To Care and Not to Care

  For awhile now I've been reading Nick Cave's  Red Hand Files . When I came across them, (thanks to one of my favorite podcasts The Mockingcast . You can gain some backstory about Nick Cave around the 51 minute mark) I was sort of blown away by his humble yet to the point, very gracious responses to questions his fans write in. Some of the questions are funny. Like, "Who do you want to win Love Island?" Nick Cave watches Love Island??? And some are desperate yet common. "What is the point in life?" The latest question a fan asks had me reading in wonder. The audacity! How could someone be so close-minded? Selfish! Controlling! How is Nick Cave going to answer this guy? The question reads like this: "I recently learned that there is a sitting Supreme Court Justice, here in the United States, who is a fan of a musician I love. This musician has passed.  The Justice, in my opinion, is dangerous to this country, and holds views I abhor. I firmly believe, t...

  I'm thankful for women like Sara Kay Mooney who share poetry that helps keep us alive. I never read much poetry up until maybe a couple years ago. That's when I needed something that wasn't neat and orderly because a Pandemic will teach you that. I liked the otherness of it...the freedom of words that  could mean this or that but then suddenly, you know exactly what it means. In her recent weekly Lent email, where she writes a short reflection and shares a poem, Sara brings up the question, "Do I want to be right or do I want to be healed?" I suppose this is something I'll always battle. I too, have lived and walked in too many circles where it's just easier to pull that fruit right off the tree and say to God, "Look, I can help you out just a little. I have great ideas! I don't know if You know this but, those people over there have really let themselves go and they're being such horrible witnesses for You!" But what happens when just ...

  Psalm 7 Deuteronomy 10:17-21 2 Peter 3:8-11 I was listening to the news the other day after dropping my boys off at school. As I pulled into my driveway, a man from the U.S. Senate was being interviewed about our role in the war in Ukraine. His answer created a knot in my stomach. “They need more weapons. The Ukranian freedom fighters need to win. We don't need them to lose slowly, we need them to win. They need to kill more Russians. In order to do that, we need to give them more weapons.” He spoke so firmly, it was as if there was no other answer. How often do we just blurt out a judgment on a situation or person? How often do I justify myself in my words and actions because I want justice now? All the time. I was struck by the Psalmist's inner conflict in Psalm 7. In one entire Psalm, he pours out three options to God, very aware of his own limited sense of justice. In the first part he says, “If I deserve punishment, then God let my enemies have their way.” In t...

  "We are the map makers,  tracing lines of a land that others cannot see. The uncharted and the unresolved,  there be dragons here.  There be shadow and nightmare.  There be wonders. There be more beauty  than you can contain... Come sail with me." "God comes to us disguised as our life." -Paula D'Arcy  I too have always found deep meaning for my life within natural landscapes.  A vast, wide open frozen tundra, where the harshness of the elements keeps me awake, the stillness let's me breathe in wonder, the almost blinding brightness let's me know my limit, while my feet still tread on spacious ground. As Oscar Wilde said, go be yourself, everybody else is already taken. I truly am the only person who sees what I see, who feels what I feel, who can take in an experience and come away with an entirely different perspective than someone else in that same experience.  Where the healing and redemption happens is when someone else reaches out the...

  I read kind of a funny and sad quote recently that said something like, "the difference between Christmas for a child and an adult is you're so well-behaved when you're curled up on the couch reading a book, but do that as an adult and you're just rude and anti-social." I've been having a hard time with this assignment because, like most of us, it's really hard to remember what made me come alive as a child. The expectations for adults is very different than for a child...for good reason. But what happens when all those messages of growing up and making good choices and being responsible come at the cost of a lost imagination?  As a child, music and melodies would ignite entire worlds into my imagination. Flying and soaring, dancing on keys, playing out all sorts of emotions.  Now, when I sit down at the piano, it takes awhile for the dust to settle. Eventually I find her, that little Janell who just wanted everybody to get along. As I play the notes, so...

  I went and baptized myself in beauty. Leaving, embracing  Silhouettes in motion. Push, carve, create  this path. My life is not just small twirling motions. It can be big if that's what it is. Small and quiet have their moment in the early morning dew. Blooming and saying yes have their time at twilight. I reach back as I step out to find who I am.  To baptize myself again in child-like giddiness. He did say let the little children come to Me for theirs is the Kingdom. I wander. I see things close and difficult to come to. I play. I'm beckoned to rise. All Rise, all Rise, all Rise.  It's a sin to kill a mockingbird and maybe the only way we can see things from somebody else's view is to  crawl around in his skin for awhile.  I don't always do what's right but I desire to. Thank God He doesn't look at our outsides.  So if I had a gallery of my life I'd want it to be like this - I'd have jazz playing, twinkle lights,  It'd be warm and intimat...

  " An act of hospitality can only be poetic. " -Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality  Tension. What is this tight rope that I walk? I live in a world that doesn't want to grieve , to name the past and apologize. Forgive me, I don't know what to say anymore.. Just like the girl on the news yesterday, weeping, doesn't know what to do, after another school shooting.  I could rage here but I'll save that for behind closed doors.  It is a sad, mad, sick world and I feel the grief heavy today. I string up my lights on my mantle and put up my advent candles anyway. I take my little boy on a hunt to find eggnog lattes and find a bundle of balloons to smile at.    I feel the tension of leaning into a Godly hospitality, a movable feast In the midst of forks scraping on empty china plates. I feel the tension of hope in the midst of crushing loss . I feel the tension of glory in the midst of trash on our streets . I feel the tension of having a home in the midst of those w...

  I read the book "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds today. I'd never read it before. I loved it. It can be so suffocating when we pin our creations between rocks of Right and Wrong can't it? But "Ish" takes all our crumpled drawings and poems and pictures and everything that we've made and hangs them up in a gallery with the best lighting and says, "Oh I really like this one. These are good!" "Ish" invites us to play. Look at it from a different angle. Tilt your head and say oh!  Now I see it! May we see what's beautiful and real in each other and not dismiss another creation as damaged goods. Someone wants to see them in His gallery with really good lighting. ❤

  I remember the first time I was in the company of another who knew how to release and relax. She was my piano teacher. After I had already taught piano for 10 years and had a baby. I was so raw. I longingly would look at my piano. I needed to speak, with no words.  My teacher, Mary, was one of those people who could push me just enough and hold a spacious place for me to fall too. I learned how to expand again. To breathe again. In and out. In and out. As a little girl, I used to pretend that I played in an orchestra. I would sit and imaginary play through an entire soundtrack. I loved being a part of something grand. I'm trying to listen to that feeling again. To no longer be a burden-bearer. To not be afraid of my own vulnerability. It's hard now, when I'm around others who are so closed off. But their burdens are not mine to carry, and just as Mary's posture attracted me into compassion, I hope I can be that for others too.

  I need something organic and moldable right now. I need to know that I am held in my Creator's hands, even as He prunes and snips and carves and adds a little here and takes away a little there. This last year and half has been a time of great re-shaping. And as I enter this season of Advent, wondering how in the world did such a Word become flesh. Well, that's beyond me. "Conversion" By Marci Johnson How can word become flesh? Belly. Bone.  Tongue--the feel in the mouth a word rolling around. Word, not a kiss not the thing itself--a name.  The arch of a foot. Your face in my hands, just  a name. Blue sky lolling beyond the window frame--eyes open. Just a way of looking.  Begin with a change.

  "None of this matters if you can't share it with people you love" "To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find eachother, and to feel. That is the purpose of life. "  - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty I read this assignment yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving. I thought, ok, this is my job. To see the world and report back. So I spent the day remaining in what can be at times, an overwhelming place. Family is complex isn't it? We are complex. I'm learning that it's ok to let it all be what it is. And there are these in-between spaces where grace and mercy resides.  Happy Thanksgiving. 

  A Poem From a Comfort Addict  Get a picture with dirt she says. (Take your shoes off) Let the cold and wet and pungent soil seep into my skin and remind me of what's real.  (Wash your hands) Do I need clean spaces in order to function? (Yes) Can I function in mess? (Yes, but I don't want to) Sometimes I want to tame the wild. Out of my house, my kids, me. I want to shut the windows, cut and prune and tidy until I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and say, "There, now I can rest." But maybe the wild is meant to tame us?  What do we do when all of the world is at odds with itself and we are too? What do we do when this East of Eden curse drives us to devastating dominion? Life is cut off at the root. We gasp. We cling. We struggle. We kick and scream. We wrap our blankets around us a little tighter. ("A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit...The nations will rally to him,  and his resting place will be glorious...

  "And I know it makes you nervous But I promise you, it's worth it To show 'em everything you kept inside Don't hide, don't hide Too shy to say, but I hope you stay Don't hide away Come out and play." The juxtaposition between staying in and working, the tightness, close-fisted, wrinkle in my eyebrows...evidence of being "responsible" - a grown up. ( a daily struggle for me!) Ah but,  when the windows fly open, when life swoops in and graciously (and rather offensively!) lands our inner-most gifts into the hands of others, well.  The wrinkle fade from our foreheads, our hands open, gratitude seeps into our hearts, fear and shame dissipate, and all that's left is wonder. The best invitation that play can offer.

  "When everything is dark, when we are surrounded by despairing voices, when we do not see any exits, then we can find salvation in a remembered love, a love that is not simply a wistful recollection of a bygone past but a living force that sustains us in the present. Through memory, love transcends the limits of time and offers hope at any moment in our lives." - Henri Nouwen "So your story does have a happy ending?" "Well that's up to you. The story's yours now." - Life of Pi REACHING Rewind, replay This mixtape in my mind. Circle back, toss and turn until I am devoured by my own addictive viscous cycle. Somebody has to win this argument, right? I'm right, you're wrong. Why did I step foot in this dichotomous arena? Somebody has to lose. Those are the rules. Somebody has to die. These memories become my present, which becomes my future. I yearn for them to stop.  There is no peace. Where is God in all of this? Where was His loving prese...