Vacation

Hiking up a mountain . . .

Floating down a river . . .

Visiting a mansion . . .

Reading Doc: A Story, as recommended by QG . . .

Working on my first graduation speech (!) . . .

About to celebrate The Lovely Daughter's 24th birthday!

Imparting Wisdom

What little I have, anyway.

We are in western North Carolina for a few days.  Yesterday, as we made our way down one of the trails at Chimney Rock, I asked the Lovely Daughter whether she remembered scampering up the boulder-strewn trail at Mt. Jo when she was five and we were camping in the Adirondacks.

She said that she does has a couple of fragmented memories, mostly of the huge, flat rock on top on which we picnicked, but that the memories of many of the things we did a lot of, like hiking and camping, have blended together.  "I'm always amazed that you can recall specific years and places," she said.

"Our Town," I said.

"Huh?" she asked.

I reminded her that at the end of Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town,  the young Emily Gibbs asks for a chance to look back at those who have survived her death, a request which is reluctantly granted by the Stage Manager.  As she watches her family go about their ordinary tasks, she is deeply moved and filled with anguish, and cries out,

"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?"

"That's sort of my theme," I said, meaning that I try to live that line out.

I am neither poet nor saint but I do, consciously, try to live my live as deeply as possible, a disposition which tends to intensify both joy and sorrow as well as what lies between.  I think that such is probably a propensity born out of early loss, out of a desire not to squander what is ~ the same quality that infuses actual poets and saints.

"No," the Stage Manager tells Emily.  "The saints and poets, maybe ~ they do some."

Top image: Chimney Rock, here.

Second image: Someone else's Mt. Jo photo, here.

Back in a Week

(The music doesn't start until 45 seconds in.)

I'm putting together my thoughts about all my answers, but this will give you all a chance to catch up!

Fourth Question

Yes, I see that the third question is a bit overwhelming.  Since I'm about to go on vacation, I'm going ahead with my answer.  I'll read the others over the course of the day.

My response to the third:

For me, the big question has to do with seeking/finding/encountering ~ being sought by, found, encountered by ~ God.

One of the hallmarks of Ignatian spirituality is that God is in all things. 

When I was making the Spiritual Exercises six years ago, I once heard my spiritual director say, in a public talk, "Well, first you have to find God in some things."

I didn't see either statement as much of a problem.

And then Josh died and my experience was of God in no things.  My experience was of a silence and emptiness so vast that it seemed that I was falling endlessly into a great abyss, falling and falling and falling, and would continue to fall forever.

 I could see that God was plenty available to other people.

Eventually, I began to wander through the new territory in which I found myself in an experiential sense by listening to the spiritual journeys of others.  That's how I knew that God was still interested and involved.

I dove into it in an academic sense by continuing with seminary.  One of my ordination exam essays involved a hypothetical in which several people were engaged in a  discussion with their pastor about whether God is revealed only in Scripture (perhaps a Reformed position), only in Jesus (and, therefore, Scripture ~ a Barthian clarification of the Reformed take), or primarily in nature (certainly a view common among spiritual seekers). 

My Catholic friends may wonder why none of the hypothetical conversationalists took the position that God is revealed through tradition.  That would be because they were hypothetical Presbyterians.

My answer ~ and we had to address such questions with a theological exposition and then a practical response to the individuals in the scenario ~ covered all of the foregoing as well as Celtic Christianity, contemporary Calvin studies, and the Wesleyan quadrilateral, and was deemed, well, a good deal more than acceptable. 

How did I do that in an hour? How at all?   I suppose the response has something to do with the fact that I had just completed my second year in seminary over the course of the year and a half immediately subsequent to Josh's death, a year in which I read and discussed and wrote about everything I studied in the context of those questions:    Is God in all things?  Some things?  Any things?  How does God reveal God's own self? 

Over time and in surprising ways, God's presence ~ to me ~ became profoundly evident.  I think now that one of the basic symptoms of grief is Failure to Notice.  Kind of like failure to thrive in babies.  Not, I would think, a startling revelation. 

And now I am more passionately interested than ever in how the Spirit of God sustains and nourishes us, and how we come to recognize and celebrate that engagement of God with us.

Believe it or not, this all has something to do with colors, cities, landscapes, interiors, and clothes.

The fourth question: How do you connect your answers?

Interlude

I'm off on a long drive to rescue my spiritual director.  He has recently accepted the post of spiritual director to the priests of a nearby diocese.  I figure that if he is spending his days with Catholic men in black, he needs a visit from a Protestant woman in (very!) bright colors.

Diane at Contemplative Photography depicts my journey more evocatively with this quote from Stephen Butterfield:

"By having to ask for help, I tune into that inexhaustible bank of kindness that is all-pervasive and unconditional, and feels so good when it comes through us to someone else.  Because of my need, his routine changed: maybe he took another step on the path."

I'll be back sometime tonight.  I'm hoping later rather than earlier, as a beach beckons. In the meantime, I notice that y'all are a bit intimidated by question 3!

Third Question

My answers to No. 2:

Colors ~ Those of the sea and sky.

Cities ~ The first thing I think of when I see these names together is art: visual ~ including architecture, musical, theater.  And lots and lots of people from just about everywhere there to soak it all up.

Landscapes ~ What I see that they have in common is that they are all edges, borders, places where different terrains or terrain and water merge into something new. Even canyons, formed as they are by water and rock, are created by the encounter of two distinct ingredients.

Interiors ~ With some exceptions, these are all places that blend inside and out: books and views.  The Wernersville library is more about cozy reading spots and stacks of books, and the "treehouse" was an octagonal room high in the trees at the edge of a deck with windows all around but no books at the moment ~ although if it were my personal treehouse it would be filled with books.  My grandmother's living room had two walls with books and looked out on gardens and birdfeeders and hills and fields.  Our condo last Christmas ended up wth books all over the place because we were there, and looked out over the Gulf of Mexico.  And I've never forgotten the living room of the folks whose children I cared for during two high school summers on Cape Cod, which opened onto a porch on three sides and from the porch to the water on one, and looked up to a second floor loft that served as the hallway for the bedrooms on three sides.  A cozy room for reading and listening to music, but wide open to the sea and sky.

Attire ~ I looked at my list and realized that these were all clothing items for the out-of-doors.  Even the sundress is for an afternoon of relaxed reading in an Adirondack chair or an evening meal al fresco.  I see that I did not include a single item that I would consider "professional" wear.  And I had to add a sixth, because I always wear earrings.

Third Question:  What do you consider to be the big question or conundrum of your life?

I should probably warn you at this point that there is absolutely nothing behind these questions other than my own imagination.  I dreamed them up a couple of days ago when I was trying to work something out for myself, and they produced what seemed to me an intriguing insight.

You might just find them fun.  I'm going back to look at all of your answers again.

Second Question

Here are mine (which I wrote before I read anyone else's):

colors: teal, purple, cobalt blue, blue gray, turquoise
 

cities: Santa Fe, Washington, D.C., Paris, Florence, London

landscape:  canyons, Oregon coast, marshes, Maine islands, Lake Michigan coastline

indoor spaces: Wernersville library, my grandmother's living room, treehouse at retreat center I just visited, main room in our Cedar Key condo, living room of Cape Cod employers
 

clothing: boots, jeans, t-shirts,  sweaters, sundresses, earrings

Next question: Within each of your groups, do you see commonalities?