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

Memory

My dirty feet carry me today

The residue mirroring that which

Remains on my soul

An escape to the north, to the wide open space

To a lake, masquerading as an

Ocean

To a hill, pretending to be a

Mountain

In the desperate freedom of my imagination,

They are both.

My feet find the mud

Plunge into its murky

Depths

Surrender to its squishy

Darkness

They come alive as they leap from rock to rock

Bask in the sunlight, fresh air

Relish in the flow, deep below the surface of the cloudy stream

Here, they are finally at

Home.

Could it be that this is where my soul dwells?

Could it be that it is housed not in my head, or in my chest, but

Here, where my body-clothes grasp the earth,

Here, where my trunk sends down its roots,

Here, where the weight teeters and balances

Here, where the trail is blazed, where the wandering begins

I will leave the dirt lodged between my toes

The mark of my

Baptism

A reminder to my forgetful eyes

That I am not just where I am

Going

That I am also where I have

Been. 

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

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.

here we are

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know you.

I mean, of course, I can.

I lived 20 years before I met you.   20 full years.

But somehow in your quest to know my story - the days, hours, years - the seasons - I lived before our hearts began their journey together – you have, in fact, in some mysterious way, become part of my whole story – even the parts you weren’t actually present for.

Sometimes I forget how much life we’ve actually lived together.

Sometimes I forget how much you’ve seen me through.

Sometimes I forget how much of me you’ve seen.

It’s true: you have seen me.  

You have seen past my attempts to hide, 
                right straight through my half-answers and avoidance tactics.  
You have seen me through the veil of your tears - you have seen me sitting in a pool of my own - week after week, month after month.
You have seen the passions and longings of my heart,
     and you have echoed them back to me in my seasons of forgetfulness.

You have seen me at my best,
                                            on the mountain top, doing my victory dance.  

You have seen me in the depths,
                                                                in the darkness, in the muck.

And never have you demanded an apology for what you see.

Never have you asked me to be anything I am not.

Not once have you been scared away by my honesty. In fact, you crave it. 
                   I’m pretty sure you have a full-on addiction to truth.

You see fully, and still you ask to know more.

Oh, how you ask.

Oh, how I love how you ask.

The inquisitive kind of questions, born of an insatiable curiousity.

The thumb-tack-on-your-chair kinds of questions.

 Why settle for "how are you" when you can ask "who are you"?

 Why settle for "what do you do" when you can ask "what brings you life"?

The questions that come out of frustration. Why? How long?

How long? 

How long, indeed.

You have taught me to embrace the season,
                                           even if it feels like it will never end.

You have taught me to be present where I am.

You celebrate when it is time to celebrate.

You grieve when it is time to grieve.

And when you have no idea what it is time for, you just keep digging.

It can’t hurt to till the soil, right?

And so we keep on tilling.

We dig our knees into the dirt once more, and with the sun beating down on our backs, we plunge our hands into the soil, and continue the seemingly endless task of sorting out the rocks, breaking up the clumps, one by one.

Sometimes we work in silence.

Sometimes we chatter away.

Sometimes we laugh so hard that we cry.

Sometimes we cry so hard that we laugh.

Sometimes we wonder if it will ever be more than just dirt.
Sometimes it seems impossible to believe that there will be anything
but acres, upon acres of brown.

But, here's to the brown.   Here's to the mud. 
Here's to the hope of green.
Here's to the seeds that will hopefully be planted at some point, and to the sprouts that will maybe, somehow, by some miracle, find their way to the light of day.
Here's to the laughter and the tears.
Here's to the truth that we hold to.     Here's to the truth that holds us.
Here's to living the questions. 
Here's to being seen and known and understood.
Here's to choosing gratitude.
Here's to being together, in all our brokenness.

Here's to being here.               Wherever here is.

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

the white belt

The Sabbath is setting on this, my final Sabbath before the school year begins. The lanterns around my living room are lit, and I am finishing off a glass of wine as I close this day, this season, of rest.

I was on campus briefly this weekend and felt the nervous energy of freshmen and their parents as they moved their life’s possessions into their tiny dorm rooms. I know that energy well; I was one of them, once. I know the intensity of the schedule – the orientation events, the placement exams, the ensemble auditions, the dorm initiation activities. It will be a whirlwind few days, and then on Wednesday, thirty-five students will stumble into my classroom – excited, nervous, terrified, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hoarse from the yell-off and Mock Rock, loving life more than ever before, wondering if this is really for them.

Truth be told, I am not ready for them. Sure, my syllabus is posted, but I was smart enough to write “SUBJECT TO CHANGE” at the top. How you are supposed to plan the activities and readings and assignments for EVERY SINGLE DAY of class before you have even seen the whites of their eyes is still completely beyond me. So it has been submitted to the powers that be – but there are still lessons to plan, lectures to write, exams to create. 

There are certain things I must cover this semester – concepts they must learn, skills they must acquire, knowledge they will be held accountable for. So I have planned and planned. I have sat and stared at the calendar, wondering how it’s possible to fit so much into a mere 14 weeks. How many days can we afford to spend on seventh chords or non-harmonic tones? I have grown dizzy as I have tried to figure out the best order for introducing various concepts. Lord knows I’m still torn on whether or not to explore minor scales before our discussion of the circle of fifths. I have spent hours wondering how much I will be able to fit into one hour of class time. Will we be able to cover all four triad qualities AND discuss the qualities of triads built on the various scale degrees?

With all this planning and preparation, it would be easy for me to begin this year with the mindset that I am here to teach my students something.

But the truth is: I am here to learn. I am here to learn their names and their faces. I am here to uncover their abilities, their strengths, their weaknesses. I am here to listen to their stories, their dreams, their passions.

As I sip my wine this evening, I turn, as I have often done at important moments in my musical development, to what I have come to refer to as my “musical Bible” - a book called “Zen Guitar” by Philip Toshio Sudo. My copy has been well-loved; its pages are browning, the cover is wrinkled, and there are hundreds of underlined phrases, sentences, paragraphs and notes in the margins.

This particular evening, I find myself flipping to the chapter on wearing the white belt, the color worn by a beginner. As he works and learns, his belt gradually dirties and eventually turns to black – the color worn by a master. But he does not stop there; he continues to work, and as he does, the belt fades and eventually returns to white. It is a never-ending cycle. It is not about “arriving” at a destination – but is instead about being faithful to the process.

My choir director in college used to refer to us as “wearers of the white belt” – those who have, as Sudo describes, chosen to “set aside all knowledge and preconceptions and open [their minds] to learning as though for the first time.”  Wearers of the white belt come with empty cups, ready to learn and receive.

We've all known the people who’ve come in with all the answers. We see them coming, a mile away, and we start heading in the opposite direction. We’ve also been those people. We’ve come in with everything figured out, ready to teach the class or flaunt our vast wisdom and experience. And oh, the things we’ve missed. The lessons we haven’t learned. The nuggets of wisdom we let slip through the cracks.

Sudo says it well: “The moment you think you know everything there is to know, you will have lost the way. The beginner’s mind is the mind of wisdom.”

It’s true – I do have things to teach, wisdom to offer, experiences to share. But I also have much to learn, new perspectives to discover, fresh insights to gain.

On Wednesday, 35 students will stumble into my classroom.

On Wednesday, 35 teachers will stumble into my classroom.

So tonight I don my white belt.

Tonight I empty my cup.

I am ready to learn.

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

the gift of presence

"Then I sit quietly for a while, appreciating the beauty of the place, looking at or handling sacred objects on my table. Mostly what I keep are small gifts from people, things that remind me that my presence has mattered, that I have touched people, that I am connected, that I am so incredibly blessed."

 - Sabbath, Wayne Muller

Over the last 10 years, I have been diligent to keep the Sabbath. That is to say, I set aside 24 hours each week to rest - no practicing, no homework, no to-do-lists, no technology.  I am quite convinced that this practice has kept me alive, healthy, sane. 

And in the last few weeks, I have been learning the importance of Sabbath seasons.  I haven't had one in at least 4 years, maybe longer.  I was talking with a friend this week, a member of my former small group - the same group that walked with me as I attempted to work full time AND apply to graduate school simultaneously (this involved starting my practice time at 6AM every day).  "You haven't rested in a long time" - and she should know...she watched me struggle to keep my eyes open each week during small group.

I picked up a new book on the Sabbath last month, and I have enjoyed exploring different perspectives and Sabbath traditions. This morning's nugget seemed to leap off the page.  The author was describing the Sabbath practices of a friend of his (named Mary, no less). The above quote describes a portion of her Sabbath morning ritual.

One phrase resonated deeply with me: things that remind me that my presence has mattered.

I find it interesting that she says her "presence."  Not what she's done.  Not what she's given.  Not even what she's spoken.  Just simply her existence. The fact that she showed up. The fact that she shared a space with others, breathed the same air.

Isn't this what we all want to know?  Not even that we are wonderful or amazing, but simply that we matter. That something is lost if we are not present.  That there is intrinsic value in us that is involuntary, independent of our actions.  That our presence has had an effect, whether we intended it or not. That we are connected, in ways that cannot be put into words.  We are each made in the image of God, and when we rub shoulders, we cannot help but pass on a little bit of the divine.

As I have sorted through my belongings during my moving process, I have come across boxes of letters, cards, messages scrawled on scratch paper.  The written word has always been the most powerful love language in my life - and this collection of notes speaks of my need to know that my presence is needed - necessary.  So I hold tightly to them, to remind myself that I have mattered - and to fuel my hope that I can matter again.

And as I reflect on those who have affirmed my value, I am suddenly aware of the power we hold over others.  It doesn't take much to affirm someone's value.  A squeeze of the hand.  An arm around the shoulders.  A held gaze.  A simple sentence:   "I'm glad you're here."  "I've missed you."

It doesn't take much.  But the effects are far-reaching.

And it's made me think about the souls that will be present in my classroom this fall.  I was a bit overwhelmed to learn this week that there could be as many as 50 of them.  I will be studying my picture roster every night, attempting to learn names.  They will come and they will go - and I may not know all their stories by the end of the semester.  But I hope and pray that in some small way, I can communicate to them that they matter - not just their work or their opinions or their contribution to class discussion or their grades. Just their presence.

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.