We find ourselves inside.

I had a wonderful weekend with my friends from Vibrant. We took time to meditate on our spiritual identity as individuals and as a community. Part of our time together included a guided labyrinth walk and lectio divina. We also used contemporary icons for reflective prayer.

I came home feeling rested and encouraged.

..........

There was still a dusky glow in the sky when I left work today. The sun had already slid under the horizon, but it wasn't quite dark yet. That means I won't have to drive home from work in the pitch black for at least eight months! I cheered out loud when I had that hopeful thought.

..........

This morning brought evidence that journalist Jill Carroll is likely still alive. The video shown by Al-Jazeera gives me hope that her captors aren't in a hurry to make their point. I am praying that she is released soon.

..........

Today there was a large, heavy envelope in the mail from the law school I hope to attend. The top corner was marked with their admissions office information. My heart stopped for a moment. While I hadn't expected to hear back from them so soon after applying, I knew that the package's contents might contain a solid piece of my future.

I opened it with a trembling hand and pulled out the stack of papers. I scanned the cover letter. Instead of welcoming me into their school, they were encouraging me to apply.

Stupid overlapping databases. At least I know I'm worth their solicitation. The wait continues.

Verse again, verse again.

I wrote this one about a month ago. It's meant to be read aloud, but I suppose I'll let it slide if you prefer to keep it in your head.

Unwound

you are predictable
like clock staccato
from across the room.

tick
for a while
tick
it felt like
tick
there was
tick
comfort in
tick
that noise.
tick

and suddenly I knew
the sharp sound only
counted toward the end.

A postcard view.

I'm headed east this weekend for some quality time with my friends from Vibrant. It will be nice to take a break from the city for a while.

In the meantime, take a look at this piece of the documentary that my friend Dan is putting together about our trip to East Africa . It tells the story of our visit to the Magiri Leper Colony in Kajo Keji, Sudan. And for those of you that have never met me in person, you will see and hear me on film!

Hearing the harmony.

I took some of my old hymnals to our Communion dinner tonight. We split into groups, and we did our best to reinterpret the texts of forgotten hymns into a contemporary frame. The idea was to preserve the message but to recreate its form.

One group did a dramatic reading complete with ancient Greek styled chorus. Another hymn team illustrated their stanzas with colorful pictures. My group riffed some poetry of our own from the lyrics.

The award for capturing the voice of the times went to the group that pulled off a rap about the Lord's Supper. It included some impressive beat boxing as well.

Jesse, Sarah and Ben lay down the beat.

Eels are for lovers.

Happy St. Dwynwen's Day!

Sometimes it all happens at once.

Everything seemed broken yesterday. I lost my wallet. Technology failed me. My head hurt. I was exhausted.

Today is redemption. My wallet was found (thanks Dot!). Systems are generally functioning as they should, and I feel great.

The morning began with some extended time to sit and meditate at my kitchen table as the sun fingered its way through the patio doors. Someone brought me coffee at work. The air smells like spring. The day is filled with possibility.

In the last couple of days.

I saw a man standing in the middle of a street. One foot on the double yellow line. Cigarette burning dangerously close to his fingertips. Head tipped down.

We, the traffic facing him with our headlights, we stopped. Unsure of what to do, we waited for the abnormal to fade into explanation. A moment passed; it was two beats too long not to remember this scene.

He almost fell in the road. He seemed to be asleep. I thought I should get out or at least call for help, but no ideas could complete themselves in time.

And then, as though suddenly waking from his dream, he looked up. He jerked alert and ran to the side of the road as if he’d always meant to be moving toward the bus stop.

………

I saw my grandfather eating. He finally gave up on the fork and picked up the slice of pizza with his hands.

“Grandpa,” I asked him in that hard-of-hearing tone I’ve had to learn, “Did you ever live alone? Did you have a place of your own when you were a bachelor?”
“No,” he answered, “Until the war I stayed on to help my mother with the farm. And after that I was married.”
“So, you never really needed to cook for yourself?”
“No, don’t seem like I ever needed to much.”

He wiped his mouth with the napkin.

………

I saw the sun break through the clouds. After so many days of grey and rain, it made me feel like singing.

That terrible possibility.

Some links for you:

Here's some evidence to make you doubt the lasting rule of humans over machines.

And as though restaurants weren't dangerous enough before, consider this article.

.........

On writing:

All the noise in my brain. I clamp it to the page so it will be still.
-Adah Price in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisionwood Bible

Behind those blue eyes.

Lately I've been noticing a trend. What's the deal with the romanticized prostitute-heroine?

I saw Memoirs of a Geisha at the theater a few weeks ago. It was a good movie. I rooted for the protagonist, and I even cried at one point. Then yesterday while I was mopping the kitchen floor, I dropped the Moulin Rouge soundtrack into my CD player. Even though I only watched the movie once, I remember enjoying the experience. As I hummed along to the music, I began to think about the stories I have been hearing.

Memoirs of a Geisha and Moulin Rouge follow the lives of upscale prostitutes. Both films focus on their heroine's career and present it as something ultimately beautiful and powerful (although certainly with the highs and lows of any well developed plot). If I'm remembering correctly, neither woman regrets her work, nor do the plots deal with many psychological ramifications from her profession.

So tell me, what is with the fascination, no, the heroic personification of the female sex worker lately? These immensely popular stories show the lives of prostitutes through rose colored glasses. We watch, and we hope for them to find love with the highest bidder. Somewhere in the back of our minds we know that their plot in life is anything but desirable, but we still cheer to see them bought by the "right" man.

Disclaimer here: I have a lot of thoughts on the sex trade. While we each make choices for our own life, I know that many women (and children) aren't given the option to make a decision. I do not think prostitutes are bad people, nor do I think that their lives are incapable of producing stories to be told (for heaven's sake, read the book of Hosea). I just don't think that field of work is one to be envied or emulated. And if we are currently working so hard to rescue individuals from that work, why would we turn around and make movies that glamorize the lifestyle?

Well, it could be something to do with expressing female autonomy. Both story lines take place a century or more ago. These women had an extra element of control and flexibility that their trade afforded them. In a culture where women had no voice, they walked alongside the powerful. But in the very same way, they are some of the most limited of all women. The ability to choose one's own sexual partner- to fall in love- is a dearly held personal freedom in our culture, and they are refused that choice. The slang for women who do not is evidence enough of a prostitute's disgrace in our society.

After chewing on feminism these last few years, I understand the danger of marginalizing women into purely sexual beings. It is that attitude among others which has kept women from being educated, and it continues to infect our media with images of plastic faces and bodies. Not only is it dangerous to be projected onto us, it is also a very limited lens for we women to see ourselves through. So why do we allow these heroes to be created for us?

I don'’t mean to sound overly critical. I did enjoy the films, and it would be hypocritical to pretend that I am somehow immune to appreciating the narrative of "“love conquers all"” underneath. It just seems that these stories have been preoccupied with a rather tragic element of female history, and we have tried to mask it with a pretty face. That makes me sad.

I feel like my thoughts are still underdeveloped. Why is this such a theme lately? Do we ever see a reverse of these gender roles in a love story? If not, why not? Are there more hopeful themes in all this that I'm missing?

Help me out here. What do you think?

Now is the time.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2006.

Dr. King’s life continues to inspire the work against oppression and toward justice. I still get chills listening to his “I Have a Dream” speech. His vision for racial reconciliation calls for peace over prosperity, love beyond convenience, and personal sacrifice in the name of a higher good.

It has been thirty-seven years since Dr. King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. As we saw during the recent hurricane season, racial disparity still plagues our nation. It is easy to wonder who will take up Dr. King’s mantle with such a long road ahead. Who will advocate for change in his place? Who will inspire citizens of every ethnic background to see how our destinies are tied together?

But we cannot wait for another cultural prophet. Waiting would neglect the challenge that has already been given. Instead, we must strive to be the change that we seek. In doing so, may the words of one of the greatest human rights leaders in history echo with new relevance in our hearts:

This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the summit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. – Martin Luther King Jr. Washington DC, 1963

………………

The Iron Lady is now the president of the Republic of Liberia. This morning Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf became the first female head of state in the history of Africa. Liberia has had a difficult path. I hope this election will mark the advent of a peaceful season in west Africa.

Turn it up a bit.

So much is happening in the world. With Supreme Court candidates being interviewed, more international nuclear spats, and death row debates, I feel like I have a lot more listening to do before I can start talking.

.......

I like to cook.

Sixteen friends came over for dinner on Thursday night. Most of them are regulars at our weekly Communion Dinner, but it is unusual to have everyone attend in one week. I don't think that I have ever tried to make a meal for that many people before.

I knew that I would be gone all day, so I decided to go with a curried lentil experiment in the crock pot. That meant that the preparation could all be done the night before, and the food could cook on its own while I was at work.

Curry makes me happy. My friends brought various toppings and sides to complement the spicy lentils and rice. I liked the way that it turned out. And its a good thing that I did like it. I have enough leftovers to feed at least sixteen more friends.

The beginnings: Coconut milk and lentils.

Pretty curry.

Stained hands.

Can you even see the lentils under all of that?

Do not go gently.

I see a dead cat on my way to work every day. It has been there in the dividing lane of a busy road since early December. The first time I noticed it I immediately thought of my childhood cat Muffin. Both cats had long, black and white fur. Maybe the similarity is what has made me so sensitive to this particular animal’s fate.

I don’t like to see the cat, but I catch myself looking for it when I pass. By now it almost blends in with the other road debris of leaves and cardboard. I want someone to clean it up, to bury it, to find its owners and tell them what has happened.

Life, or what was life, shouldn’t be left so vulnerable. Thick asphalt ensures that the earth won’t absorb the corpse. Pedestrians can’t cross the highway, so there’s no chance that anyone will move it out of pity. It just lies there in the rain, reminding drivers (or at least this driver) of the world’s general disregard for innocence, of how our cars or coal mines or hospitals can take the very lives they were trying to improve.

Death usually stays out of sight. We mourn, bury, and eventually forget.

When I was at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford I noticed that they line the walkways with the tombstones that are no longer legible. The biggest slabs only remember the rock they came from, not the inscription once cut into the surface. Death fades; personality fades; cats fade away. We don’t have the capability to hold all those stories, and our minds cannot settle in tragedy.

The cat hasn’t allowed me move on. Until the city cleans the streets or until I get inspired to dodge traffic and do something about it myself, it stays suspended and unprocessed. So for now I am forced to deal with my own mortality every morning during my commute. Perhaps it’s a healthy routine.

It's easier if you smile.

It begins slowly. We all take a moment to scan the room of unfamiliar faces. But the music moves fast enough that standing still is nearly impossible; they plan it that way.

He comes up from slightly behind me to the right, or perhaps he's hidden by the crowd and materializes in front of me suddenly.

Would you like to dance this one?

And in that moment I hope that he’s practiced enough to lead but not so experienced that I bore him. We exchange names, grab hands, and dive in to the sea of stomping feet. There’s no time for small talk. That’s not the point anyway.

There is freedom in the anonymity. We both know how good it can be if we just step, right, left, rock-step, right, left here. A first name is all that’s needed for his hand to be on my waist so that we spin in time to the music, and we grab hands so automatically now.

It’s a game and it’s an art all at once. We miss a few steps, and we work up a sweat, and we finally match enough to enjoy the second dance before escorting each other off the floor.

I look around to see if my friends are still nearby. But another song begins, and there is a new hand on my shoulder.

Hello, care to dance?

We head in again, hand in hand. New names, but the same relationship. Strangers can play closer than friends.


I spent the evening swing dancing at the Crystal Ballroom here in Portland with some friends from Vibrant. My feet are sore, but I tell them that their sacrifice was for a good cause.

Into the shining light.

I've learned over the years that it is nearly impossible for me to focus on reading or writing when there is music playing within earshot. The slight exception is classical or jazz that has absolutely no lyrics, but even that can push me close to the edge.

The sensitivity seems to exist because I am an auditory learner. This particular aptitude comes in handy when one is taking lecture-based classes, but it makes reading in coffee shops nearly impossible. I've often found myself quietly singing along with the Starbucks mix instead of doing the work that brought me there in the first place.

But I really can't blame music for my procrastination. I know enough about myself to understand what kind of environment must exist for my brain to be productive. Really, even this blog post is just another way for me to put off the writing that I had planned to do tonight. Now you know the truth.

.........

Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die.
-Crumbs from your Table by U2

.........

Is it a coincidence that my brother was born on Epiphany? I don't think so. Happy Birthday, JRee.

One moment please.

This week has been a little bit crazy for me. Every day has been filled to the absolute brim. I haven't had much time for reflection or sleep. But the weekend starts now; and, although I have things to do, I have a more flexible schedule to work within.

........

Here's an interesting article about a young poet in Nigeria.

And why do you do this to us, Pat? Why?
........

My eyeball was twitching at one point this afternoon. It was a very strange sensation. I think that it may have had something to do with the triple shot Americano that I sold my soul to this morning.

Long breath out.

I stay up late writing things with too many layers of metaphor. At times I regret that I've never journaled properly. Poetry keeps feelings raw, but the actual circumstances become a bit fuzzy over time.

What is memory, and how is it preserved? I try to feel it- to keep what I have learned- in fragile lines. Words strung together on the threads of emotion: these feelings of incompletion, the unresolved question, the lingering doubt. Life filters through it somehow.

Happy New Year!

When Dot and I were out tonight, she asked me to look back on the year and name my top five moments of 2005. The memories that I settled on are not really specific moments contained within one day; they are more like significant processes that took place entirely within the last year.

It was hard to rank them since each event is so different from the others, so consider it a flexible list.

5. Starting this blog. I could have never anticipated that writing a blog would affect my life so much. I am finally motivated to write more than poetry! I've met some amazing people, and I have fleshed out quite a few of the ideas that have been floating around in my head.

4. The decision to go to law school. The last two years have been an interesting process of getting to know myself. Working at a nonprofit and being away from university allowed me to refine my goals and clarify my vision for the future. I am so excited for the upcoming change.

3. Finding Vibrant, my church. I visited Vibrant for the first time last January, and it has been an immensely important part of my life ever since. Although it is a small congregation, I have gained a deep and genuine community.

2. Buying my house. I would have never expected to become a homeowner last year, but things just fell into place. I still find myself wondering how it all happened. I have a great roommate, space that feels like home, and a lot more junk mail. Crazy.

1. Visiting East Africa. There are some events that become touchstones for every life experience that follows. I know that the trip I took in November will be that type of memory. The people I met, the experiences I had, and the things I saw have shaped the way that I know my world.

So there you have it. What are some of your top moments or events from 2005? I'd love to know.