One of the Great Gifts

One of the great gifts of Life, is that we get to fall in love over and over. It’s like the parable we often refer to as “The Prodigal Son.” We may wander far from home, but we get to return again. Not only that, we get to experience returning home again. We get to feel the waking. We get to feel the turning. We get to feel the excitement of walking into Beauty all over again.

And so it is after 32 years of marriage, when I awake to the mysteries of this man. The man I married cares deeply about planting trees. And not just any trees. He loves trees that grow slowly, trees that he will never see at their most majestic. I find that kind of generosity and hope beautiful. It wakes me and I fall in love again.

And last night, as we were putting away groceries from CostCo, someone noticed with delight that there was a lichen in our packaged mushrooms. And we all gathered around, and we all had to see it, and we all remembered that we are nourished by the earth God made and that we come from the ground and return to it. And I fall in love again. With God. With lichen. With mushrooms that smell like earth. With these dear people.

And yesterday while my daughter and I sat on the front porch falling in love with the wind on our skin, she told me a story. Of when she was younger and feeding the sheep their evening hay. And how she called them into the barn and they came…except for one. So she closed the barn door and went looking for the one that hadn’t come. And she found him, down, unwell, under the trees, too weak to get up, too weak to call for help. And she was the shepherdess, so she bent near to him, scooped him up into her arms and carried him to the barn. And she knew deeply that The Shepherd can never not search for the lost sheep. That He must. That if the sheep can’t cry out, The Shepherd will come anyways. That if the sheep doesn’t know she’s being carried, The Shepherd will carry her anyways. That if the sheep doesn’t know she’s being cared for, The Shepherd cares for her anyways. And I fell in love again with the deep well in this girl and the many mysteries within her.

I know.

There are things to lament.

Truly.

But, we can do both.

What are you falling in love with right now?

It's the seeds, isn't it? Always the small seeds

A shy, quiet man…a longtime bachelor has lived in the green house since before we moved in. Two years ago he married a kind and gentle soul with an easy laugh that carries down the road a ways. There is a mysterious but palpable mutuality about them and together they have brought an Eden forth from the previously neat but plain small acreage. They have planted grapes and berries, fruit trees, flowering shrubs and other marvels. Bird feeders and squirrel feeders have blossomed throughout the property and into this peaceable kingdom they have brought a goofy, gangly dog. He fits perfectly into this House of Joy.

Across the street from them is what used to be the Beloved Forest. It was beloved by the man who owned it, walked in it, and tended it. When he died he left it to his son. During the winter his son logged the 200 acre wood. It didn’t feel like a harvest or even a business transaction. It felt like anger. It felt like vengeance. It felt like trauma.

Last week when we walked past the slash piles, many 20 feet tall, Todd saw a sunflower. We stopped and marveled. It’s strange to see a sunflower in the forest…where did it come from? How can it grow in that soil? It was unusual, out of place, and yet…hopeful. One thin sunflower next to a slash pile, one small voice rising among the devastation.

Today I walked past the slash piles again.

There were hundreds of sunflowers.

Hundreds.

I stood overwhelmed by the bright yellow heads all pointed towards the rising sun this morning…and then I turned and noticed the House of Joy— the Peaceable Kingdom with it’s feeders and bounteous love of Life.

Metaphors

I took a walk this morning. On my way back, a neighbor I don’t often talk to waved me down. She was refilling her bird feeders, but set her task aside to get closer to where I stood on the road.

We exchanged greetings and then talked about . . . hair. And somehow, hair and hair management was the metaphor for all the big things: connections and interdependence, the difference between isolation and solitude, the truth of our fragility and the truth of our resilience.

It reminded me of this poem:

I Confess
I stalked her
in the grocery store: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,
the way she placed yogurt and avocados in her basket,
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know
how to be married for fifty years, or how to live alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you seem to possess
some knowledge that makes the earth burn and turn on its axis—"
but we don’t request such things from strangers
nowadays. So I said, "I love your hair."

~Alison Luterman (her website is here: https://www.alisonluterman.net/)

I love this poem for the way it highlights the rich interior connections we make with others and the mundane greetings we send into the world pregnant with meaning. (I also love it because of the way it entered my world: a dozen years ago Todd got home from work and was emptying his pockets. He handed me a little wadded scrap of paper and said, “oh, this is for you! I thought you’d like it.” My first thought was that he was giving me a used tissue, but I carefully opened it to find this poem. He saw it inside a MAX train, on the wall, and wrote it down. Quite possibly the most romantic gesture of all time…)

I’ve been thinking that maybe many of our divisions are because we forget that we are a metaphorical people. We forget about the deep, rich interiors of one another. So, this month of May I am on the lookout for those current cultural metaphors that we use when we don’t have words to say:

• you are amazing

• you are beautiful

• I don’t know how to help

• I don’t know how to make it better

• I see you

I would love to hear from you. What cultural metaphors are you noticing?

And, seriously… I LOVE your hair.

Ruach

I know. It’s true. I talk a lot about breath. I first became fascinated with breath as a way to understand God. The Hebrew word for breath, ruach, is also the word for spirit and the very first time it appears in Scripture is in the very first chapter of Genesis. It’s one of my favorite verses because it so accurately describes what the creative process feels like inside me:

And the earth was without form and empty, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.—Genesis 1:2

Spirit of God there is Ruach Elohim, the breath of God exhaled over the deep. So often the pieces of an idea are churning within me, but I don’t know exactly where things are going. For me, inspiration feels like a breath into the deep, a moment of stillness in the churning and then—LIGHT! It is a prayer.

And so I wanted to explore the ways that understanding breath could help me understand God. Then my father was diagnosed with lung cancer and breathing became something he had to think about all the time. Then my own medical professionals helped me to see the connections between breathing and panic, post traumatic stress, anxiety and healing. Somehow all these things have overlapped: anatomy, physiology, compassion, empathy, poetry, art and prayer.

And because I talk about it so much, I wanted to give you a glimpse into someone else’s process with this. I’ve been working with a lovely woman, an authentic soul, who has given me permission to share some of her words and art here:

April Near, 2019, mixed media and acrylic paint on 24”x40” wood board

Recently I was challenged to “draw my breath” ... I didn’t know how to do this but over the course of 3 weeks I wrestled, pondered and asked questions about my breath.

Then... after days of wrestling, thinking, pondering, praying I saw a picture of my breath; it was a picture of wind unfurling through the air so I dared to paint what I was seeing. When I allow stress and worry and control to dominate my heart and mind, my breath is shallow, constricting and dark which doesn’t allow the full unfurling into the air. But when I pause and remember that every breath I breathe is a gift and each encounter and circumstance in my life is a gift, I can give thanks and I realize that all that God’s given me can be gifted to the world around me and I can breathe deeper which gives me strength and freedom which eventually leads to a deeper experience of “life” which I in turn can give to others - like the pearls in the painting being released, sharing their beauty with the world. So it is with all of us. God gave us breath and our very breath and existence impacts the world around us. We alone get to choose the level of impact. So when we breathe deep and accept all that comes our way as a gift, we in turn are able to be a gift to those around us. (To read April’s entire post on her website you can click here.)

To draw means to pull. What we refer to as “drawing” in art came from the act of pulling a pen. When we draw our breath we are pulling in, inhaling, and considering the gift of Life. I love that ruach emphasizes the exhalation of God and drawing breath emphasizes the inhalation of man. God breathes out of Himself and into us.

I need to ponder that a bit…

You Catch My Tears

Towards the end of the summer this year it I felt like so many were carrying so much and the verse from Psalm 56 kept rolling around inside me:

You have collected all my tears in your bottle—Psalm 56:8

I thought maybe…maybe if we could see a tangible representation of that verse people might remember that with God nothing is wasted. It might encourage the hearts of my dear people in this time. I called a young glass blower I know and asked him if he could make me one tear catcher. “Maybe,” he said. “What’s a tear catcher?”

And so began our research into the little glass bottles used by a variety of peoples and cultures throughout the centuries. A few weeks later William, young glassblower extraordinaire, showed up at my house with a box of tiny bottles. “I didn’t know how to choose, so I brought what I’ve been working on. You can pick which one you like.” Honestly, I couldn’t choose either. Each one had it’s own personality. I took all twelve.

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I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears—2 Kings 20:5

There were more stories than I can tell here, but I’d like to share one:

Hi, Michelle,

At our event last Thursday, a young girl of about 8 or so was dropped off by her dad, and they had some discussion about getting her a snack for during break time.  She headed off to class, and her dad dutifully purchased a couple of snacks, but then took them to his car to save for her until classes were over.  At break time, she came to the snack table expecting to find something waiting, and was notably disappointed when she learned what had happened.  She went and stood in a corner, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see her slowly crumbling into teary sadness.  I went and spoke with her, and we finally agreed that it might help to get a drink of water since she couldn't have her snack until later.

On the way to the water fountain, she looked up through her tears and saw the tiny glass bottles on their shelves in the hall.  "What are those?" she asked.  I explained to her what the sign described, and the scripture verse that provided the inspiration.  She was so captivated by this idea!  She got a drink, and came back and looked again as her tears began to dry...

"I wonder why God wants to collect our tears?

Does he save them up and drink them when he gets thirsty?

Or maybe he uses them to fill up the clouds to give us rain!"

And her small sorrow was turned to wonder at the loving care of our creative God.  She ran off refreshed and joyful, and my heart was so thankful that our church embraces art. 

The tear catchers attracted a lot of attention and within a week they had all sold. People who bought them all had intensely personal reasons and I know some bottles traveled across the country to those who were grieving. This is one of the ways God uses artisans to draw us back into His beautiful heart.

The psalmist in Psalm 56:8 uses the image of God catching our tears in a bottle to proclaim God's holy concern for every single moment of our lives. Nothing is wasted. No one is unseen.

Many thanks to William McBride who said yes without knowing what was being asked of him.

Breaking Habits

Mid-January 2014 I arrived early to a William Stafford Centennial event where his son, Kim Stafford, would be speaking and reading excerpts of his father’s work. William Stafford was Oregon's Poet Laureate for awhile and so 100 years after his birth there were celebratory events all over the state. He is famous here, but I came to appreciate him through the writings of his son. Kim Stafford wrote my favorite book on writing and teaches at a local university. I am such a fan of Kim Stafford's writing that eventually I started reading his greatest influence, his dad…and that title of Poet Laureate was well-bestowed.

My ticket would have gotten me into the venue, but I was so early they just waved me in with the kitchen crew. In the days leading up to this event I sent approximately 91 texts to a variety of people with the words “I’m going to meet Kim Stafford!!!!!” I sat down in the front row to wait.

Soon, a man who seemed to barely contain his own excitement at being alive sat down next to me. We talked about the merits of William Stafford’s poetry versus his essays, about Kim Stafford’s writings, about children and the remarkable fragility of life, about the remarkable resilience of life, about the forest-not-too-far-from-here and about public libraries in rural towns in Oregon. The venue filled around us and Official People arrived. At some point I introduced myself, “I’m Michelle.” He smiled and shook my hand, “Brian,” he laughed. And so we continued to enjoy each other’s company until a well-dressed woman approached us and said, “We’re ready for you Mr. Doyle.”

And those who are familiar with Brain Doyle’s work will nod right now and say, “yes, yes, how very like him.” He had a way of observing the ordinary so intensely that he forgot himself in the experience of it. His writing continues to be a daily invitation to me to notice the sacred in the ordinary.

This week I have been inundated with articles on developing habits, maintaining habits and limiting habits. This is the first week of the New Year and fresh starts and resolutions are part of the predictable wave of articles in my news feed. Habits are the things that help us to move through the world more efficiently, more quickly. We can use our brains for other things because they are not being overworked by noticing everything or by having to make decisions about everything. Habits make up the bulk of our days and we rarely stop to consider them. They make us productive and competent…and blind. The essay I read this morning was Brian Doyle’s meditation on…dirt. Even as I type that it makes me smile. He is the kind of witness I want to be—an observer who stops and notices and wonders. Who notices the way wind feels, or dirt smells, the way someone laughs, or hides. Who wonders about what God is doing in this Holy Moment.

If you have never had the joy of experiencing Brian Doyle, here are my current top two favorites (note: I do NOT participate in any affiliate program, these link to Amazon for your convenience but you might find them elsewhere for a better price and buying through these links does not benefit me at all in any way):

A Book of Uncommon Prayer

One Long River of Song (the essay for tomorrow begins like this: My daughter, age 6, sleeps with her bear, also age 6. My son, age 3, sleeps with his basketball and a stuffed tiger, age unknown. My other son, also age 3, sleeps with a can of anchovy fillets…)

Savor slowly and with delight.

Where Are You?

In October, I invited artists in the area to an Art and Soul Challenge:

The first question God asks of man in the Bible is found in Genesis. He asks, "Where are you?" For this Art and Soul Challenge, I invite you to consider how you would answer this question right now, and how you could depict your answer visually. Use any medium you like, as long as your piece arrives to me ready to hang.

I was reading Trevor Hudson's Questions God Asks Us and it felt like an invitation to walk with God. I thought that a group show would be more effective than a solo show because a variety of answers, methods and viewpoints might make it more likely that a viewer would feel drawn into the conversation. I wanted people to go home thinking about how they might answer God's question themselves.  

The show was up October 20th to December 1st. It was such an interesting mix of new and practiced artists.

I want to share two emails (of many) I received from participating artists because they illustrate what I consider to be the goal of art in the church. I reprint them here with permission. The first email is from DN, a practiced artist, who I am just getting to know and love:

I had fun and it did open some things for me. I "got" the picture in my head.  Hiding in the Garden of Eden....The cross....No longer needing to hide.  But my plan was to put little bandaids or black strips across my figure in several places to symbolize that there are things that I take back, things that I still try to hide from God.  Sins.  But when I put them on the figure, they marred it. The truth was that in my eyes I am marred but in God's eyes he sees me whole and beautiful, His bride.  I made the figure out of paper I marbled.  When I looked at the finished figure, I saw a person full of this gorgeous and flowing creativity and, for the first time, I felt like I saw myself as God saw me and as how He designed/created me.  I saw myself dancing, worshipping.  When God asks, "Where are you?" I heard myself answer.  "I am here Lord.  Speak -- for your servant is listening." This ended up being a profound experience for me.

This second email is from a new artist, MS, who wrote up her experience with this process. Her honesty and vulnerability touch me:

I paint watercolors. Most people don’t know that about me. Well, technically I try to paint watercolors. I dream of painting, but it is a struggle for me. I know many people who are so talented and can lay down these beautiful strokes of a brush with fabulous hues and create these amazing paintings. I find it crazy stressful! Staring at a quarter sheet of 140lb Arches paper, better known as a thick piece of 15x22 paper, can bring such fear. The wonderful lady I have taken some classes from says to herself each time she starts, ‘Going in.’ I tend to think, ‘Oh crap, time to start.’

For me, painting brings up a mix of emotions. I love part of it and hate part of it. I love the colors and interaction of the paint when it hits the paper--how it can swirl and create these patterns that are amazing. The outcome will be different if you put it down on a dry sheet of paper or if you get the sheet wet first. But the imaginative things I see in my head die a quick and sudden death when I try to put them on paper. My brain and my hand are definitely not creatively attached. Heaven forbid I actually do paint a section I like because then I am frozen thinking at any moment I could do something that will ruin the little bit of good I have done. I don’t finish many paintings. I can’t get past the roadblocks in my head.

Life can be kind of like that though. Some of us struggle day after day, trying to do what is right and often failing. But every once in a while, we have a moment where everything comes together. What follows is the fear that our next step could undo all the positive we have done.

Recently, I was included in an email that went out asking people if they wanted to contribute to an art display we were going to have here at the church. We were to answer the question, ‘Where are you?’ in response to God asking that of Adam and Eve in the garden. Where are you right now and how would you depict your answer visually? Better yet, how on earth had I got on that email list?! It had to be a mistake. Well- turns out it wasn’t. After much tossing and turning and turmoil I decided to try. I only told one other person who also paints. That way if I chickened out, only she would know.

Fail, fail, fail. I tried going with the idea that I am still trying to find my wings. I tried a little hummingbird and a dragonfly but I just got stuck. I even tried a little koi fish thinking I could go with a fish out of water theme. Kinda fitting, right? Fail again. That little voice in my head that always says "you are not good enough" was throwing a party. As the days drew closer, I had already decided to quit about 20 times. How could I turn something in when I was so terrible at it? No one would want to see it. Trust me on that one.

A couple days before I needed to turn it in, I was chatting with a friend. We were laughing about how great it is that God isn’t finished with us. We are a work in progress.  Then it clicked. My paintings are like me. Unfinished. So I closed my eyes and turned in all three that I had struggled with.

Unfinished
By Melissa Skeels
Watercolor
'I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.’ Philippians 1:6 NRSV
I am a beautiful work of art in process by God’s grace as He continues to add to my palette with new hues of color while softening my edges, adjusting my perspective, and allowing me to take shape.

It was done, I was done, and I was never going to go through all that ‘turning in a painting’ stress again. Oh- and to make it even better, everyone else’s that were now hanging in the church were these beautiful paintings.

Well, it turns out I was wrong. Today I received an email, “Hi Melissa— your hummingbird blessed my friend today. She talked about going to an aviary in Arizona where hummingbirds fly freely. She plans to go there this week as a treat to remind her about God’s love. We talked about it in the hallway. Then when she was leaving she noticed your bird and said, “isn’t God so good— here I was just talking about hummingbirds and here is a beautiful painting of one.” Thought you would like that and I was thinking...I would love to give your painting to her. Would you be willing to sell it? I know you talked about doing more to it but I think it is lovely just as it is.”

So yeah, that made my cry. My hours of struggle were used in some little way by God. I know that shouldn’t be surprising since God uses people all the time. But I work behind the scenes so I don’t usually get to see my involvement in it. But God is working in us and through us every day. Whether we notice it or feel it or even get to hear about it, He is still there. Shaping and molding. Best of all He promises to keep doing a good work in us until Jesus returns. Thank goodness, right?!

Yes, I plan to keep struggling and painting. Maybe one day it will start getting easier. But maybe it isn’t supposed to get easier. Maybe striving is the point.

Maybe. I think for me, engagement is the point, and I think all the artists who participated gave us that gift. Their willingness to engage their strengths and weaknesses, fears and faith, with God and people through art blessed them, blessed the congregation and blessed me. And, I'm pretty sure God was smiling too.

Broken Pieces: An Interview with Collage Artist Jo Reimer

I never liked collage. There is something terribly destructive about it, and for a long time all I could see in it was brokenness. It made me uncomfortable and sad. My experience with collage as a child was to rip up beautiful magazine pictures in order to create something mediocre. I was not a fan.

One day I realized that art quilting, my first love in art forms, was basically collage. I remember being stunned. At first I argued with myself, I was not destroying things of beauty to create mediocrity, I was redeeming cast off pieces and giving them new life. Surely intent mattered, didn't it? I began to study the history, various artist styles and forms of this medium. I could see it's benefit in trauma healing and in spiritual direction. Slowly, I have grown to appreciate all forms of collage.

One of my favorite people is an intriguing collage artist. Jo Reimer agreed to be interviewed here. 

Michelle: I know you have used several different mediums for expression over your career, what is it that you like about collage?

Jo Reimer: You’re right that I’ve used different mediums for expression beginning with the threaded needle and fiber to create clothing and home goods as well as wall hangings. These items included lots of applique and the vast array of surface design techniques. I’ve explored most ways of painting and I draw a lot, now mostly urban sketching. About 20 years ago, while involved in art journaling and book arts, I began using collage on the pages. It grew beyond my pages. I took it larger, finally settling on collage as my primary medium.  Collage is simply gluing paper to a surface to build up a composition and tell a story. My work is different from that of most other collage artists in that I work with papers that I’ve painted and textured using techniques I learned way back when I was working in surface design on fabric.

“Collage is simply gluing paper to a surface. . . to tell a story”

— Jo Reimer

M: I love how your work has, in a sense, come full circle in terms of the texturing of fabric and now papers. Would you say you have a visual language? Colors, shapes or symbols that are unique to your work? 

JR: Yes, I do have a visual language which I realized only recently as I was skimming over the hundreds of images I’ve pinned to my collage and paintings boards on Pinterest. I use geometric shapes to build my works… mostly squares and rectangles, with thick and thin lines, and the occasional circle, spot or dot. Those right angles come naturally to me, probably related to my experiences with patchwork and pattern. Try as I might to go organic, I can’t go there.  And color! Everything is colorful although most recently I’ve been loving working with neutrals. They’re so elegant. It’s hard for color to be elegant and I like elegance, and order, and control.  It shows.

M: Are there particular topics that you tend to revisit often? Why do you think that is?

Hometown Girl by Jo Reimer, 12 x 12 collage of painted papers and images on cradled panel.  JR: "The woman is my mother. 255 was my phone number when I was a child. The bridge is similar to one that terrified me when I was learning to drive because of the parallel boards on which one had to keep the wheels of the car. My dad loved to fish. After work he’d get one of us kids to go with him and row the boat while he fished. And the words, 'Jim had a nice birthday' refers to my brother. This piece is all about my family of origin."

JR: I visit and revisit the idea of home and family. To me it’s obvious why that is… it’s what I know and where my interests and love live.  From childhood I’ve drawn floorplans. As a six year old I played among the above-ground roots of a big oak tree, naming the spaces as rooms in a home and populated those rooms with stone “people.” My first paintings in high school home economics class were of a living room and a dining room.  I had 6 years of home economics in middle and high school and majored in home economics/clothing/textiles in college.  Home is where it’s at for me.

M: Isn't it interesting how little things from childhood carry though our entire lives? I know you like order and organizing, but your work is so "loose" and expressive. Can you let us into your process a little bit?

JR: Several times during the year I devote a couple of weeks to painting and decorating paper which is then sorted into bins according to color.  I also have boxes of many kinds and colors of papers torn from books and magazines or saved from the trash. I call these boxes “compost” because beauty grows from the combining and mixing of these otherwise useless papers.

When I come to my work table I stir and sort through my "compost" and choose a few papers that interest me for some reason. Sometimes I come to the table empty minded and let ideas form from interacting with the papers. Other times I have something definite in mind… a memory or an idea or simply a geometric composition that I’ve sketched in my studio journal.  I set out my glue pot, a few palette knives, a wet cloth to clean my fingers, and a support… and I begin. I audition the papers which will make the cut and be included in the first layers. I lay the papers in place, repositioning them until the composition is pleasing, and then begin the actual gluing process.  It’s messy and fun. The work changes and evolves over hours and days. Sometimes the collage is finished in just a few hours, but usually I return to the work again and again until it’s finished, adding inked lines and paint where needed.

M: How is your work impacted by your faith, and do you find the reverse to be true? How does art impact your faith?

“The work changes and evolves over hours and days.”

— Jo Reimer

JR: I’m a Christian who makes art but mostly I don’t make religious art, not the kind of religious art sold in a Christian bookstore.  Over several years I’ve made numerous works of art for my church, alter frontals, banners, replica textiles for a model of the original Tabernacle as well as Aaron’s garments.  I made a series of collage paintings/ illustrations of the sermons of my pastor, 10 of which are used in the children’s department. I completed 54 of these “Sermon Notes” before the series ended and I consider these works to be the best things I’ve made. Definitely my faith was impacted and was driven by the creating of this body of work; however, I feel that everything I do is an act of worship, simply because of who I am and in whom I believe.  I was created to be who I am, to be creative, to draw and paint and glue and make things, so of course my art is impacted by my faith and vice versa.  It’s who I am.

Thanks Jo!

Isn't she interesting? I've blogged about Jo's work before, you can find that article here.
Jo has a website: joreimer.com
And art blog: joreimer.blogspot.com, The title of her blog, One-A-Day, refers to her commitment to make one piece of art every day. The searchable blog contains lots of information on how she makes art.
Photos of her art can be viewed on Flickr.com at https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmadojo/albums
For information about purchasing a painting contact her at joreimer@comcast.net.

The Pilgrimage Question

Why do you walk?

It is the most common question I got before I left. It is the question the old woman asks me now. She is from Bogota, Columbia. She too is a pilgrim.

"I am on pilgrimage," I tell her.

"Yes," she smiles, "but why do you walk? What is there at Compostela?" I am not sure what she is asking. I start to explain that it is an ancient pilgrimage site. She nods and waves her hand impatiently, "Of course, yes, I know this. What is there for you? ¿Porque caminas? Why do you walk?"

This question has gotten more and more difficult for me to answer. I think I had an answer when in the planning stages. I think I had an answer after buying my ticket. But the last week before I left words abandoned me and the only ones left were, "because I need to go."

There is something terribly lonely about the path, even though there are other pilgrims on it. Perhaps because there are other pilgrims on it. Days 5 and 6 since I left home are so lonely, and the ache in my chest is so heavy that I am not sure I will make it.

My muscles and feet are fine.

And meal times are times of beautiful connection.

But there are lots of empty spaces. Some are for thoughts, some for prayers, some for just being. Some swallow me up and threaten to sadness.

So much is beautiful.

So much is wonderful.

So much is glorious.

So much is plodding in the heat, in the wind, putting one foot in front of the other up a hill while carrying a pack.

I left home six days ago, and the question is asked of me daily on the road, in the pilgrim houses, and the answer has buried itself so deep inside that all I have to offer by way of explanation is completely unsatisfactory. I walk because I am a pilgrim and I need to know what that means.

Beginning (Again)

I am not sure exactly when the desire to pilgrimage was planted in me. I don't know how long it incubated and then grew. I do know that it hasn't disappeared. There are things I hear on pilgrimage that I cannot hear any other way, any other time, or anywhere else. Pilgrimage is a great metaphor for Life. However, it is not Life. That means that I require the actual living of Life after a pilgrimage to begin to understand what I learned while walking.

It has been about 10 months since I left for Portugal to begin walking The Camino. I wanted the first stamp in my pilgrim passport/credential to be in Lisbon. The geography matched the landscape in my heart. I wanted to see the broken pieces, I wanted to witness the renewal.

Lisbon is a city built of rubble.

The three biggest natural disasters to hit the city happened all on the same day in 1755. First, there was an earthquake that brought down many of the main structures. Scientists estimate that quake was between 8.5 and 9 and that it lasted for 3 minutes, collapsing stone walls, demolishing filled churches and opening up 2 meter-wide gaps in the streets. The shaking ground caused candles to fall over and fires tore through Lisbon and surrounding areas burning wooden structures. It took 5 days to get the fires under control.

The epicenter of the quake was in the Atlantic Ocean. Townspeople trying to escape falling debris and fire ran to the docks. Within 45 minutes of the earthquake the first of 3 tsunami waves hit those docks. The wall of water was 9 meters high when it reached the city, the worst recorded tsunami to hit Europe. 90% of the buildings were destroyed. 75,000 people in Lisbon died as a result of the 1755 earthquake.

How do you recover from something like that? Everything was broken. Everyone was broken. Every single person left alive was grieving someone, grieving home, grieving.

The mayor surveyed the rubble and said,

"Now.

Today.

Here.

We rebuild.

Bury the dead.

Heal the living.

Gather the pieces and start again."

The roads in Lisbon are cobblestone streets, but they are not made of big stones like in other cities. The stone streets are made of smaller rocks. The sidewalks are also built of bits of stones. The buildings went up quickly too. Providing dwellings kept the remaining population from illness. There was no time for decorative carving or for painting these new buildings. Lisbon was known for tiles and many of them were still whole. In fact, they had piles of them, so as buildings went up the exteriors were covered with those stacks of tiles.

Lisbon is a city built of rubble. There are bits of pieces everywhere. And it is beautiful.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when a pilgrimage begins. Is it the day we start walking from a specific point? Is it when we start packing? Or when we first realize we have the idea? I'm not sure it's possible to clearly identify the beginning, however, once we get started, each day is a decision to start anew.

Every day is a pilgrimage.

Every day we get up again, no matter how sore or broken.

Every day we begin again.

We gather the broken pieces and make a way.

We build atop the rubble.

And Life is Beautiful.       

A Call to Worship: The First New Blue Pigment Discovered in the Last 200 Years

There are many around the world suffering from senseless violence. Here in Portland, Oregon we have lost people needlessly as well. I wrote this call to worship last week, after 3 men were stabbed for rising to the defense of 2 teenage girls on a train who were being verbally assaulted. Thanks to Cedar Mill Bible Church for giving me the opportunity to deliver this call today:

We are not innocent

we are not guilty

what we are

is Sad

(have you heard of the discovery of a new shade of blue?)

we are sad for the city, we are sad for the children

we are sad for two teenage girls on a train

just kids

and we all lost something when hate screamed and then

tore red holes in the world

we are sad that we needed the helpers and heroes

and the temptation is to huddle in the upper room

to say, “Now what Lord?

Now what?

Now what?

This is a new shade of blue.”

When Christ looked at His city, He cried too.

How did the disciples know it was time?

to leave the room and enter the streets?

no speech, no word, no voice was heard

and yet love breathed courage and called them,

Knock on a door

Console

because this is not political

You Know

You Know what is critical here,

a sorrow shared

a universal tongue

a hand outstretched

a hand taken

lives given for one another

we ask God, “How will you heal?

What will you do?”

And He answers, “That, my child, is why I made you.”

—Michelle Winter, 2017

Air and Water: An Interview with Singer-Songwriter Alli Rogers

I have this friend.

She is fascinated by the ordinary. She inhabits the earth, the wind, the Real Things that we miss. She notices breath and notices clouds. She feels the tremors beneath our words. Because she embraces what is true, she elevates the ordinary. Her noticing makes it sacred and she invites us to see through her eyes, to feel through her heart.

I wanted to share her poet-soul with you. She said yes. Alli Rogers is visiting with us today, talking about writing and inspiration:

Michelle: Are there metaphors or symbols that are particularly meaningful to you that show up often in your work?

Alli Rogers: I am constantly writing about water. As a child growing up in Iowa, we spent a lot of time in the summer at my grandparents cabin near the Mississippi river. That was probably where my fascination with water began. It was just so mysterious and powerful. Why was the water moving so fast and where was it going? Why were the sandbars constantly changing? Why was my grandmother so scared of the current? I later became acquainted with the ocean and its overwhelming beauty that still calms and terrifies me all at once. Water represents a longing often in my writing, it remains for me an image of our journey through life, and it illustrates a unique take on the biblical truth of weakness being strength.

“Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.”

— Tao Te Ching

I also tend to come back to the moon and stars in my writing. I find it interesting that these two things are sources of peace as well as fear for me. I suppose I write about that which confounds me, in my attempt to make sense of it, as well as to remember that God is God and I am not. The fact that there is so much out of my control or understanding is in fact proof that God exists, and the beauty of it all is  proof that He is good. That is how I see it. 

M: Can you let us into your process a little bit?

AR: My process has changed with different life seasons but a couple of principals have been good guideposts for me. First, the idea of working regardless of inspiration has been something I come back to. Inspiration is wonderful and every artist and poet depends on it, but you cannot wait for it to hit before you pick up your pen. That kind of thinking also negates the value of the learning that happens through writing many bad poems and songs. Each throw away is part of the process, or at least that makes me feel better! It helps to work regularly to get your creative muscles in shape so you are ready when the inspiration does come. Madeline L’Engle says it like this: “One must write every day. Otherwise when it comes time to get out of the way and listen to the work, you will not be able to heed it”.

The truth is that I have gone long stretches where I’ve let my creative self get lazy and I have paid for it. So this is my ideal process, one that I thrive in, but it has been hard to implement in these years of raising young kids. 

“Write to pray, write to process life, write to remember, write to apologize, write to understand, write to grieve, write to celebrate, write to give thanks, write to notice. ”

— Alli Rogers

The second principal which I picked up from a songwriter friend is that when inspiration does hit, just write and edit later.  if you’ve experienced it you know it is like riding a wave. When you are on it you don’t think about having perfect form or balance, you just go. It is the same with writing. Editing comes later. Editing can be painful but that is another topic of discussion that I could talk about at length! 

My process is essentially: Write as often as I can, about everything I can. Write to pray, write to process life, write to remember, write to apologize, write to understand, write to grieve, write to celebrate, write to give thanks, write to notice. And then after that, edit if needed (it usually is) and decide if it’s purpose is to share or not. Sometimes songs never get shared and that can often feel like food spoiling on the counter. Little deaths. But I think there is something essential there also. Even a discarded apple core can become food for the earth and maybe it is like this with songs.

I sure hope so.

Thank you Alli!

This is one of my favorite things: to open all the blinds on a Thursday morning and fill my space with the sound of Alli's voice singing the things I didn't even know were in my heart. You can listen to her music here: 

Alli’s latest release Breathe is on iTunes click here.

Her website is AlliRogers.com

And here is a gift for you from her generous heart. A song to listen to while looking out the window:

Playing With Opposites

I love paradox. I love seeming contradiction. I love putting them side by side. Just like complementary colors when placed side by side, create an edge that seems to shimmer, paradox expands our knowing into understanding.

This week I have been playing with those ideas in poem form. This is an unfinished poem, but I wanted to share where I am in the journey. I decided to write about the autumnal equinox because it is one of two days in the year when day and night are the exact same length. That equality of contradiction was exactly what I wanted to explore.

Autumnal Equinox

I stand

in dry weeds

               hip high

and in short

               damp grass

at the edge of the vegetable garden

between the spent blue lake beans

               gone to seed

and the pregnant yellow-blush tomatoes

The air from the pasture

rises warm alfalfa sweet

leaving the ground beneath it cold and sharp

And that sound

the scream that masquerades as silence

               at the insect changing of the guard

               half the swarm readies for rest

               half charges the dusk

Attacking my ankles

               I am become a bistro to the miniscule

               I know better

                              but I refuse to wear long pants

                                                                           or socks

                                                                           or shoes

I bite into a warm tomato

               juice crawls down my arms

               drips onto my cold feet

I am 37.

Poetry for Healing

I talked about how I stumbled into leading arts-based groups here. I still love poetry as an avenue into healing. Often survivors of trauma or loss are not quite sure how to make sense of what happened. Trauma memories are stored on the right side of the brain as fragments of image, sound or smell. Playing with imagery blurs the walls between our compartmentalization of senses and meaning, allowing us to experience a more holistic way of knowing. It allows us to access our imaginations through our senses and connect them to meaning or verbal expression, which is housed on the left side of the brain, in a non-threatening way.

Trauma and loss explode us into fragments, separate and divide us from ourselves and others. God invites us to bring our bits to Him and He will make something beautiful from them. Art is one of His gifts to us. Art collects the pieces and helps us to hold the shrapnel in God's Presence.

When we read poems that resonate with our experience, we feel less isolated. Those poems can help us to name what was unnamed. They can help us find our voice. We when speak words we know deep in our bones, but didn't write, we join ourselves to others who have experienced something similar--and survived. Those words can become a catalyst for releasing our own writing.

When we write poems we have to examine our experience from many angles. We make meaning where there was none, or worse, where there was wrong meaning. We enter into shared humanity with our own stories told in our own voices and in our own ways.

These are two of my favorite resources for poetry and healing:

Finding What You Didn't Lose by John Fox

Poetic Medicine by John Fox

A Listening Poem

This William Stafford poem is about authenticity and listening closely for each other's hearts. There is so much here that reminds me of the parables of Christ: the call to awake people to be awake, the call to care deeply for The Other. May we be challenged to alert attention, to recognize what is sacred in the persons around us.

You can listen to William Stafford reading this poem here.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

~William Stafford

 

Streams of Themes

Though we might be different in the details, we are all so similar in the broad strokes. We all have interior structures that help us to understand new information, to navigate the world and absorb fresh perspectives. We all have streams of recurring themes in our lives: something we never learn, topics that always fascinate, mistakes we always make, concepts that we always struggle to understand.

When I was working on building a relationship with my father he became a common topic in my work. It wasn't conscious initially, I just had him on my mind. Frequently. I sent him every poem I wrote about him except the last two that I wrote when he died. Those poems became portals for us to reach each other. Here is one of them:

A Visit With Grandpa

My kids surround my father

They’ve grown, he’s lost, 3 inches

Photographs pass back and forth

My father’s stories hover over and underneath

Soak into them

A gift of belonging

I pluck at the pictures, hopeful

“He loves me, He loves me not, He loves me…”

He walked with giants and ran with horses

And weathered the ebb and flow of me

Courage passes easily

between them, these people

who bookend me

Things I should say

And questions—unanswerable

Slip back down my throat

And since I cannot do the words

I make a lemon pie.

                              —Michelle Winter

Do you see it? I didn't at first.

The bridge between us, the portal towards one another?

It's in the lemon pie.

Contradictions

This morning I think about gratitude, attending, noticing. These things all imply a posture that leans forward, that bends towards. At the same time I am cultivating an attitude of receiving rather than taking and that implies pulling back, resting, lowering. Just trying to walk through life this week has turned into a workout. How far can I lean into something before it becomes a chase? How far do I pull back before I become absent?

This is Wednesday of Holy Week. The week starts with shouts of joy, and ends with shouts of hate. It starts with a triumphal entry and ends in a disgracing execution. How quickly things turn around completely. 

Contradiction floats over everything right now. Perhaps this is always true. I wrote the poem below during a sermon one Sunday. The Bible uses metaphors and symbols to explain concepts, but sometimes the ancient agricultural symbols can get lost on a modern urban audience. This particular Sunday the sermon explained threshing, the removal of chaff, the papery and insubstantial husk, from grain. All that's important is in the grain. During threshing the seeds were shaken or beaten so as to loosen the husks, then tossed into the air. The wind carried away the chaff, the grain was caught and saved. You can imagine what we were meant to glean from the sermon. However, I found I identified more closely with chaff than grain.

I Am Chaff

I am chaff

A flibberty-gibbet

Whim-minded

Wind guided

Insubstantial

As I tumble in the eddies,

I am dancing on God’s warm sigh.

Joy.

               —Michelle Winter

Perhaps stepping forward and stepping back can become dancing. Perhaps shouting emotionally can become singing. Perhaps contradiction can become poetry.

Poems About Noticing: People

We think we know the people we love just because we love them. The truth is that people carry entire worlds within themselves that we have yet to discover and appreciate. Each person is complex, beautiful and endlessly fascinating. I think that is what God thinks of us as well. One of my favorite moments in the gospels is when Jesus is surprised by the faith of the person in front of him (the centurion). To think that we can surprise God makes me happy.

Here is another poem on noticing. This one is about how we so easily miss what is happening inside the people around us.

On Being Three and Waiting in a Lunch Line

“Pizza-pizza-pizza-pizza-pizza,”

he chants

savoring the sounds with his lips

bouncing the syllables bodily.

“Don’t you want a hot dog?”

asks his wispy mother.

“Um-hmm,” he smiles.

“Two hot dogs,” she orders

from Ted

the hot dog man.

“Pizzapizzapizzapizzapizza,”

the little boy sings

And she wails

as her purse slips off her shoulder

“but this is a hot dog stand

there isn’t any pizza here . . .”

while her joyous boy dances to his own music

          —Michelle Winter

Poems About Noticing: Nature

I am constantly surprised by how little I notice. Perhaps that is why I am so fascinated by the topic. This poem is about mistaking the ordinary for being . . . ordinary.

The Web

It appeared one morning

Knit into the upper left corner

Of the backdoor frame

Pine needle tassels along the side

Preserves hanging like ball fringe from the top

“Why did you knock down the spider web?

It was so beautiful!”

“Oh!” he said, wide-eyed

Examining the loose threads

Body bending into the mystery

 “I didn’t know

that it was beautiful.”

          -Michelle Winter

Holy Hour

A week of noticing. A week of paying attention. Holy ground, holy people, holy moments. Parts of my list are starting to look like poems. Here is one:

Holy Hour

In the calm of night

After the heaviness lifts

And the sounds widen

When everything breathes deep and wise

Dreams no longer hover threateningly,

               but permeate like healing ointment,

I rise and

Barefoot, make pilgrimage to holy ground

There I sit

among the relics of my domestic church

               cracked boots still warm by the woodstove

               a pink oval hula hoop

               a snail shell

               And a smooth rock

I wait

And poems find me.

              ~Michelle Winter

Is there something on your list that wants to become a poem?