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where wisdom gathers, poetry unfolds and divine light is sparked…

Month: August, 2017

August 25, 2017

a book for the heart…

cover of Blessings of MP

pssst. you get the first peek. of course….

my definition of heaven: a summer morning, the breeze blowing in through the screen just enough to tickle my bare toes. the chirp of papa cardinal syncopating the click-clack of my typing, as i pull up to the old maple table and weave a word here, a sentence there, taking threads and making whole.

making a book. weaving a book. yes, writing pages and pages, and snippets and bits. but even more — in the case of this sort of book — stuffing in a little treasure here, pausing for a bit of joyfulness there. it’s a crafting that feels something like making a collage, a heart’s collage. snipping bits of beautiful, and figuring out how they most stand a chance of leaping off the page into a blessed someone’s open heart…

my favorite sort of summer — all these years beyond the summers when i’d spend the weeks crafting intricate home-spun cardboard-box dollhouses with my best friend martha — is to spend the weeks plonked at my old maple table “making a book.”

and that is indeed how i’ve spent this summer (when i wasn’t rushing to take my one sweet boy off to law school, or holding my breath while the other one tried out for soccer).

my deadline is september 1. but i turned in my last stash of pages on monday. which means i beat my deadline, i’m breathing again (but only momentarily — i never really breathe till delivery), and since it’s already listed in my publisher’s spring 2018 catalog (which i discovered by accident the other day), i’m letting you in on the not-so secret. and, voila, that’s the cover up above.

the idea was that we’d make something of “a gift book” of motherprayer, pulling a few favorite bits, and adding a dash of this, a dollop of that. i wasn’t quite sure what exactly a gift book meant, so i nodded (if we’d not been on the phone, with several hundred miles between us, my lovely editor might have seen the quizzical tone to my shaking my head up and down slowly, very slowly…) and then i leapt in to try to find my way through to the other side of whatever that meant. along the way, i decided that i was going to pull bits, too, from slowing time, my first book. and i was going to tuck in other bits of words that just might tinkle someone’s heart chimes. and i suppose that’s how it all began to feel like i was making a soulful collage.

or, as i describe it in the opening pages, “this book might read a bit like you’re peeking into my occasional jottings, something of a journal of the heart.”

and i go on to say: “all in all, this is something of a patchwork. a patchwork of joy. of love. of wonderment. and it’s the closest i’ve yet come to field notes on the blessings of motherprayer, fueled and put to flight on the wings of sacred whisper.” (p.s. in the actual book, i do put on my grown-up-alphabet shoes, put away the all-small letters and reach for the “Caps Lock” key on the keyboard. just in case you were worried…)

and what it means is that this is a book especially for all who love in the way a mama loves — and remember, i EMPHATICALLY (see, i can find the caps keys!) believe that the verb, “to mother,” is not is not is not confined to those who’ve birthed a babe, or raised a babe from and by heart, or even spent more than a few consecutive hours chasing a little person round a swing set or plopped on the couch for a string of heart to hearts. the verb to mother is a verb that belongs to all, all who reach down deep, consider what it means to love as you would be loved, who are wise enough and willing enough to move mountains if need be to buffet someone’s oozing broken heart, to provide the words that amount to the roadmap through tight mountain pass, or simply to share soulfully in all the joy stuffed inside some sweet and hungry someone, be it a kid-sized someone or one who’s all grown up.

it’s a book that weaves twin threads — and more. it’s a book intended to kindle the soul, and to ponder the lessons learned along the winding steep-pitched trails of mothering. we need both, those of us who see the holy work in mothering. one is oxygen for the other. and along the way, i wound up deciding that — as with mothering, in which, for the life of you, you could not would not pick a favorite among your children — i’d fallen in love with this book, too.

right now it’s working its way through the book-making wizardry, where all sorts of geniuses grab their polishers and rub it to a glisten. i’m braced for the day when someone pings me to ask if i might take another stab at this or that, or “kill the darling,” a famous newsroom directive that means, “all right, you’ve had your fun typing this sentence that all but does a cartwheel, now kill it because it’s noisy and it’s getting in the way.”

but on this fine morning at the end of blessed august, i’m closing down the month by reporting in on how i’ve most blessedly savored every drop of this one glorious whirl through summertime….

and, too, here’s my latest roundup of books for the soul, in case you care to read about those, too. this month’s lineup includes a jesuit’s wise and courageous words of compassion, dharmas from thich nhat hanh, and prayers from julia cameron.

i’ll keep you posted, but till then have a most glorious last weekend of august.

xoxo, bam

what were the joyful noises you made this summer? what wonderments and serendipities did you stitch into the season not yet over…. 

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August 18, 2017

earlier and earlier

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crescent moon winking over the dawn. from my kitchen window.

i wake earlier and earlier, as if those fractions of hours just might wrap me more certainly in the velvet folds of the day. as if i’m grasping for a blanket someone’s pulling away.

i wake early for peacefulness, for quietude. i wake for the hum of the cricket, even before the trill of the dawn begins. just now a bird with quivering throat joined in. it’s off in the distance, faint. faint is the way i like my sounds in the morning. muffled. just beginning to fracture the silence.

i wake before a single floorboard creaks. i wake before anyone else turns a faucet. i wake to be alone with my thoughts and my prayers, and the gentle God who joins me.

this was a week for awaking earlier and earlier. it gets harder and harder to know what to do, to rise up against hate and horrors. i blanketed myself this week by typing away. i’m typing as fast as i can, bearing down on a deadline, typing gentle words, shimmering words, onto the page, in hopes that they’ll carve out rivulets of blessedness, course straight into hearts. whoever opens the pages, in months or years down the road, i pray they find something gentle, words that simply tap at the door, trickle in, make for peaceable eddies, right there in the well of someone’s heart.

the light now is beginning to soak into sky. i can make out the filigree of morning, the edge of the dill, the willow fronds barely rustling. the wind hasn’t yet stirred up its muscle. the morning is still.

the moon, winking, hasn’t yet faded–dawn’s cradle, off to the east, far beyond my kitchen window, it shines in sliver of crescent. where will you be when the moon blocks the sun, that once in a century heavenly upstage?

there wasn’t much to steady us in this past whirl of days, but there were glimmering moments, one or two, that broke through the melee, that caught our attention, took our breath away in the course of rending our hearts.

the mother of heather heyer, the woman crushed by a hellfire car in charlottesville, she was the voice of pure holiness this week. her lone voice rose up from the din. her words echo and echo in the chambers of my heart. hers is the poetry of the week, worth remembering.

here’s a bit of what she said, called out into the wilderness of a nation reeling, a nation whose moral compass is spinning dizzily, scrambling to find its true north.

sharon bro:

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her.”

“You need to find in your heart that small spark of accountability. What is there that I can do to make the world a better place? What injustice do I see—and want to turn away: ‘I don’t really want to get involved in that. I don’t want to speak up. They’ll be annoyed with me. My boss might think less of me.’ I don’t care. You poke that finger at yourself, like Heather would have done, and you make it happen. You take that extra step. You find a way to make a difference in the world.”

she concluded with this:

“So, remember in your heart: If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. And I want you to pay attention, find what’s wrong. Don’t ignore it. Don’t look the other way. You make it a point to look at it, and say to yourself, ‘What can I do to make a difference?’ And that’s how you’re going to make my child’s death worthwhile. I’d rather have my child, but, by golly, if I got to give her up, we’re going to make it count.”

beautiful chairs, make it count.

where’s your true north, and how will you get there?

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August 11, 2017

front-row seat

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it’s the miracle of being thisclose, ushered to a front-row seat, for the drama of the unfolding human spirit, that more than anything takes my breath away. my whole life long, i’ve found myself perched in watch posts where i could absorb and chart every flinch of the face, every swelling of the human heart, as i learned just how expansive the soul could be.

i’ve watched children bravely take their mama’s hand, as they were rolled into rooms for spinal taps. i’ve watched those unflinching children tell their mamas not to worry, it would all be okay. i’ve watched those children make their mama laugh, as she brushed away a tear, and then found herself doubled over, caught in i-can’t-believe-he-just-did-that, as the kid was rolled away in mickey mouse glasses (pulled out from under the pillow case).

i’ve watched a kid sit down to write a letter to the principal, letting the head of school know that he’d witnessed injustice at the lunch room table, injustice in the name of bigotry because of the way that someone prayed. i watched that kid fold the letter, and send it off, awaiting eighth-grade justice.

this week i’ve been watching a kid i love live and breathe the sort of courage that means everything when you’re a soccer-loving kid, and you’ve been told once already that you don’t belong on the high-school roster. i’ve watched that kid all summer lace up those soccer cleats, lift weights, all but stretch himself with ten-pound discs tied to his ankles as he lay in bed at night. he’d do anything to grow a couple inches. maybe half a foot, if there’s one to spare. i’ve watched him forego cherry pie on his birthday, because he thought the sugar just might shave a chance off his hopes of winning this time round. it’s a three-day test of courage, and we’re not yet at the end.

so all i can do — resigned to supporting role as scrambler of eggs, purveyor of blackberries, filler of water bottle — is stand back and hope and pray like there’s no tomorrow. because, darn it, tryouts end today, and we’ve lived once already through that crushing silence of a kid whose heart is shattered.

for those who think it’s mere cliche to say “my kids are my teachers,” i say this: phooey.

take a seat. open up your playbook. and watch a kid whose shoes you used to lace, to tie in floppy bows, watch that kid hold his head high, step onto the playing field — in the face of all his friends and coaches charting every move — watch him show you how it looks to stare down kids who tower over you in half-foot measures, watch him take the balls at full impact, dive into unforgiving turf, dust off the scrapes up and down his knees and elbows, and rise up again.

watch him hope. watch him hope so hard it hurts.

and you, not nearly so brave as the kid who teaches you, you sometimes get withered by nothing more brutal than a nasty line shot across the internet. from someone you don’t even know. for all you know, it’s nothing but a bot (one of those cyber-ghosts who churn out idiocies and fake news by the megabyte). talk about lessons to be learned.

of all the breathtaking filaments that comprise the growing of a human child, it’s the front-row witness that astounds me most, that leaves me brimming with blueprints for how to be a fuller version of who i thought, who i hoped, i could be.

it’s not just parents, of course, who get the chance to see the inch-by-inch stretching of another’s soul. doctors see it every day. can you imagine looking someone in the eye and delivering the most somber news? watching that someone not crumble, not lash out, not let spew a mighty line of damnation, but instead take the diagnosis with more grace than you swear you could ever muster? can you imagine being the teacher who day after day tries to navigate a kid through vowels and consonants that insist on being muddied, that appear to the kid to be indecipherable hieroglyphics, and then one day, without a drumroll, the kid, who’s never wobbled, suddenly reads straight across a line? and what about the priest or pastor or cop who takes in confession, who looks into the crumbling face of someone who bares his sin? who makes no flimsy excuse, lays no blame, and is crushed by the truth of how much irreparable hurt he’s done?

it’s in those rare uncharted moments when the screen is pulled away, when the screen that stands guard in front of stripped-down soul is erased from the equation, and what you see is unfettered human character. like peeking into the knobs and wires that make an engine run. only in this case, it’s the fibers of courage, of resilience, of this-is-where-i-choose-to-take-the-higher-road.

it takes your breath away — every blessed time. offers you a glimpse of straight-up holiness, the way that God meant for us to be. and, frame by frame, i am taking notes, stockpiling all these lessons. front-row student in the school of courage, of immeasurable blessedness, of grace in action.

and so, i crack and scramble eggs. i keep watch from my post here at home. i wave from the front stoop as the car pulls away. i watch the clock. i pray. and i gird my heart for what may come. and marvel at the gift of watching a very brave kid stare down the very odds that would wither a less determined soul.

dear patron saints of soccer, have mercy.

who are your heroes in the soulful department?

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August 4, 2017

coming home to black-eyed susan season

black-eyed susan

the patch has dwindled over the years, in both circumference and abundance. but never in delight. in fact, the delight might hold inverse capacity to square-inch acreage. it’s the black-eyed susan patch, the one that nods along my garden path, the one that won’t give up — no matter how the burning bush does all it can to block the sun. no matter the weevil that shrivels all its leaves. the black-eyed susans will not pack up and walk away.

and for that, i am so grateful.

they strike a note of familiarity, of here-we-are-right-where-we-left-off. they mark the height-of-summer, the days when light takes on its amber hint, when each hour is more cherished, as we feel it slipping through our grasp. summer’s coming to a certain close, the black-eyed susans whisper, and we’re here to carry you across the finish line.

or in this year’s case, to wrap me in their cheery joys, to give me reason to haul the clippers out from under the kitchen sink and snip away at my endless bouquets.

we pulled into the alley at close to 1 in the morning the other night, my heart drained, my legs cramped. and even in the dark, as we hauled in the one or two things that couldn’t stay outside all night, i eyed those black-eyed wonders. they brushed against my shin, welcomed me back home.

gardens can be that way: gardens, in their episodic unfoldings, mark passages, tick off time across the months. we begin in lily-of-the-valley time, flow onto peony season, then hydrangea’s finest hour, and well past intermission, somewhere deep in the third act, the black-eyed susans come along. it’s a far finer way, i tell you, to tell the hour than glancing at a blinking screen.

there’ve been summers when we were headed out as the black-eyed susans paraded in. and i’m always sad to miss their spectacle, humble as it is, delightful in its simple two-hued contrast. but this year, my black-eyed susans unfold for me precisely when i need them: here and now, in these days when i am feeling a wee bit hollowed, when the hour might open up and suddenly pull me into a deep canyon of missing the someone i so love.

count me among the ones who bend my knee in gratitude to this holy earth, and its abundant healing balms. count me among the ones who marvel that be it sky, or rain, or stems rising from the earth, there are infinite notions and potions to soothe the hurt, to amplify the joy, to take our breath away. it’s God’s apothecary, and i’m its grateful customer.

this week has brought me a root canal, and a to-do list that will not end. we’re launching into a birthday weekend of most significant milestones — one someone i love has an odometer birthday, the sort that ends in zero, and another turns 16. and all along the way, the black-eyed susans bloom. and in that certainty, that joy, i rest my weary soul.

thank you, dear sweet susans. black-eyed susan another

what brings you certain joy in the kaleidoscope of seasons, most especially in the garden?

 

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