Advice from anyone but ME

Dear Long-Distance Swimmer,

It is the height of presumption for me to be putting down these recommendations, reading lists and thoughts.

You, of course, are going to find your own way through this "vale of soul-making" (that's Keats' term for this life, in contrast to some wag calling it a "vale of tears".)

Like a gorgeous cosmic mirror, I hope you polish that soul and make it gleam.

If there is one term I will try to stay away from it is: God. There is just so much noise out there (do you hear it already?) -- so much in fact, that any signal that may be coming from God gets lost. As an imperfect -- and often ungrateful -- praiser of that Higher Power, let me just offer some thoughts you may want to consider from someone who knew/knows far more than me: Meister Eckhart, a fourteenth-century monk.

Like many Buddhists, Meister Eckhart wrote about our need to get out of the way of God....

Know then that God is bound to act, to pour himself out into thee as soon as ever he shall find thee ready.... Finding thee ready he is obliged to act, to overflow into thee; just as the sun must needs burst forth when the air is bright and clear, and is unable to contain itself. Forsooth, it were a very grave defect in God if, finding thee so empty and so bar, he wrought no excellent work in thee nor primed thee with glorious gifts.

Thou needest not seek him here or there, he is no further off than at the door of thy heart; there he stands lingering, awaiting whoever is ready to open and let him in.... He longs for thee a thousandfold more urgently than thou for him: one point the opening and the entering.


I pray that someday you are able to take this thought and make more of it in your life than I have in mine. But know that your father here on Earth longs for you more than he can say... I can only imagine how much your Heavenly father/mother does.

(I say "only imagine" because it is all quite beyond me, yet it feels my heart knows some things it's not telling my head.)

Telling Stories

Dear soul-traveling-on-a-beam-of-light:

I look forward to the day I can tell you stories of Robin Hood, of Cinderella, of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere.

Then again there are going to be stories that I don't want to tell you but you will need to hear. Because you are being borne into a world of Harry Potters and Trayvon Martins.

Last night, a jury in Florida acquitted the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. I won't mention the man's name because, as in all fairy tales, stating someone's name gives them a certain power -- and this man who shot Trayvon was a sad, scared person who wanted to be a cowboy, a tough guy, someone with power.

While I pray that in my lifetime we might eradicate the racism that causes men like this young man's killer, God works in mysterious ways and it probably won't happen in mine, but perhaps in yours.

In our language, we have a phrase "Telling stories..." that often means something is made up or untrue.

One of the things I hope I can show you is that telling stories is one of the most important things we can do. What made this teenager's killer afraid was that he imagined his own story about Trayvon; but the truth is: he didn't know him at all. He imagined a story of criminals and bad people because Trayvon's skin was a darker color than his. (You will find there are some pretty silly, stupid things in this world (but there are far more beautiful, wonderful things so please keep coming.))

My prayer for you today is that when you find yourself scared (and I know you will, because fear often comes along when we're moving into new places and I want you to be a lover of new places and new people) -- I pray that you will take a deep breath and look with your eyes, listen with your ears, smell with that beautiful nose of yours, taste and touch if you think that will help, but then ask your heart what to do, because your heart will be where you can find Compassion and Love.

And after you take that breath, decide whether you need to run, to stay put, or more often than not, ask the stranger you encounter: What is your name?

Last night...

Dear deep womb swimmer,

You were probably wondering what that commotion was last night, shivering through your amniotic space. That was your first rock concert.

Before you heard the clip above, you heard a band called My Morning Jacket (not quite as loud as we were standing farther away), this was followed by one of your mother's favorite bands Wilco (more on them later).

The clip above? Well, you may never be impressed by this bit of information but let me tell you, it's pretty amazing: your first concert was with Bob Dylan! Dylan is a man who (as of this writing) has been writing, performing and recording music for half a century. (Remind me to tell you the story of hearing him do "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat" four decades after performing it at the Royal Albert Hall in London.... Come to think of it, don't bother. I'll probably have bored you with the story dozens of times before you're able to read this blog.)

Listen carefully to this clip, my child. If you've listened to his music before, you may not recognize this version of the song, but it's one of my favorites of his:  "Tangled Up in Blue". 

When I was a kid, my mother would say: "You'll understand when you get older." That phrase always bugged me. It seemed to imply that I was too DUMB to understand whatever the issue/song/idea was. But there are some things in this life, that you sort of wish your child will avoid, like the heartache that Dylan writes about in this song. Both the "tangled" and the "blue" part.

If you listen to the lyrics I've captured here, he has met a woman who takes him back to her place. In the original version, it's "a book of poems/written by an Italian poet from the thirteenth century". (I always wondered if that was Dante (maybe La Vita Nuova, which is a lovely (and true) love story (please read it) (or maybe it was Petrarch, who I know less about, but wrote love sonnets in the fourteenth century, I dunno.))

But if you listen closely he seems to have changed the lyrics slightly, but brings us to the same place he wrote originally:

"And every one of them words rang true/And glowed like burning coal/Pouring off of every page/Like it was written on my soul from me to you/Tangled up in blue."

My prayer today is that this song, these lyrics -- or others by Mr. Dylan -- will glow like burning coal, like they were written on my soul from me to you.

How many centimeters?

"Let's see how many centimeters..." the doctor says, clicking and scrolling the mouse on the screen where you are floating like an astronaut in space.

 

Eight months from now: "How many centimeters?" will be a whole different discussion when you are getting ready to enter the world.

 

But right now, as much as we're intrigued by the numbers -- centimeters and heartbeat -- I'm just fascinated by YOU there, like a knot in the wood, like a space in the universe that is opening up for us to view into something BEYOND you. And when you're born, (just try and imagine THAT!) that space will close and we'll all probably go on about our lives forgetting that place you came FROM. But for right now, I love seeing your there, on your way over here.

 

I want to shout out words of encouragement as if calling out to some long distance swimmer who has yet to make it to the shallow waters here. (You're still a long way out and I'm the one who seems to be holding my breath!)

 

Rather than shout (which seems downright rude and a little hysterical at the moment), perhaps I'll read to you. It's from the poem "Genie" by Arthur Rimbaud -- and is actually the poem your mother and I chose for this blog. (Sometimes "coincidence" simply means you're not looking hard enough for the connections.... Other times, you'll see that Mr. Freud was right (more on him MUCH later): "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.")

 

But reading this from Rimbaud's "Illuminations" reminds me of you, though you're so new there's no re- to that mind. You're just in my mind now.

 

He is love, perfect measure reinvented, marvelous and unlooked-for reason, and eternity.

 

(Or she. We don't know, do we?)



 

Heartbeat like a knock at the door

July 10, 2013.

Are you there?

This sonogram gave us the sound of the heartbeat. On the tinny computer speakers, amplified from somewhere 20,000 leagues into the womb, it came across like a steady knock at the door.

(There it is, the doctor said, matter-of-factly. As if OF COURSE there is a living creature living inside you. OF COURSE, your body has merged with another and brought some spark out of a primordial fire we all sit around.... If we had not all been so well-informed, so well-prepared, so, well, Intellectual, perhaps we might shout: THERE IT IS!!!! A heartbeat, a steady rhythm that will follow this creature even when he/she is unaware of it.... THERE IT IS... that steady pulse of life in the background.)

I found myself asking the doctor about the gap in the regular beat... the silence... She attributed it to a shift in the recording device.

Only afterwards did I realize it was my own heart stopping at the idea now that this one might not keep beating forever.

We go together like...

View from the lobby