Tonight

Tonight I am sitting in a darkened study, listening to my husband practice his guitar in the living room. Right now, I don't know which song he is playing. It is slow, a little romantic and sad, good for the dark.

Tonight Younger Stepson and two friends are downstairs, talking and watching videos. We are happy to have him back.

Tonight we bought planks of wood. He is going to build bookshelves in the basement. I almost said, "we", but that wouldn't be right. I don't think I will have much to do with it. I think it may turn out to be a father-son project, which would be great. I wonder if there is such a thing as a mother-dog project. (Oh yes, agility class.) (Also, digging in the dirt.)

Tonight it is quiet. We didn't have quite the kind of fun evening I was hoping for. But there was significant whooping earlier when the Twins beat the White Sox for the 2nd time in one day. It seems that in our house, a Twins win can bring a ray of sunshine into many a depressed and darkened soul. When the announcer said that Justin Morneau had tied three other Twins for the most home runs in one game (Bob Allison, Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva were the others), my husband got a little teary.

Tonight I am content. I have a sermon for Sunday. Almost. It is called "Tips for Travelers." It will not win the Pulitzer Prize, but perhaps it can be a rope let down for the lost. That is my hope.

Tomorrow I may fret and fiddle, visit more people in the hospital, worry about those I have not had time to visit yet, the long lists of people to visit, call, pray for, encourage to leadership. Tomorrow I will try in vain to organize tasks, believe what I wrote is not good enough, and also want to look out the window into the green summer day.

But tonight I sit typing in the dark. My husband has stopped practicing his sad romantic song. The dog has gone to bed. The son is quiet.

Good night.

Friday five: Hasty Edition

Reverend Mother writes:

Whoops! I have been in a family-induced haze these few days, with the July 4 holiday and taking time off while relatives are visiting. So I literally lost track of what day it was! So rather than make you guys wait even one minute longer for the five, I'll dig up an oldie:
Today, what are you:

1. Wearing
Even though it's HOT here, I'm wearing pink straight skirt, jacket and blouse, because of what I'm doing below.

2. Reading
Reading? Who has time to read? The senior pastor is on vacation. Actually, I'm reading A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver, and New Mexico guidebook, in anticipation of vacation, and trying to get back to Three Cups of Tea. On vacation I'm hoping to bring along a new mystery, possibly, In The Bleak Midwinter. Is this too ambitious?

3. Eating
banana chocolate chip muffin, fresh strawberries, COFFEE, not sure about lunch yet... probably just a ranch wrap on the run

4. Doing
finishing a sermon, doing three communion services (where the sermon is the rough draft of Sunday's), and visiting in the hospital. Hoping to have fun in the evening

5. Pondering
Trip to the North Shore next week. Getting ready for my neice to visit from Arizona. Lists of what music, clothes, books to bring.

...also, the benefits of having dogs over children (dogs don't stay out too late without calling to say where they are, dogs don't leave and break your heart, dogs like to be in the room with you
Bonus answer: favorite memory from the 4th: after playing in the parade, husband and boys and I all went to a party at the band director's house. They had a jazz band playing in the background. Both step-sons sat in with the band part of the time. Amazing to hear oldest on the upright bass. I felt so proud.

pondering also why I can't get the spaces to align correctly!!! argh!

About Poetry

I've been reading A Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver, and I couldn't resist this quote, at the end of the book. "Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision -- a faith, to use an old-fashioned term. Yes, indeed. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. Yes, indeed."

What do you think?

Poem: To Be Of Use, by Marge Piercy

Mompriest and I are discussing poetry on our respective blogs. Now it's my turn -- and this is the next poem I want to share.

I discovered this poem in a book of essays called The Impossible Will Take a Little While, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb. The essays, from various faith traditions, speak about the connections between social justice and spirituality. There were also several poems in the anthology, including this one. I think of this poem, as well, when I consider my younger stepson and his girlfriend, who last May built a kiln in our backyard for a school project they did together on Japanese Raku pottery.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

(from collection called Circles on the Water, Alfred A. Knopf, 1982)

Liberty Bell

Ever since visiting Philadelphia two years ago -- the Liberty Bell has been my favorite American symbol. I remember on that sweltering day in June going through the exhibit, and being impressed by the stories of how different people had used the image of the bell as they sought to expand freedom: from abolitionists to suffragetes, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Nelson Mandela and even the Dalai Lama. So what is it that has inspired people for so many years? Is it the history of the bell, the story of how it came to be, and its travels around the country? Is it perhaps the inscription, from Leviticus 25 -- "Proclaim liberty throughout the land" -- that suggests the year of jubilee and the justice promised? Is it that inscription, but instead because it shows us the religious roots of our democracy, and gives us a faith foundation for freedom?
I don't think so.

I think it's the crack.

Think about it. The bell proclaims our ideals, but the crack proclaims our imperfections. Together they are more powerful than the two would be apart.

The Bible is a book about saints with cracked lives. For me, that is part of its power. The people of God show God's glory, cracked lives and all. And we can still proclaim liberty, stand up to expand and work for justice, cracked lives and all.

Do you have a cracked life? I know I do. Sometimes we are so busy working on our cracks, or even sometimes hiding our cracks, that we think we don't have time to make our community or our world better. But we do.

So even if we aren't loving everything our country is doing right now, we can still love our country. We can love the ideals she stands for, and we can love the cracks, because they tell the honest truth: we still need to make things better.

As Martin Luther King once said, "Let freedom ring!"

By the shores of Gitche Gumee...

A couple of weeks ago we were at one of the local (okay, oldest in the nation) malls, and decided to stop at Caribou for coffee. (Caribou is a midwestern Starbucks wannabe. ) It was mid-afternoon, and as always, I glanced up at the daily trivia question, always hoping to get a dime off and feel smart at the same time. And I often have some luck, except when the questions are about sports. (I did once get a sports question to which the answer was: The Minneapolis Lakers.)



On this particular afternoon, the question was about poetry. I read: "In Longfellow's poem, what was the name of Hiawatha's love?" I had one of those, "I'm an English major, I should know this," moments, mentally going through the most famous lines of the poem, the ones that all schoolchildren, at least at one time, were forced to memorize:

"By the shores of Gitche-Gumee
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis
Daughter of the moon, Nokomis."

Then, totally independently of the poem, the answer came to me. "Minnehaha?" I ventured to the clerk. "You're right!" She smiled. "You're the first person to get it right today."


Now that made me feel smart, at least for a minute of two. And then I thought: at 3:00 in the afternoon, in the land of Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park, and Minnehaha Parkway -- nobody got it right before I did? There's even a statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha in the park -- a beautiful place to visit, by the way. In fact, I think it was my ancient memories of seeing the statue, the many times my family and I picnicked at Minnehaha Park, that jogged my memory of the famous name.


And it made me think: what do we know, anymore? In whatever place we are in, whether Tokyo, Japan, or Portland, Oregon, or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -- do we have a sense of the place we are any more, its unique history and landscape? Do we see the birds who live there, the wildflowers that color the summer? Do the names of the places (Hennepin, Nicollet, Hiawatha, Pillsbury) make us curious to know the travelers who were here before us? Or do our eyes glaze over as we travel from one strip mall to another, stopping in at Starbucks and Walmart and Toyz 'R Us?


There's a way in which each big city now begins to resemble every other city. Minneapolis no longer has Daytons and Donaldsons downtown, and you don't have to go to New York to experience the thrill of entering Macy's -- so it's not such a big thrill any more. I miss Young Quinlan and Powers, and innumerable small shops now disappeared. And there is something handy, I'll admit, about going into a Target in any city and knowing exactly where to find what I am looking for.


And yet, under the surface, if we dig a little deeper, the unique places in each city still exist. Lac Qui Parle and Nicollet remind us of the French traders here long before the Norwegians or the Swedes. Hiawatha and Minnehaha (although fictional) remind of of those who were here longer still. Scratch the surface, and there are a million stories of famous and ordinary people, of famous and ordinary places.

But what do we know anymore ... about the places we live?

The History of Scout, part 6, "Bad Mom"

It was just a week after our trip to the University with Scout that we were planning to Go On Vacation. With younger son. But without Scout. The trip with Younger Son was an annual tradition. Every year we took a trip to somewhere of interest, usually places I had never been before. Because of Younger Stepson, I have been to Harrisburg and Nazareth, PA, to San Francisco and to Disney World/Universal Studios. We also made a trip to the Grand Canyon, although you can't say that I hadn't been there before. My family had stopped for about an hour on the way back from our unique car trip. But you can say I hadn't hiked part of the Bright Angel Trail before. This year's trip, shorter than some, was set for Philadelphia, another place I had never visited.

Husband was not willing to give up the annual trip because of a puppy. I, on the other hand, had mixed feelings. I felt that it was wrong to be gone during this important time in Scout's development. But I really wanted to go. We thought we had the perfect solution when Husband's other son, The One who Loves Dogs, offered to stay at our house and, along with his girlfriend, take care of Scout. They both came over one night and got instructions, along with the really long e-mail diagnosis and treatment from the behavioral vet. Everything seemed set.

There were just two complications. 1) The day we were leaving was the day Scout was set to make her last visit to the vet, get her splint checked and possibly get her cast off (remember the broken leg)? One of them thought they could do this. I would call the vet later and pay for the damage over the phone. 2) In order to get the very most out of a short vacation, we were scheduled to leave early in the morning. Very early. 4:00 a.m. to be exact. Father-in-law was set to pick us up and Stepson Who Loves Dogs was set to arrive at about 6:30, to do the morning routine. Girlfriend would come a little later and take Scout to the vet.

I did not anticipate how I would feel about leaving my dog in a kennel, in the dark, at 4:00 a.m., trusting that people would show up to care for her. I did trust them. I really did. But I felt really guilty, like I was doing something Wrong. How could I leave my baby alone, even just for a couple of hours? What if stepson and girlfriend forgot? Would the neighbors call the police? (you see how my brain was spiralling out of control.)

By the time we landed in Philadelphia, I had a terrible headache. It was also 98 in the shade that day, and, even at 9:00 in the morning, it was unpleasant. I wasn't having a good time yet. All I wanted to know is that Scout was safely at the vet. But it was earlier in Minneapolis, so I would have to put up with uncertainty for a few hours.

We dropped our bags off at the hotel (where it was actually too early to check in) and started to look around. We found a little cafe for breakfast. Stood in a long line to look at the Liberty Bell (which was fascinating, and ended up giving me much food for thought for a later sermon). We wandered around with me in a partially bad mood much of the time.

Finally, it was late enough to call home.

Everything was okay. And Scout got her pink bandages off! She was free! Maybe everything would be all right after all.

To be continued....
Visiting the Dog People,
Dog Park Days