“My hope is that the description of God’s love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover . . . God’s love in yours."
- Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Latest Poem

I wrote this for "Seminary Night Live" yesterday evening... It is still in the editing stages but I felt ready to be shared with the world.. at least the virtual world. ;)

Enjoy!

“I Hear Seminary Singing”

Part 1

I hear seminary singing—Not, perhaps, in the usual Whitman-like way: proud, robust, positing presumed pragmatic strength.

… And yet, as a matter of fact, as a matter of course, as a matter of mere mentioning, perhaps these songs are just as palpable and true.
Perhaps Whitman himself would be pleased.

What carols do I hear?

A jubilant registrar sings, alchemizing empty schedules into full & hoped-for ones – just that stamp, that golden seal.
She does it all.
Another sings out existential phrases, pondering postmodern complexity, recognizing one’s liberation in contrast to their own ancestors’ worldview:
When will the blame game be gone?
The brother beside me sings as well—although his he does by traveling abroad.
Still another with daring heart, awash in the angled-nuances of life-- she sings her heart into being.
She lights a candle.
Amidst every painful reason not to, she becomes Easter personified

We sing theology.
We sing vulnerability.
We sing the faith.
We sing to celebrate.


I tear-up, open-heartedly, when my classmate preaches.
We are flamboyant and fortunate.
I wonder and worry about saying goodbye in a few years:
We are dreamers and earth-shakers, and sometimes we remember,
We recall what brought us to these castles in fairy tale Marin.
Then….
I hear seminary singing:

In the chapel services from 10:15-10:45,
A woman typing a memo in office space,
Another advocating for the homeless,
Still another wanting more to serve,
Another trying to come home—
In whatever way that means.


Amidst promises and pains of irrelevance and relevancy.
Seminary sings
And the song is beautiful!

For as I walk up our prodigious hill,
I stop for a moment, catching my breath.
A small cleft in the sidewalk discloses like surprise:
A lizard moving in and then quickly out of view.

I think: This lizard is like Grace.
So suddenly Grace appears.
It is in this that I realize our Grace,
That when seminary sings,
the I becomes the We.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Realization

Today I struck upon an important realization: Letting Go. It is hard to let go, especially when you care so deeply... But to care for something and in something that is not mutual, it brings a kind of violence: a short-sided unhappiness, a gritting your teeth and bearing it. Our society speaks so much about love: It infiltrates our music stations and general music collections, but what about the simply beautiful task of putting down self-criticism, of laying down blame, of stopping to judge the other and simply hold them, lovingly, hand-in-hand, with their vulnerability. Some of us might want answers. I certainly know that I have felt this way. But what I want more deeply... what the ego cannot give..... is the simply joyous task of ceasing the endless cycle of want... so that I can be present to today.... and in today, I found so many precious and beautiful things... as well as a new friend. I wonder when I look back at this post: What will I think? Such naivety. Such sappiness. Such lack of true insight. But to that critic then and to this critic now I say the only thing I know: You are loved, Elizabeth-- even when you do not feel it. Go and dare to show that same love to others. Mean it.