The art of listening

As I practiced yesterday, I was struck by how much of what I call 'practice' is really just figuring out what to listen for. The inner voices, the way one chord leans into the resolution of another. It's easy to just get drawn in by soprano line - the melody. Our ears have been trained to do so, through years of conditioning.

But what about the counter-melodies? What about the harmony? What about the bass line - that foundation upon which everything else rests and resonates?

There are very few instruments that can play multiple lines of music at once. Mine is one of them. And of course, with that immense gift comes the enormous responsibility of caring for each individual line. It is, indeed a blessing and a curse to be given both melody and harmony. Managing both simultaneously is a tall order for a mere ten fingers. Indeed, it takes years of practice to develop the ability to bring out different lines at different times - to find the balance between them.

We have a term for that attempt at balance: voicing.
My last teacher was determined that I would never, ever play a chord that was not properly voiced. And I still hear her voice in my head as I sit in the practice room each morning.

But voicing is the end result. The goal.

The first step is listening.
Finding each individual line. Studying its contour.
Singing it, internalizing it, letting it become a part of me.
Appreciating how it relates to and interacts with the lines around it.

I have to know each line independent of the others in order to understand how they relate to each other.
And there are no shortcuts for that.
Listening takes time. It takes intentionality. It takes openness.

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I am taking a history class right now - a historical research class, to be precise. And this week, we have begun our exploration of different 'subfields' of history - which are essentially different filters through which we interpret or even begin to form our narrative of past events.

We have been taught to use these subfields as a means of finding other voices. Of telling stories that have been ignored. Of questioning our preconceived ideas about 'facts.' Not in an attempt to deny the existence of the truth, but rather, in an attempt to find the whole truth.

What if the story you have been told is only part of a bigger story?

Or, to put it in musical terms: what if the part of the song you know is only the alto part?
Is the alto part a true, integral part of the whole? Of course it is. But have you listened to the tenor line? What does your alto line sound like in the context of the whole? Do you realize that there's a whole orchestra behind you? Could it be that the song is actually completely different than what you assumed it to be?

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And so it is with people.

The daily interactions I have with students, colleagues, strangers, do not even begin to tell me the whole story. I hear one line, one phrase - and I am quick to jump to conclusions. I make assumptions about who these people are, about what they are thinking, about what their motivations are. But these little snippets of melodies cannot express the whole of the person.

So, I become a student of the score. I sing these individual lines in my head, let them resonate in me. I seek out other lines, and I find them in body language, in the breath, in the syntax of the sentence, in the gleam of the eyes. I listen for the unspoken message, the one that lies between the lines. I listen for the person. I listen for the Divine.

The Place I Want to Get Back To

is where

     in the pinewoods

          in the moments between 

               the darkness

and first light

     two deer

          came walking down the hill

               and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,

     this one is okay,

          let's see who she is

               and why she is sitting

on the ground, like that,

     so quiet, as if

          asleep, or in a dream,

               but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came

     on their slender legs

          and gazed upon me

               not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look

     and look and look

          into the faces of the flowers;

               and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life

     bring to me that could exceed

          that brief moment?

               For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,

     not waiting, exactly, just lingering.

          Such gifts, bestowed,

               can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this

     come to visit. I live in the house

          near the corner, which I have named

               Gratitude.

-Mary Oliver

Lo, he comes

A canceled end-of-the-day lesson leaves me with several hours in a row to do with as I please.

There are a host of things on my to-do list. The least of which is the hours of practice I still have yet to do in preparation for what may prove to be the most difficult final of my academic career.

Every part of me knows that I should practice. I have successfully avoided it all day, and tomorrow's Mary, as well as next Thursday's Mary will be annoyed with present Mary for not using the time she has.

But my soul is restless, in a way I can't help but attend to.

And as I allow myself a moment to sit, they come. 

The tears. 

The ones that have been brimming all day, all week.

From where, I don't exactly know.

Maybe they spring from anxiety, from exhaustion, from overwhelmedness. 

Will I make it?

Will I be enough?

Will I find any more reserves of strength within me?

Will I get it done?

Will this, too, pass?

Maybe they spring from soul-weariness, from grief, from disillusionment with the fight.

Will the wrong ever be made right?

Will the evil ever be broken?

Will the light ever overcome the darkness?

Will the truth win out?

Will this, too, pass?

Maybe they spring from joy, from wonder, from surprising, unspeakable beauty.

Will I give in to the joy?

Will I dare to hope?

Will I choose to feed my faith?

Will I continue to keep my eyes peeled for the glimpses of light?

Will I refuse to let the moments pass me by without choosing to be present to them?

As I write, I find myself mesmerized by the brilliant hues of the setting sun peering through the shadows of a tangled web of bare branches.
The contrast is stark.
The branches are cold and lifeless - the sun, warm and inviting. 

And isn't this the perfect picture of Advent?

The dark and the light. The cold and the warm. The now and the not yet. 

The hope and belief that the baby will come, and the honest acknowledgement of the reality that he is not here yet.

But it is more than that. It is the belief that his coming does not happen all at once. That his coming is gradual. That he is still in the process of coming. That his arrival wasn't only in the past, and that it isn't only in the future.
It is ongoing. It is today. It is now.

The last glimmer of daylight fades, and we settle in for a long, cold night.

But there is life in the darkness.

Though all seems still, cold, lifeless, tired, dead....yet there is movement, imperceptible to our near-sighted eyes. While we sleep, the dancing globe will continue its slow and steady twirl. And tomorrow, when we wake again, we will once more greet the light of the sun. The light that has been there all along. The light that even as it leaves us, has already begun its return.

And so we give thanks.

For the light that has been.
For the light that is now.
For the light that is, even now, coming.

Lo, he comes, the long-expected one.

Lo, he is here, Emmanuel.

The one who has been with us.

The one who will be with us.

The one who is being with us.

the possibility of sky

The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to, for sifting through the things we have done and the things we have left undone for a clue to who we are and who, for better or worse, we are becoming.

- Frederick Buechner

As I reflect on the passing year, my mind centers on a word that I have been chewing on for quite some time now: gratitude. It has been an intentional practice in my life for a number of years. I keep a gratitude journal and regularly track the blessings, large and small, that fall by the bucketful on my head.

This year, the intensity, intentionality, and even sense of urgency, of my practice deepened, as I began to see the roots of bitterness in the lives of the people around me. I reflected on this, and on the ugly parts of myself that have the potential to harden into bitterness. And I sought an answer to the nagging question: how do I prevent this? How can I remain soft, open, compassionate, joyful towards the people and world around me?  The answer was clear: the best cure, and even preventative measure, for bitterness is gratitude. 

I was sharing this with a friend this fall, and through our conversation, I began to see the patterns in our culture that often feed our bitterness. It is our American practice to ask each other how we are - and unfortunately, it's more of a greeting now, than an intentional question. But we often respond negatively: I'm tired, stressed, overwhelmed, just OK, busy. And as I continued to ponder this, the question arose: how would we change if we replaced this greeting with, what are you thankful for?

So this has become our practice, my friend and I, when we see each other. No meaningless how-are-you's allowed. Only expressions of thankfulness. And over time, our practice has been refined. A few ground rules have been established. The answer must be true, pure - not twinged with sarcasm. How often do we issue a complaint, shrouded in a cloak of thanksgiving? 

But what a beautiful thing it is to fill the well with truth, to dispel the darkness, to starve the bitter roots. How energizing and life-giving it is to be on the lookout for the gifts, to cultivate an awareness for the things that are so often rendered invisible by our preoccupation with productivity. I find myself keeping track of the blessings throughout the day, ready to give an answer when the question comes. I struggle to give just one answer when there is so much to rejoice in!

~~~

A few nights ago, I had a dream.  Well, I'm not sure if you can technically call it a dream. It occurred in the no-man's-land between fully-awake and out-cold. For some inexplicable reason, a memory broke loose from the hidden recesses of my brain and danced its way across my consciousness. And upon further consideration, I now realize that the event it recalled was ten years ago this year.

I was fulfilling my maid of honor duties, attending a bridal shower thrown by the bride's college friends, most of whom I'd never met. One of them, a kind, thoughtful soul, happened to share my name - a rarity for me, especially with someone my own age. Our conversation turned, quite naturally, to the topic of names. She had grown to love exploring their meanings and implications and asked me what I thought of ours. I laughed as I told her about the little name card I'd been given as a child, which identified the meaning as "blessed fragrance." It couldn't be further from the truth. The name is Hebrew in origin, a derivative of the word "mara" - the word for "bitter." Not exactly high on the list of "names you should give your child to bring them health and prosperity." 

She asked if I'd like to hear her take on it, and naturally, I obliged. She began to talk about the most famous Mary, the mother of Jesus. It was a dark time in Jewish history, she said; the people were angry at God, weary of the weight of the Roman oppression, wondering if He would ever break His silence (a silence that lasted 400 years). Why hadn't He sent a savior to them, to lead them to freedom? How long would they have to wait? 

She went on: how beautiful, then, that salvation would come through the womb of a woman named Mary - in the face of their bitterness. So, she smiled, I prefer to think of it, not as 'bitter', but instead as 'conqueror of bitterness.'  Now there's a meaning I can get on board with.

~~~

Who knows what brought that memory to mind as I lay silent in the dark? Who knows what thought or conversation plucked it loose from its place on some forgotten shelf? 

But how beautiful to see the evidence of life, of growth, of hidden streams beneath the frozen surface, of the belief in the possibility of sky, even in the midst of total darkness. Who knew that a seed scattered 10 years ago in a two-minute conversation with a perfect stranger would take root? Who knew that under the dry, crusty, rocky soil, there were forces of life at work? Who knew that this practice of gratitude would sprinkle water and light and nutrients on a long-forgotten seed? Who knew that that seed would wrestle its way to the surface and send a shoot blazing through the cold, hard earth?

~~~

As I write, the snow falls softly outside. I have long been mystified by the fact that we celebrate the new year now, in the middle of winter, when the outside world speaks of nothing but death and cold and darkness. It seems the most illogical time to speak of new life and hope and light. The ground is cold, frozen solid, buried under a foot of snow. Spring seems an impossibility; how could anything survive in this icy darkness? And yet, here we are, turning our faces into the bitter cold, looking forward with expectation, with joy, with gratitude.

willing to wander

"Walking with someone through grief,

or through the process of reconciliation,

requires patience, presence,and 

a willingness to wander..."

-Rachel Held Evans
  
 "Thus when you wake up in the morning, called by God to be a self again, 

if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. 

Because where your feet take you, that is who you are."

 - Frederick Buechner

I was reading some Rachel Held Evans this week, as I reflected on the passing year. This phrase seemed to jump off the page at me: willingness to wander. She spoke of it in the context of helping someone seek healing. We are quick to attempt to fix, find a cure, solve the problem. But healing doesn't work this way. It isn't linear. It isn't predictable. There is no formula.  To walk with someone on the path of healing is to walk without a map, without a plan, without an agenda.

But I think this principle of wandering extends beyond the path for healing.  Because to be in relationship with people is to be willing to wander.

Am I willing to wander with my students?
It may be that I have played a song 100 times, coached it with master teachers, soaked in the poetry....but will I be open to a different interpretation? Will I be ready to play it the way that they need to sing it?
Am I willing to hear their questions and resist the urge to give them a ready-made, pre-cut answer? Am I willing to take their challenges to heart? Am I willing to change my mind?
Am I willing to learn from them?

Am I willing to wander with others I hold dear?
Am I willing to watch them go down a path that by all my estimations is wrong...dangerous...not what I would have chosen? Am I willing to stay with them in it...simply to be with them?

Am I willing to wander with myself?
Am I willing to let the journey take me where it will? Am I willing to walk down a path, and resist the desire to apologize for it or seek to explain it to anyone else...or even to myself?
Am I willing to listen, really listen to the voice of my soul?
Am I willing to move in a non-linear pattern....even if it means moving in a circle?
Am I willing to wander into places I do not expect anything Divine to dwell?
Am I willing to seek the light, wherever it may be found?

One of the rules of my weekly Sabbath is the practice of spontaneity. There are of course, restrictions about what I avoid on that day - things related to schedules and work and technology being at the top of the list. But the main purpose of the day is to listen to my soul, to do the things that will bring me life in that moment. And most often, this involves listening to my feet. Often I find myself setting out on a walk, with no agenda, no destination, no ETA. And I quickly find that creating space for spontaneity - for wandering - can lead to space for surprises too. And where there is room for surprise, there is room for wonder. "Attention," says Mary Oliver, "is the beginning of devotion."

In reflecting on this idea of wandering, I am reminded of the famous words of Tolkein, Not all who wander are lost. And, while I appreciate the sentiment, I might be so bold as to add: Some are, but there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes 'living the questions', to borrow a phrase from Rilke, means wandering for awhile.

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far in the future,  you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer."

 - Rainier Maria Rilke

praying

It doesn't have to be 

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

-Mary Oliver

Artists don't compartmentalize.

I've been mulling on this thought for a few months now, ever since a colleague of mine said it in rehearsal. It came in the context of the students having to do multiple things at once....sing accurate pitches and rhythms, adhere to expression markings, blend with their section, be mindful of their breath, tell the story, etc., etc., etc. Making music in ensemble is an extreme form of multi-tasking.

Artists don't compartmentalize.

As he spoke these words, I felt my eyes well with tears. Yes, he was speaking about that particular moment in rehearsal; he was acknowledging the seeming-impossibility of his request for them to do all these things at once. But, as usual, there was a deeper meaning behind his words.

When I walk on the stage, as much as I would love to leave behind the fears, anxieties, burdens, hurts, stresses of my day, week, month, year, lifetime, the truth is, they follow me on.  So when I am feeling tense, my playing is tense. When I am feeling anxious, my playing is anxious.  When I am feeling broken, my playing is broken.

But I have long held the belief that audiences don't want perfection.  What moves us most is not a masterfully-sculpted phrase or a perfectly-tuned chord.  What moves us most is Truth.  Honesty. Humanity.   And yes, if the phrase is bumpy or the chord is out of tune, we might be a bit distracted from the truth.  But also, I think we forgive the musical shortcomings if the expression is honest.

Artists don't compartmentalize.
And I don't think humans should either.

I love these words of Mary Oliver.  They serve as a reminder to me that I don't need to assume a specific posture to touch the Divine.  There aren't magic words to be said.

The invitation is to come as we are.
Weeds, irises, stones, anxiety, brokenness, humanity....it's all welcome.
The promise is that He will inhabit it all.  Emmanuel.   God with us.

breathe

Even with darkness sealing us in,

we breathe your name.

 - Michael Dennis Browne

Remember to breathe.  Take time to breathe.  Just breathe.

We use these phrases often.   Or at least, I do.

Even just yesterday, while coffee-ing with a student, she spelled out her weekly schedule for me, and I interrupted to ask, "do you ever take time to breathe?"  It is a question I find myself frequently asking of my students and colleagues alike.  In a world that glorifies busyness, it is easy to find ourselves feeling guilty for pausing, for choosing to measure our worth by something besides our productivity.

But, as I pause, and sip wine and stare at the stars and contemplate how I might incorporate more "breathing time" into my own schedule, I suddenly realize how silly that sounds.  Why do we have to set aside specific time for an involuntary action that we do an average of every 5 seconds?

What we mean, of course, is that we must set aside specific time to make the conscious choice to be aware of, involved in our breath.  Busyness does not come without a price.  It dulls our awareness - of the world around us, of other people, of glimmers of beauty, of even the inner workings of these bodies our souls call home. To be unaware of these things is to be unreceptive to the gifts of the present.  In allowing busyness to steal our awareness, our mindfulness, our openness to receive....we then also relinquish most of our opportunities to be grateful.

I'll be the first to say that I'm guilty of holding my breath, of forgetting to inhale the gifts of the world around me, of failing to exhale the negativity and anxiety that plagues me. So often, I have blazed ahead, unaware of the tension that creeps ever-so-slowly into my shoulders, of the knots silently swirling in my back.

I have developed a habit over the years of learning new pieces of music with the aid of a metronome. My goal-oriented self loves the sense of achievement I feel each day as I increase the speed by a few clicks.  I love to see progress, however slow or minute it may be.  I love to trace the journey of where I've been and celebrate the small daily victories.

Obviously, the goal here is more than just self-gratification.  This slow, methodical, seemingly-tedious practice enables my muscles to learn the necessary patterns without allowing the tension to sneak in.  When the tempo is slow, I have space to be mindful of what I am doing, time to be aware of my breathing.  The slow, steady tick holds me accountable to not go any faster than my breath.

Of course, I cannot stay married to the metronome forever.  At some point, I will need to turn it off. Metronomes can teach us how to remain steady - they can hold us accountable to resist the urge to rush ahead or drag behind.  But they cannot teach us to phrase, to dance.  They cannot teach us about the space between the notes.  They cannot teach us the importance of the silence.  They cannot teach us to make music.

We are made for rhythm.  I believe this with every fiber of my being.  There is a place where the beat meets the groove - a tempo that is right - one that moves forward with purpose while still remaining relaxed and grounded.   But the rhythm cannot live until we turn the metronome off.  The rhythm cannot learn to dance unless it is broken.

So today I break my rhythm.

The weekdays are for metronomes.  For incremental progress.  For learning the patterns.  For faithfulness in the slow and steady work.  For attempting to not go any faster than my breath.

But the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is for silence.  For recalibration.  For release.  For remembering.  For listening.  For gratitude.

Today I break my rhythm.
And in doing so, I find it.

To live is to breathe.

To breathe is to live.

Father and Lord,
         most near and most far,

    Listen to our silence before Thee,
              as well as to our prayers,
                             because often it is the silence that speaks better of our need.

Speak Thy joy into our silence.
Breathe Thy life into our less-than-life,
          not for our own sakes only,
                   but for the sake of those to whom, with Thy life in us,
                                                                            we may, ourselves, bring life.

Much as we wish,
           not one of us can bring back yesterday
                                                   or shape tomorrow.
                              ONLY TODAY IS OURS
                                                                        and it will not be ours for long.
     And once it is gone,
                       it will never,     in all time,
                                                               be ours again.

Thou only knowest what it holds in store for us.
Yet even we know something of what it will hold:
            a chance to speak truth,
                to show mercy,
                to ease another's burden
             the chance to resist evil,
                to remember all the good times and good people of our past.
                to be brave
                      to be strong
                               to be glad.

We know that today, as every day,
                 our lives will be touched by Thee.
     and that one way or another,
                                            Thou wilt speak to us before we sleep,
         for the very moments themselves of our lives           are Thy words to us.

Give us ears to hear Thee speak.
                Give us hearts to quicken
                                                       as Thou drawest near.

-Frederick Buechner

thin places

"...music is about as physical as it gets:

your essential rhythm is your heartbeat; your essential sound, the breath.

We're walking temples of noise, and when you add tender hearts to this mix,

it somehow lets us meet in places we couldn't get to any other way."

- Anne Lamott

I make music. For a living.
Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Because, truth be told, there's a lot that's not so great about it.

There are moments, days, weeks...seasons....when I question what I do. Why don't I just go get an office job that wouldn't demand so much of me...that I wouldn't care so much about...that would actually give me a decent salary, and dare-I-say-it....benefits?

My hours are long...and irregular. It's not uncommon for me to work 12-15 hours a day, 6 days a week. I often wonder what it would be like to work 8-5 and actually leave my work at work and have...a weekend. When I don't have a gig, I have rehearsal for a gig...or I should probably be practicing for said gig.

My work is never done. At this moment in time, I am responsible for roughly 400 pages of music. So really, when I say I make music for a living, what I mean is, I juggle music for a living. I live from one performance to another. I've barely got time to celebrate one recital, before I'm prepping for the next one.

I am constantly being critiqued...by my colleagues, employers...and myself. I struggle to remind myself that while my daily performance is important - and while I should absolutely strive to bring my best to everything I do...my worth is not found in how many right notes I play, or how dazzling my technique is. I struggle to remember that I am more than a musician.

It is not easy to be a musician in today's world. Musicians (and artists of all kinds) are forced to burn the candle at both ends. We juggle full schedules of rehearsals, lessons, performances. And when we're not practicing, rehearsing, performing or teaching - we become advocates...trying to convince our society - and sometimes even ourselves - that what we do matters...that it is necessary.

I make music. For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

Even as I sit here, I have begun and erased at least 2 dozen sentences, as I attempt to express my wonder, my joy - my sheer delight in the fact that someone actually pays me to do what I love. I honestly don't even know where to start.

I get paid to interact with poetry and melody. 

     To absorb it - let it affect me, change me, become part of me.
I get paid to create. 

     To paint with colors of sound.
I get paid to collaborate. 

     To journey with another - and cultivate something new together
I get paid to tell stories. 

     To give voice to another's, to reveal my own.
I get paid to express. 

     To speak hope, joy, freedom, comfort, truth.

The Celtic mystics use the term "thin place" to refer to a sacred space - one where the veil between the material world and the eternal world is thin. 

Poet Sharlande Sledge describes them this way:

"Thin places," the Celts call this space,

Both seen and unseen,

Where the door between the world 

And the next is cracked open for a moment

And the light is not all on the other side.

God shaped space. Holy.

I think I am beginning to realize that my work is one giant "thin place."

I spend my days on the edge of the divine. Of course, we're always on the edge; the divine is always present - all around us, within us.

But somehow, when there is poetry, when there is music - when they swirl and resonate together - when we add the tenderness of our hearts to the mix - the veil becomes so thin, you forget it's even there.

and the light spills out from the other side. 

I make music.  For a living.

Sometimes I forget how great that is.

the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom

"At the end of the day, people won't remember what you said or did;

they will remember how you made them feel."

- Maya Angelou

I love the rhythm of the seasons.  I love to watch the transformation of the world around me, as the long days become long nights, and the bare branches sprout blossoms once more.  I love that when everything is still and cold and frozen - this is the time we choose to call the "new year."  Of course, in other parts of the world, the new year is ushered in by sunlight and warmth.  But, no matter.  I love that here, in the dead of winter, when all around us is snowy darkness, we turn our face into the icy wind and look forward with expectation into what is to come.

Sometimes I think about how overwhelming life would be if we didn't keep time - if we didn't count the seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades.  I can hardly fathom what it would mean to have the moments stretch on and on, without any sort of definition.

No, we are created for rhythm.  Of this I am sure.  We need structure - we need definition.  We need to be able to categorize and compartmentalize things.  We need to be able to leave things behind: "2013 was a hard one - I'm glad it's done."  We need to be able to look ahead: "2014 will be better, I can already tell."


In the last few years, it has become my New Year's tradition to pause for a few hours and reflect on the year.  Sometimes I read through my journal (provided it was a good year for journaling).  Sometimes I re-trace the journey month-by-month.  Sometimes, I just sit, mesmerized by the tree lights or the flickering candles, savoring the sweet stillness.   And I am always surprised at how powerful it can be to take the time and space to actively remember.

365 days ago, I was preparing to tackle my final semester at Peabody, having no idea that 12-mos. later, I would have completed my first semester as a music theory professor.

I am amazed at how much can be crammed into a single year....at how much has changed...and at how much is exactly the same.  I think back on what has transpired - the milestone events - large and small - the ones that happened on a stage, the ones that happened in a practice room, and the ones that happened in my living room.  

I stumbled upon this Maya Angelou quote, as I was flipping through my journal this evening. From what I can gather (I am not always the most detailed in my journaling), it was Denyce Graves who quoted it, when I was playing for one of her students' lessons one afternoon. She framed it within the context of singing - within the world of theater....which makes total sense. We don't necessarily remember how an actor moved his hands or even with what inflection he delivered the line - but we will remember being moved. We will remember a line or a phrase cutting straight to the heart.

Yes, there are specific moments I remember from the last year.  There are words, phrases that people have spoken to me in the last 12 months - and I will continue to replay them for years to come.  There are things people have done for me - small things, and ginormous things - that will remained ingrained in my memory.  

But Maya's right.  I remember them because of how they made me feel.

So then I got to thinking...as is prone to happen when wine and chocolate and candlelit lanterns are involved:       How do people make us feel?

Uneasy.

Awkward.

Small.

Fearful.
Weak.

Stupid.

Alone.

Worthless.

Safe.

Loved.

Heard.

Understood.

Seen.

Important.

Peaceful.

Forgiven.

Empowered.

Thankful..

Free.

Needed.

Alive.

We are not responsible for the feelings of others.  We feel what we feel - and we really have no control over that, at least to an extent.  But at the same time, we must also never forget that our words and our actions carry great weight and power.  The people we brush shoulders with every day are precious, extraordinary, fragile.

I always find it fascinating to read the list of "most influential people of the year" (by somebody's standards) and peruse the catalog of people who have passed on in the last year.  Many of them, I've never heard of. Most of them have had little or no direct impact on my life.

Because the people that matter most to me are the people whose faces now find themselves plastered to my frig.  And as I allow my eyes to drift over those precious faces, the feelings come surging back.  I see the eyes of one who sees me. I see the smile and, in my head, hear the laugh of one who makes me come alive.

For the most part, I cannot tell you what it is exactly that they did or said.  But the feelings run deep.  And the feelings remain.

And so, as I close the book on yet another year, I do so with gratitude.  I marvel at the mystery of human interaction.  I am awed by the glimpses of the divine that I see all around me.  I give thanks for the fingerprints - so divinely human - that have left their mark on my heart.  

Photo Credit: Chinwe Edeani  -  www.photosbychinwe.tumblr.com 

when starbucks gets it wrong and santa gets it right

wonder

noun

a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration,

caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable.

I was walking past Starbucks the other day, and paused for a moment as I took in this year's holiday slogan:    "Create Wonder. Share Joy."

Sharing joy. Now there's something I can absolutely be on board with. There are few things more contagious than a smile - so I make a point to lock eyes with the people I pass on the sidewalk and send a little Christmas cheer their way.  (Note: this is especially delightful to do in crowded shopping malls 4 days before Christmas).

But...creating wonder?   Is wonder really something that can be created?  Can it be manufactured?  Is there a magical recipe - a combination of specific ingredients that will produce a sense of awe?  And can it really be found in a cup of coffee??


Wonder.  It's a word that gets thrown around a lot this time of year.  We hear it in Christmas carols: Star of wonder, star of light....wonders of His love.  We see it in the faces of children, as the anticipation builds and they cannot contain their excitement.  Just last night, my mom and I turned on The Polar Express as we sat wrapping presents by the fire - and I was reminded again of how childlike innocence so often breeds wonder.

I love the moment when the little boy hears the bells ringing for the first time. He has finally crossed the threshold of belief and is free to experience the wonderful and magical world of a Christmas with Santa Claus.  He takes the risk; he makes the choice to believe - to welcome in the wonder.

As we get older, most of us gradually lose our innocence and openness, falling into the clutches of intellectualism and rationalism.  We hold ever-so-fiercely to our illusion of being in control, and life becomes about doing, getting, producing...acquiring the tangibles that will supposedly make us happy. And when those don't satisfy, we attempt to manufacture the intangibles.
Creating them for ourselves is, of course, much, much safer.  

Because the reality is: we're scared. 

We are afraid of being surprised.  We are perturbed by the inexplicable.  We are terrified of the unfamiliar. We are petrified by the unexpected.

And so we close the door to our experience of wonder.  We don't want to feel the vulnerability of being out of control.  We don't want to be reminded of all we do not know or understand.  We don't want to extend an invitation to the unknown, the surprising, the unexpected. We don't want to have to welcome something in that might inspire, even force us to...change.

So I am opening my heart to the unexpected, in this season of Advent.  I am finding comfort in the mystery.  I am seeking beauty in the invisible.  I am creating space for surprises.   I am throwing out my definitions, my explanations, my plans.  I am making the choice to believe, and allowing the believing to have its way in me.  I am welcoming the wonder.

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

Eternity shut in one span,

Summer in winter, day in night,

Heaven in earth, and God in man,

Great Little One, whose all-embracing birth

Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.

 - Richard Crashaw

Photo Credit: Chinwe Edeani  www.photosbychinwe.tumblr.com

let evening come

It's my favorite time of day.  Or, my new favorite, I should say.  I will never abandon my undying love for early mornings, but living in a westward-facing home has brought with it a new appreciation for the dusky, twilit world.

The work is done...or at least laid aside until tomorrow.  The dishes are dripping their way to being dry.  The sun is bidding his final farewell as he peeks out from behind the ridge. My wineglass grows more illumined by the second as the candlelit lantern sends its flickers across the table.  My feet are up.  My hands are overflowing with fresh grapes from my garden. And Puzzle, the cross-eyed cat (yes, it's true), has come to say 'good evening'.

I spent yesterday evening in this same spot, catching up with a friend by lantern light after a 6-year hiatus (actually, probably really more like 10) from each others' lives. We reflected our individual journeys, as we recounted what has brought us to this point in time.  And here we are.  In the same city.  In similar seasons of life.

She commented on the way I didn't hide the messiness or the tension as I recounted my story of the last few years.  "That's life," she said, "We want it to fit nicely in boxes, but it doesn't."  We want there to be airtight solutions to the problems and easy answers to our nagging questions.  And it would be nice if it was all wrapped up with a beautiful bow on top.  but that's not life.


And maybe this is why I am coming to love evenings.


The mornings are full of pent-up potential.  There is room for hope, possibility, fresh starts.  I love the unknown.  The anticipation.  The energy of the stillness.  When I look at the day through my morning eyes, I am filled with gratitude.

I've never really liked evenings.  I have always associated them with weariness, heaviness, the weight of the day's work and failures.  The unknown is now known.  The morning's stillness has been replaced by a cacophony of voices. The din has undone me.  When I look at the day through my evening eyes, I am quick to see the negative - it is all-to-easy to latch on to the faults and failures.

But, the longer I sit, the more I force myself to pause and remember, the more I start see the beauty of the day.  A word of affirmation.  A shared moment of laughter.  A surprising turn of events.  An unexpected gift.


Over the years, as I have explored the idea of "Sabbath" - I have come to love the idea of the Sabbath beginning at sundown.  I love that it begins with rest. I love that it begins with what is, by American standards, the most unproductive thing we can do.  I love that surrender to the darkness and the stillness serves as the link between days.   I love that even in the hours that hold such terror and dread for so many - the moments when we are left defenseless and vulnerable - this - even this - is the time to begin anew.

And so, I say, let evening come.  Let it come and bring with it an awareness of our failures and shortcomings. Let it come and bring with it the weariness and weight of the day.  Let it come and bring with it the recollections of quiet moments of beauty in the chaos.  Let it come, and let us embrace it.  Let it come, and let us yield to the darkness, to the stillness.  Let it come, and let us lean into the grace that holds us.

Let it come, as it will, and don't

be afraid. God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

 - Jane Kenyon

Photo Credit:  Chinwe Edeani

it is what it is

I hate blank walls.

Always have, always will.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the first things I do when I move to a new place, even before all the boxes are unpacked, is start laying out picture collages on the floor.

My father, ever the photo journalist, captured one such humidity-and-exhaustion-soaked moment 2 years ago this week as I settled in Baltimore.

I love this part of the process.  It centers me and settles me, to acquaint myself with my new floor, surrounded by old friends, familiar faces that have followed me on my journey.  After the craziness of moving, my little introvert self is thankful for the chance to absorb the quiet, to reflect, to remember, to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, to make this new place my own.

But as I finally had the "aha" moment and found the perfect place for one little piece of artwork this evening (it has been sitting, homeless, on my desk for weeks), I realize that I have also come to love the change. The paintings and posters and picture frames that call my walls home have found their way to a plethora of different walls over the years - and have hung side-by-side a vast array of different objects.  And though they have remained unchanged over the years, they look different each time I put them up. The light hits them from a new angle. The walls behind them highlight their vibrant colors in a new way. The pieces they are now paired with bring out parts of them I'd never noticed before. 

I love how there is change in the constancy.  I love how you can look at something a million times and not really see it until you look at it that million-and-first time.  I love how everything eventually finds its place - sometimes where we least expect it to.

And isn't this true in life in general?  We bring the same set of strengths and weaknesses to each table we encounter - the same personality quirks - the same set of baggage.   The older I get and the further I travel, the more I am dismayed to find out that I am the same person wherever I wander.  Somehow, even though I attempt to leave it behind, my storage unit full of complexities and idiosyncrasies and selfishness and fears finds its way into each new town I call my home.

But there's hope. There are fresh starts.  There are new circumstances and new relationships and new walls to decorate.  The light falls differently and offers a new perspective.  Weaknesses become strengths.  Fears become motivators.  Shadows are chased away by sunbeams.  They are not bound by their former identities. They have been redefined in the present.  And sure, we cannot change the past or its long-lasting effects on us. And we lean, depend, feed on our hope for the future.  But the fact of the matter remains: we only have this moment.  We only have the present.

In the year before I left for Baltimore, my dear soul sister and I would, at times (OK, often), find ourselves overwhelmed by life.  There were days when we gave up on words and just laughed.  And there were days when we gave up on words and just cried.  And amidst fits of giggles and streams of tears, our mantra became, "It is what it is."  And for us, at the time, I think it meant "I'll take the hand I'm dealt; it's out of my control anyway." "I will accept this reality and trust that it's not forever."

Shortly before I left for graduate school, I found a little wooden sign that said just that: "it is what it is."  So off it went with me to Baltimore. And every morning, as I brushed my teeth, I pondered it.  For two years, I pondered....and also I cried and I laughed (a bit more of the former than the latter).  And for those two years it took on a new meaning: "It is what it is, so I will choose gratitude."

Today that sign has found a new resting place on the shelf beside my dining room table, to the right of my mug collection, just below my produce basket full of Walla Walla sweet onions, to the left of two pictures of my soul sisters.  Today, it reminds me of the tears and the laughter, of the fight to stay grateful.  And today it takes on a new meaning: "it isn't what it was."

a fresh start

It’s been two years since I started a blog. It was my intent to use it to describe my journey eastward, as the title would suggest (Mary Goes to Maryland). I wanted to be able to share my experiences in graduate school with friends at home – the people who had helped to get me there.

And in the process, I came to a deeper realization of something I already knew: I love to write. I have been a faithful journaler since at least jr. high, if not before. There is something so centering about putting pen to paper. Somehow, as I scrawl out my jumble of thoughts in the form of sentences and paragraphs, I begin to make sense of them. And in recent years, while I have learned to process verbally (with the help with some very wonderful and extremely verbal roommates - and you know who you are...), my introverted soul still finds sweet solace in the lined, spiral-bound pages of my journal.

These last 2 years have brought me a newfound joy in getting to share my writing with others. There is something beautifully freeing about taking a thought - a small part of my heart...condensing it, refining it - finding the exact combination of words to express it....and then releasing it - sending it off into this mysterious web of a world. 

But the fact of the matter is: I am no longer in Maryland.

Hence, the new blog.

I spent yesterday afternoon trying to come up with a title, as I sat on my patio, looking out at acres and acres of fir trees. There are many phrases I could use to describe this season of my life, the state my heart is in, my hopes for the future.

After awhile, I gave up and went about the rest of my evening, busying myself with other things. I did the dishes. Continued with the seemingly-endless task of unpacking and settling. Attempted to take pictures of myself so I can renew my passport (if someone had only videoed the entire process…you would have had a great many laughs).

It wasn’t until I poured myself a glass of wine and sat to watch the sunset that it came to me (as things are prone to do when there is wine involved…and a sunset, for that matter).

cultivating the invisible.

It’s a phrase I have come back to time and time again in the 5+ years it has percolated in me. It stems from a book that continues to change my life, “Reaching for the Invisible God” by Philip Yancey. The original quote reads this way:

“The visible world forces itself on me without invitation;
I must consciously cultivate the invisible.”

It is a principle by which I attempt to live. And it works itself out in a myriad of ways: in my commitment to taking a Sabbath – to laying the work aside and resting. In my choice to pursue music – to express the things that are beyond words. In my desire to prioritize relationships - to seek out the divine spark that only comes in human interaction.

I don’t pretend to have mastered this skill of conscious cultivation. But in a world where we are constantly in a state of sensory overload, bombarded by advertisements, technology, the temptation for more, I have found myself growing ever hungrier for the things that cannot be seen. There is beauty to be found in the stillness, in the small and ordinary, in the crooks and crannies few bother to give a second glance to. And I, for one, don't want to miss it.

So, here's to a new season.   Here's to whatever surprises it may bring.     Here's to a new blog (and whatever shape it decides to take).     Here's to the intangible, the immeasurable, the invisible.