Remembering Madeleine L’Engle

Sep 18, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Writing

Just last week an amazing woman died. Madeleine L’Engle, the author of the well-loved A Wrinkle in Time and over 60 other books, lived well to the amazing age of 88.

As I rushed into work today, through the library, and on my way to the stairwell, I stopped and then backed up. A book was displayed in the “new releases” section that caught my eye: The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. It’s beautiful: the cover, the photo of her, the pages…and the poems. Just one shared here:

The Bethlehem Explosion
The chemistry lab at school
was in an old greenhouse
surrounded by ancient live oaks
garnished with Spanish moss.
The experiment I remember best
was pouring a quart of clear fluid
into a glass jar, and dropping into it
grain by grain, salt-sized crystals,
until they layered
like white sand on the
floor of the jar.
One more grain – and suddenly –
water and crystal burst
into a living, moving pattern,
a silent, quietly violent explosion.
The teacher told us that only when
we supersaturated the solution,
would come the precipitation.
The little town
was like the glass jar in our lab.
One by one they came, grain by grain,
all those of the house of David,
like grains of sand to be counted.
The inn was full. When Joseph knocked,
his wife was already in labour;
there was no room even for compassion.
Until the barn was offered.
That was the precipitating factor.
A child was born,
and the pattern changed forever,
the cosmos shaken with that silent explosion.

…a living, moving pattern / a silent, quietly violent explosion. Isn’t that beautiful?

What might that look like today, for me? Madeleine L’Engle embodied that reality – offering exploding life in every word, every thought, every poem, every book. Oh, that we might all have her courage, her beauty, her language, her heart. May we be willing to be those precipitating factors…in memory of one who was herself.

White-Knuckling Clarity

Sep 4, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Voice & Power

I got an email from a woman today. In an attempt to describe her life these days, she said, “I am white-knuckling clarity.”  I love that! So descriptive. So palpable. So familiar.

I wrote her back and told her I may blog on that three-word phrase, one that feels so indicative of what is true about women: our innate ability to persevere while bearing so much.

It would be one thing to just stay on the side of perseverance: grinning and bearing it, bucking up, holding our own. Any of those sound at all familiar? It’s another to just bear incredible weight: being a martyr, suffering in silence, keeping our truest feelings safely tucked inside. Sounds familiar too, doesn’t it?

But what does it mean to find clarity in the midst? And what about white-knuckling clarity? This woman is choosing to hang on, but not just for the sake of such. She is hanging on so that she can discern where she is, who she is, how she is to be. She is choosing to stay in the tension between persevering and bearing weight. She is holding on tight and keeping focus. She can acknowledge the high-stakes reality of life and the need to see and act with discernment and wisdom.

I could go on and on about this tension, this dualism, this so-very-familiar reality. But where I go for the sake of my own clarity is to the metaphor (and experience) of birthing. A natural miracle that is inherent only and powerfully to women – and not just those who physically give birth. All women instinctually bring forth life. To do so requires much perseverance and the bearing of much pain. To push new life into this world a woman must hold tension. She acknowledges the high stakes and acts with innate focus. She will persevere. She will bear much. She has white-knuckled clarity. Life is the result: hers and that of what she alone can bring forth into this world.

So, for those of you who are living in this tension – the temptation to just persevere or that of hunkering down and enduring endless labor – hang on! White-knuckled clarity is what you know best (whether you can believe it right now, or not). Hang on, stay focused, breathe, and trust in life! It cannot not arrive. Birth is inevitable. New life will come in and through you.

So I say, bring it on! I’m willing to keep pushing – white knuckles and all – even without an epidural! Life’s the result and that’s worth everything!

What Blinds Us?

Aug 26, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Wisdom

Sometimes we have it in our heads that we are limited, that there are certain things we just can’t (or wouldn’t) do, that we need help. It’s not that these things aren’t true, but I’m aware – in a new way today – how often I’ve talked myself into levels of belief about my own capacity (or lack thereof) that just aren’t true.

In reality, I walk around blind to what is true about me – and keep others blind to who I truly am.

OK…maybe I’m pushing the metaphor a bit, but today I did something I’ve never done before: I hung mini blinds. I’m on a rampage to get rid of all those white 1-inch metal things and replace them with anything else. I decided to head to Lowe’s and see if there were pre-cut, semi-decent
oak blinds that I could install myself in my kitchen. Well, the oak cost a lot more money than I wanted to spend and so I settled for some woven bamboo that’s fabulous!

I came back home and dove into figuring out how to get the old blinds down. That done in relatively short order, I headed into the re-install process with a confidence that could not be daunted. A couple of crooked screws and one screw head actually broken off were the only fatalities.

I now have two new blinds hung – on the kitchen door and on the large window. They are a perfect match for the oak floors and cabinetry, and best of all: I did it myself!

It’s a small thing, I know, but it speaks loud to me: I don’t need to be blinded by what I think I cannot do. I need to open up the blinds (or hang them) and see myself for who I truly am.

‘Any home-improvement projects you need me to take on?

Playing Poker with God

Aug 24, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality

So often we frantically seek for an explanation to our suffering, to the things in our own life and in the world that make no sense to us. We often seek that explanation, or should I say, “demand” that explanation from God.

I don’t know about you, but no matter my endless beseeching of God for answers, they are rare in coming and often less than comforting when they are heard and/or understood.

I continue to believe there is something profound and unique to which we are called as women in suffering. It’s not that we are to be martyrs – just suffering because we must, or worse, because we choose to allow such. Rather, there is something beautiful and intimate that occurs in the midst of suffering – in relationship with God.

What if, rather than seeking an escape from suffering, we came to anticipate God’s whisper; God’s desire to offer intimacy, kindness, and care?

Offand on I’ve been reading a book called Women and the Value of Suffering by Kristine M. Rankka. She ends the book with a stunning poem by Anne Sexton saying that in it suffering is acknowledged, but with no attempt to justify or explain it.

The Rowing Endeth
I’m mooring my rowboat
at the dock of the island called God.
This dock is made in the shape of a fish
and there are many boats moored
at many different docks.
“It’s okay,” I say to myself,
with blisters that broke and healed
and broke and healed –
saving themselves over and over.
And salt sticking to my face and arms like
a glue-skin pocked with grains of tapioca.
I empty myself from my wooden boat
and onto the flesh of The Island.
“On with it!” He says and thus
we squat on the rocks by the sea
and play- can it be true –
a game of poker.
He calls me.
I win because I hold a royal straight flush.
He wins because He holds five aces.
A wild card had been announced
but I had not heard it
being in such a state of awe
when He took out the cards and dealt.
As He plunks down His five aces
and I sit grinning at my royal flush,
He starts to laugh,
the laughter rolling like a hoop out of His mouth
and into mine,
and such laughter that He doubles right over me
laughing a Rejoice-Chorus at our two triumphs.
The I laugh, the fishy dock laughs
the sea laughs. The Island laughs.
The Absurd laughs.
Dearest dealer,
I with my royal straight flush,
love you so for your wild card,
that untamable, eternal, gut-driven ha-ha
and lucky love.

If this is even remotely possible: the experience of playing poker with God, of hearing God’s laughter, of coming to love the wild card, of being loved like this, count me in! ‘Not that I can do anything about the suffering that has or will yet come; but I can hope for the grace and winsomeness to hear God’s invitation to play cards in the midst.

Ready to deal?

About Worrying

Aug 14, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement

I made myself get up, showered, dressed, and ready before accessing email (as opposed to my normal pattern of checking it first). It felt like a small, but healthy step toward patterns that are less inclined toward stress and more toward life.

Now, email open, what do I find but the daily posting from The Writer’s Almanac and this poem:

The Worrier’s Guild
Today there is a meeting of the
Worriers’ Guild,
and I’ll be there.
The problems of Earth are
to be discussed
at length
end to end
for
five days
end to end
with 1100 countries represented
all with an equal voice
some wearing turbans and smocks
and all the men will speak
and the women
with or without notes
in 38 languages
and nine different species of logic.
Outside in the autumn
the squirrels will be
chattering and scampering
directionless throughout the town
because
they aren’t organized yet.
(Philip F. Deaver, from How Men Pray)

There are other emails in my inbox, but they are more in the “worrier’s guild” category: things I need to take care of, issues that need to be resolved, responses that need to be generated, work that needs to be done. I will get to all of this. I will complete the projects that the day holds and demands. And maybe, just maybe, I will keep a sense of squirrel-likeness about me: not demanding quite so much of myself, holding the problems of the world but not obsessing over them, leaning heavily away from stress and toward life.

May it be so.

Rescued (about a cat, mostly)

Aug 14, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters

What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the
rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement. (Napolean Hill)

…the silent but irresistible power…

Isn’t that lovely? We need to be rescued. And we need to be rescuers. The girls and I got to experience that today.

We are Humane Society fanatics. Sometimes we visit the place just to ooh and aah, but this past week (after months of me promising and not delivering) we actually paid a deposit, waited four excruciating days, and then (paid more and then) picked up the newest rescued animal in our family: Daphne.

She’s purred nonstop from the time we brought her in the house. She’s laid calmly on the laps of both the girls. She’s even used the litter box (Hallelujah)! So far, so good. She’s been rescued.

Jasmine, the feline we rescued over 3 years ago, is not quite so happy. She’s hissing, hiding, and generally just mad. (Apparently, she’s forgotten about that silent but irresistible power.) She doesn’t want to be rescued today. She just wants to be left alone.

Really, I’m not that different from either Daphne or Jasmine (and sometimes in the very same day!). Maybe that’s why I love cats: I need both – to rescue and to be rescued. And some days one is far harder than the other. Why is that? Why do we sometimes demand to be rescued – far more than is reasonable? And why, at other times, do we refuse it?

It’s worth pondering…

But for now, I’m going to just enjoy a 5-month old kitten sitting on my lap, shedding up a storm, and purring. At least today, we’re both rescued – and rescuers.

Prrrrrrrrrr.