal. He blocked one penalty shot and forced the other quite wide. He seems to have no fear in goal now and seems to welcome contact and chances to dive on the ball. For such a compassionate kid he certainly has an aggressive side in competition. Not mean or dirty, just aggressive. I guess Trevor and Cameron are alike in that respect ( one of very few similarities ) in that they show good sportsmanship but hold nothing back in hustle and effort. I enjoy seeing that combination in both of them.  

Eye-Tunes

If I were to be driving at night, over-caffeinated,

 

   singing along loudly with my eyes closed

and fists clenched, my heart

in the cup holder,

and slam into the back of a semi-truck

idling at the light,

 

                  this would be the song. 

The Stain

I over-watered the coleus,

the one in front of the window

that overlooks the tree line. 

 

I dabbed the wet carpet with paper towels,

but my nose told me that this housebroken plant

had in fact relieved itself on the rug

many times while I was away--away at work,

away running errands, meeting friends for coffee,

away buying plant food.

 

I suspected that the carpet pad might be wet,

and I was right; the foam was soaked

when I peeled back the carpet. 

And there was a stain--

a stain that exposed my habit

of emptying my coffee cup in the planter. 

    

I attacked the pad with knife and scissors

and ripped up the offense,

but there was a stain

on the hardwood floor,

hidden not like a treasure

but like an omen on an x-ray,

a spot that wouldn’t come off with sanding.

 

So I took an axe and chainsaw to it,

cut and dug out a wide swath around the tumor,

but there was a stain

on the sub-flooring.

 

Beneath that on the concrete foundation

there was that damn stain,

and I thought I got it all

with the sledgehammmer but then

I saw the stain in the topsoil.

 

It was close to lunch time and

I was about to stop digging

but I noticed the stain in the limestone,

passing right through the subsoil,

through a fossilized dinosaur

never known to have inhabited middle Tennessee,

and then through a patch of crude oil.

 

The stain drilled down into the bedrock,

barely slowed by the earth’s crust

which should never be confused with the doughy crust

of Grandma Shelton’s sweet potato pie

that is the color of Georgia clay,

now that I think about it. 

 

It must be a thin crust planet

cause the stain bled right through

and into the lithosphere which is flimsy 

as cheese cloth according to Wikapedia

 

so that’s why the stain never looked back

before invading the upper mantle

which is not much thicker

than Rhode Island is wide.

 

And I wasn’t shocked

when the geologist from Cornell,

an eye contact avoider with

the personality of shale

and skin to match,said

the stain had seeped deep

into the lower mantle

which is thick as prejudice.

 

You’d think a reasonable stain

from a coleus plant would be content

in the bowels of the earth’s lower mantle,

but no,

it’s aiming for the outer core

that’s deeper than love and pain

turned on its side,

 

and that stain is not

going to stop, I tell you,

until it claims the fabric

of

my

inner

core.

All for Ones and Ones for All

 I was born at 9:19 pm on June 20^th.

I think it would be pretty cool to be born at 11:11 (a.m. or p.m.)

on November 11^th. 

 

All those ELEVENS.  All those ONES. 

             11111111

ONES standing tall at attention

behind each other in a drill line like soldiers,

the bottom part of the numeral 

is their shined black shoes,

the top left sloping edge

is the brim of the hat

pressed low over serious eyes that

look straight ahead,

always straight ahead.

                11111111

Maybe they’re dancers in a chorus line,

party guests in a conga line,

or Texans in cowboy boots doing a line dance.  

Maybe they’re dominoes and the guy on the far right

is about to be tipped forward

and they’ll all fall cartoonishly on top of one another.

              11111111

Maybe it’s a stand of aspens,

a strand of lampposts down the left side of the street,

a set of flags at the U.N.

or flex-straws sticking up through the lids of slushees,

empty Pez dispensers waiting in line for refills.

Maybe candles on a cake

if you were so lucky to be born on November 11,

even luckier to be remembered on your special day

by people who love you and cheer like you’re a hero when

you extinguish the fire atop the heads of your little ONES.   

 

I’d cheer too if I was there.

Origin

There are springs deep

within a man’s earth of which

he knows not the origin,

only that it passes through his soil’s veins and

carves a river bed for tears to travel

upward and

out.

From a core hidden from him

he does not know that his ache is for

the grief of Eve and

the loss of Eden, this love

of all things which are first and true.

                               --RP