A lighter bill of fare…

• Last night was the night of Weird Dreams.
• Ex.: I dreamt that I was back at my childhood home–the dearest and best beloved spot in the world–and all of its greenness had faded and been bleached by drought. Also, I think I was about twelve years old again. But, defying all reason, the lake was still full and clear and glassy, and I knew the only way the gardens were to be saved was by laboriously carrying water up the hill from the lake. And with mingled desperation and determination, I gathered together as many watering cans as I supposed I could carry full, and put them on a make-shift wagon, and went down to the lake. But on my way there, I was beset by so many distractions! I had the tools, and the purpose, but couldn’t make the two meet. It was a more harrowing dream than I’ve had in a long time, to know that I was the only one who could save that little plot of land that I loved, and that I couldn’t even work up the strength of will and focus to get down to the lake. I was baffled by this dream when I woke up, but it’s all making a good deal of sense now.
• Houseguests are fun. We went to Boulder and had a frivolous day, and I’m feeling like I spent far too much money. But really, I spent no more than was absolutely required by circumstance.
• Also, I could really use a new pair of jeans. I’ve actually worked a hole into the knee of one of my only two pairs–I’ve never worn through the knees of a pair of pants before. But great as the need may be, I don’t feel like spending the money. This, I think, must be a sign that I’m growing up.
• Being a girl, it can be kind of hard at times to realize that though you may have turned a few heads along the way, you’ve never ever turned a heart. Especially when everyone around you seems to gather up so many infatuated young swains that they become a nuisance. I know, I know, you girls who have to beat off admirers and take to wearing middle eastern veils may not be able fathom this–but the ignored girl can’t help but feel that it might be a nice and novel sort of nuisance to have to deal with once in awhile.
• And now I’m off.

Demons Gettin’ You Down?

So Nehemiah re-built the wall of Jerusalem in 52 days.  You who went to the last of Eric Ludy’s discipleship sessions on Thursday night know where this is coming from. Well, with lots of earnest prayer, that night I said, “I’m in, God. Let’s get this wall up. Whether it takes 52 days, or 520, I’m going for it.”

And yesterday, the siege began and all sorts of greater and lesser demons started flooding in. Yeah, day 1 didn’t go so well. Sleep attacked me, for one thing. In the afternoon once I got home from work, I was beset with a positively unnatural sleepiness. I felt like I was drugged. I drove to the bank, feeling like my driving was a little hard to get under control, and sleepily drove about five blocks past the bank before I realized I’d missed it. A little imp of selfishness tried to come in a few times, but having come off a recent conflict with him, I always spied him right away and pushed him back out again. And there were a number of other skirmishes, but it would probably be fair to say that Distractions took the day.

Clean slate this morning, though. (It feels like it isn’t, but I know it is.) And it occurs to me that Nehemiah Juice might have a pretty good market out there.  Demons gettin’ you down? Have you discovered you’re living in a sandcastle and it’s started to rain? Drink some Nehemiah Juice and get your personal architecture problems under control! If only.

But if any amount of prayer is enough to keep them at bay today. . .Oh, boy, today they’re going down.

Rainy Night Thoughts

There are some spiritual giants in my life right now, and if we’re running a race, I don’t know how I’ll ever catch up. And it’s intimidating, and convicting. . .and inspiring.

I grew up in a public school system and supposed myself a feminist, but as time wears on I’m finding that wrong-headedness is a very natural by-product of that kind of system and I’m glad to be escaping it.

Something I’ve been realizing, and that has been corroborated by a lot of my recent reading and experience, is that as women, we are built to love and love and love and love with an overflowing, motherly, sisterly, daughterly heart. I love it. I’ve been praying Amy Carmichael’s prayer: “Lord, do Thou turn me all into love, and all my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption.”

But anybody who knows me in real life will probably be astounded by these last few lines, because I’m afraid it doesn’t show up very well outwardly yet. As a Christian, I have always struggled with feelings of utter failure. I have had such a hard time believing that God has any love for grimy, useless little me. Looking back, even as a little girl, I wanted desperately to be a Christian, but I’ve never felt remotely worthy of any of the Lord’s interest. It’s an ongoing struggle, even now, but I’m beginning to see that “He who hath begun a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion.” Of course, the good work feels very small. If it’s a seed, it sure hasn’t sent up any green leaves yet, and underground are just the first signs of germination. . .

But it’s something. Something that will be a flower eventually. Only, like my green beans, it’s taking awhile to come up.

Mom McC pulled me aside after Bible study the week before last, and encouraged me to speak up more. Easier said than done. Oh, I tried and triiiied this past week to dredge something up! But sometimes. . .It’s like I’m a well. And the rope on the bucket is too short to reach the water in the bottom. . .And until I can take it up and look at it in the light, even I don’t really know what’s down there. I may look placid enough, but let me tell you of the struggle beneath the surface. I’ve let out all the rope, and even untied it from its post and dangled myself as far down the well as I can reach, yet still no water–just the rocky, mossy sides of the well.

Sigh.

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Woods Unshatterable

I think it was the twittering of birds outside the window this morning that sent me down this road. It put me in mind of the red-wing blackbirds that sing there in the cat-tails, and the call of the chickadees and knock of the woodpeckers in the tall pines in back of the house. Just that, and so many more glimmers are summoned up: the drone of the lawnmower up in the field, the creak of the wooden swing, the electric whir of cicadas, a cool damp breeze ruffling the leaves of the hostas, the scratch of the living room sofas, the dust motes dancing in the shards of light that come in by the diamond panes in front of the bookshelf in the late afternoon, root-beer floats and Rummikub, the crunch of a car coming up the gravel drive, Lincoln logs against the dark turquoise carpet in the boys’ room….

“Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable….”

E. B. White thought he was talking about his childhood in Maine, but really, he was talking about mine in Minnesota: my fade-proof lake, my woods unshatterable.

I think my heart would burst if I could be in Rosemount when the lilacs bloom.

Waves

I have just reached the end of The Waves by Virginia Woolf, and I am left with much the same feeling as when I finished Moby Dick. The realization of momentum when the final train wreck occurs and everything’s smashed up is. . .staggering.

And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man’s, like Percival’s, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

The waves broke on the shore.”

The last line is devastatingly simple–and yet, it manages to evoke so much. In that line is the scraping of the rocks, the roar of the recession beneath the surface of the water; the death rattle in a man’s chest. And then, Silence.

Not quite relatedly, I’ve been doing a fair amount of walking and thinking lately. I have wanted grace and wisdom, and I have prayed–not for grace and wisdom, though: simply to be guided;  to have a gentle manner and a loving heart; to learn by going where I have to go.  I think my heart is being taught to trust our Lord–it’s something (among many things) that I’ve always struggled with–because lately I haven’t felt wise, and I have been groping in the dark and thinking about problems that are bigger than me. Yet I have been following something, and as I cast a glance over my shoulder, I’m liking the path that’s beginning to take shape behind me.

Excerpt

from A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf, italics mine:

Friday, January 4th, 1929
Now is life very solid or very shifting? I am haunted by the two contradictions. This has gone on for ever; will last for ever; goes down to the bottom of the world–this moment I stand on. Also it is transitory, flying, diaphanous. I shall pass like a cloud on the waves. Perhaps it may be that though we change, one flying after another, so quick, so quick, yet we are somehow successive and continuous we human beings, and show the light through. But what is the light?”

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

I am happy. Happier than I ever imagined I could be at this time last year. Even the dullest days of this new life have more color and joy to them than those dreary days gone by. There are a lot of things I still don’t know. I have no idea where my future is going. I can’t see past my nose–but I keep taking tentative steps, and the ground hasn’t fallen away underneath me yet, and somehow. . .I feel like I am at the right place at the right time, and if the way and destination aren’t clear right now, they will be when they need to be.

Our hot water is out. It will be till Monday. I washed the dishes yesterday afternoon, and it took an hour because our tea kettle is small, and our sink is large, and our stove is slow.

Last night, the girls walked to the park. I tagged along.  I’m still the same old tag-along I always was, never quite taking part, always on the fringes, always observing. I am finding my penchant for detachment impossible to circumvent, and so am more seriously contemplating becoming a writer.

A frosty shawl was flung across the stars, but a few peered down from the chinks of midnight blue. I think I saw the snake’s head. I sat on the swing and looked up at the stars and the hazy moon, and the girls’ giggles floated across the dark playground, and there came that old twinge of longing and an achy, hollow, empty spot somewhere between the ribs. It was the moon that did it. And suddenly there beside me was that ‘not impossible him,’ and I leaned over and took his hand, and shyly–

“Rissa! Anne doesn’t read the Twilight books, does she?”

It’s the most curious thing; the fellow up and evaporated. You’d have thought he was made of moonbeams.

And I sighed, and went over and climbed onto the cannon the rest of the girls were draped over. But don’t worry, Queen Anne–I assured them it was quite inconceivable that you should have jumped on the Twilight bandwagon. I was rather indignant that they could even have suggested such a thing.

The dark was lightened by a great deal of laughter. Fetching Neverthelesses, and who knows what else. And after that, we went to the ice cream and coffee shop where Grace and Bex work, and Grace began an impromptu childrens’ story hour, and though at first it was just us, soon we were joined by a real child who had the cutest red curls and blue eyes and dimples, and it was splendid fun.

And yet. . .I’m afraid I’m a dreadful, dreamy old fuddyduddy, because a part of me yearned only to escape from the laughter and merriment, and wander in reverent, wistful silence beneath the tall trees and the stars.

The Waking

The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

–Theodore Roethke