"So every day"; "Of Goodness": Mary Oliver

So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,

one of which was you.

---

How good
that the clouds travel, as they do,
like the long dresses of the angels
of our imagination,

or gather in the storm masses, then break
with their gifts of replenishment,
and how good
that the trees shelter the patient birds

in their thick leaves,
and how good that in the field
the next morning
red bird frolics again, his throat full of song,

and how good
that the dark ponds, refreshed,
are holding the white cups of the lilies
so that each is an eye that can look upward,

and how good that the little blue-winged teal
comes paddling among them, as cheerful as ever,

and so on, and so on.

O for a thousand tongues to sing...

It was still dark when I got out of bed this morning (after a scuffle with my cell phone alarm and my sleep-drugged wits that was infuriating but is, in retrospect, quite comical)...and the sum of the matter is that I witnessed the most inspiring sunrise while I feasted on coffee and pancakes. It began as a rich rosy pink that contained all of the light pouring over the horizon, so that the rest of the world around me was dim and shadowed. Then the light strengthened and began to dilute the bold colors into first a creamy blush of pink, and then peach, and then brassy gold. All the while, the air around me tingled with a sort of stained-glass radiance, which ignited the leaves and fence tips and grassblades into mystical detail.

It reminded me of Proverbs 4:18: "But the path of the righteous is like the dawning light, that shines more and more until the perfect day."

The entire experience was like a golden benediction on my day, and set metaphors germinating with joy in my brain. I'd share them, but this post already contains schmaltziness enough. I'm finding that I traffic in cliches a great deal--foundational realities that strike me with excitement and joy as they have stricken hundreds of thousands before me, since the world began. And I want to share them...but everyone has heard them, and unless you experience the feel of the moment, you'll never understand. Sunrises, for example. Description utterly robs such a vision of any potency, because it attempts to translate a moment's heart-thrilling splendor into a paragraph of cumbersome tired phrases. But when I look back on my description, what revisits me is a vision of that glorious morning, and even now I'm smiling.

I am so grateful for the instrument of my physical body: my eyes, my ears, my nose, my tastebuds, my Meisner's corpuscles. And for the glorious creation: air, light, color, substance, motion, music, words, words, words. And for a mind attuned and attuning to the physical experience of living, an imagination enriching it, a spirit luxuriating in it and opening to its Designer in soulish response. And most of all, for the Author of it all--that great Creator Ex Nihilo, Alchemist, Artist, Author, Maestro, Composer, Conductor, Physician, Metallurgist, Father, Friend, Lover, Savior... ... ... ... ...

See what I mean about the cliches?

I am liking life. (Perhaps understatement will lend a little balance to this entry.)

Typical Monday:

...I wake, and, lo! I have forgot,
And drifted out upon an ebbing sea!
My soul that was at rest now resteth not,
For I am with myself and not with thee;
Truth seems a blind moon in a glaring morn,
Where nothing is but sick-heart vanity...

[George Mcdonald: "Diary of an Old Soul"]

After the transcendance of worship, how quickly my heart turns away.

I want to hold nothing back.

Anyone who knows me at all, either peripherally or intimately, will probably laugh incredulously at that statement--which attests to my success thus far in that regard.

By nature and (undoubtedly) nurture, I am an extremely inhibited person. I tremble at the idea of vulnerability. I carefully sequester my Self into padded security vaults, and trot out occasional carefully selected artifacts for sterile display to those who pay a certain fee. Thus, the self that others know is as lifeless and rigged as a window display. Such miserliness cannot other than poison me in the long run.

Self-hoarding is not loving, even when it is done out of a desire to shield others from the ugliness and brutality and shame that is as inherently me as my more lovable or acceptable qualities. And above all else, I yearn to love...as freely and loosely and vastly as I have been loved.

The Spirit, the Lover of my soul, is gently teaching me that in order to cease living for myself, I must stop covering my tracks, I must stop clenching my soul shut, and I must allow Him to use my entire Being (heart, soul, mind, and strenght) as His consecrated vessel.

And why would I want to seal away my being? Am I not placed here to fellowship with God and others and the world around me? Isn't withdrawal from that communion a sort of suicide? Ultimately, don't I long for intimacy?

It is not, after all, as though Selfhood can be sapped. My being is not crude oil. Rather, the more I give, the more I have. I've tasted this, and still I withhold. Human nature is a marvel.

I want to hold nothing back.

empathy with Ivan, from a baffled fellow Euclidian

"If God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind, with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and still are mathematicians and philosophers who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry. They even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions. I have a Euclidian earthly mind and so how can I solve problems that are not of this world? ...And so I accept God and am glad to, and what's more I accept His wisdom, His purpose--which is completely beyond our knowledge. I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life. I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. ...I believe that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man. I believe that at the world's end, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the conforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that has been shed. I believe that it will not only be possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened." The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky.

How is it June?

It's already mid-June, and here I am in Hudsonville (the library--my oldest, dearest haunt), bereft of full time employment, my life a steady stream of literature interrupted on occasion by my part time cleaning and babysitting stints or a mug of Folgers with the family. It's been five weeks of indolence, five weeks of adjustment, five weeks of anxiety. Financially, I am drowning. In every other way, however, I feel restored and healed, as though the rest and reading and porch sitting and coffee-drinking are slowly rebuilding my spirit, fortifying it for the struggles that lie ahead. So, despite my fears about not being able to make ends meet, I am contented, and I feel primarily grateful and blessed to be home.

I am on a Madeleine L'Engle kick. Oh, I love her.

Let go the wrists of idleness!

"The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action." (Daniel)

It's so difficult for me to adopt an active, leaderlike mindset...even when situations urgently require such an attitude. I have been gifted naturally, in some sense, with the "meek quiet submissive" spirit, and it's difficult for me to recognize that a life of righteous integrity often requires zealous and even aggressive pursuit of what is right. This presbyterian culture in which I have been steeped for my entire life makes it all too easy for me to "cop out" and hide behind my feminine submissiveness (aka, passivity?) when people call on me to take a stand or express an opinion. Being an instinctive pleaser only compounds the difficulty of such situations for me. More and more, however, as I read the Bible and books like Captivating and Lost Women of the Bible, God is revealing to me how important it is for me to actively hound down the truth, and then, firmly rooted in it, live out its implications for my life in whatever capacity God requires...even if that means that I must confront a friend or speak up in a heated conversation. One of the most important lessons that I have learned this past semester is that humility does not excluse righteous passion--and that a spirit of gentleness can all too quickly transform into a spirit of fear. God has liberated me to know Him and walk in His ways, and He sees me and loves me. That knowledge insulates my fearful heart from its nightmares (both real and imagined), while at the same time widening it to embrace a calling that is much greater and more beautiful than anything it has yet imagined.

I'm looking forward to standing firm and taking action in the coming days, weeks, and years.

This World is not Conclusion.

A Species stands beyond—

Invisible, as Music—

But positive, as Sound—

It beckons, and it baffles—

Philosophy—don't know—

And through a Riddle, at the last—

Sagacity, must go—

To guess it, puzzles scholars—

To gain it, Men have borne

Contempt of Generations

And Crucifixion, shown—

Faith slips—and laughs, and rallies—

Blushes, if any see—

Plucks at a twig of Evidence—

And asks a Vane, the way—

Much Gesture, from the Pulpit—

Strong Hallelujahs roll—

Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

That nibbles at the soul—

[emily dickinson]

ADDENDUM:

The previous post is a paper that I wrote for British Novel--one that has been on my heart, really, since Christmas and the fading of some precious beautiful relationships, and my own anguished soul-searching about the impossibility of knowing, really knowing anyone. I remember that while I was in the throes of this crisis, feeling alone, inadequate, and ashamed, I stumbled across Matthew Arnold's The Buried Life in my quote book (an inevitable recourse during such moments). It hardly encouraged me. (Here's an excerpt:

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us--to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
...Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well--but 'tis not true!)

I read those words, and despaired. I know I sound melodramatic, but if you think really hard about those words, and apply them to your own situation, I think you'll find yourself despairing as well.

Thankfully I have a God who knows my needs. The Holy Spirit guided me to Psalm 139 in my quest for comfort, and there I read these words:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying downand are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morningand dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me,and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,and the light about me be night,”even the darkness is not dark to you;the night is bright as the day,for darkness is as light with you.
For you formed my inward parts;you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;my soul knows it very well.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.I awake, and I am still with you.
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me!

Someday (this summer?) I want to write more fully about the indescribable comfort of knowing that I have been known by God. Ponder it for yourself! I assure you that only by realizing this, and by seeking to know Him in return through His Word and Spirit, will you ever experience true communion with anyone. And that is not something you want to miss.

A frustrating paradox

Because every reader bears his or her own exclusive cargo of self into the reading experience, individual reader response criticism has arisen as a resolution to the subjective nature of the enterprise. In this form of analysis, evaluation depends upon a particular individual’s reaction to reading a particular piece of literature. By supplementing to it his or her own distinct perspective, the reader deepens the inherent meaning of the text, while simultaneously allowing the text to reshape the original perspective. Every single act of reading contains a dimension inimitable to the isolated event.

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse lends itself to a reader response approach to criticism. It enters the individual psyches of several characters, tests their reactions to the reality that encompasses them, and extracts from these separate samples a shared essence. Critiquing this book from an individual reader response approach parallels the thrust of the book itself, which reveals that the selfhood of each character results in singular reactions to identical circumstances. Such an analysis has worth for everybody, in that it appeals to an experience common to all: the struggle to mine reality for meaning and fellowship. Because of this, my response to To the Lighthouse, although exclusive, can still profit others by appealing to the humanity (or, in Christian terms, the image of God) in all of us.

I choose to dwell upon the theme of this text that most impressed me: the paradox of the self, which craves and requires interaction with others, and yet cannot achieve true fellowship because of the very structures created to facilitate it.

Woolf creates a small society to people her novel, and, from the perspective of various individuals, records the efforts of the various members to connect to each other. The movement of the novel is primarily associative, tracing an emotional chain of reaction between the characters that is fashioned out of both verbal and physical communication. Mrs. Ramsay occupies a pivotal role in this mystical chemistry experiment: she is a catalyst for many of the reactions that take place, including those between James and Mr. Ramsay, Lily and Mr. Bankes, and Minta and Paul. Lily depicts “Mrs. Ramsay presiding with immutable calm over destinies which she completely failed to understand” (Woolf 50). Her life is a battle to connect people, to assert “their common cause against that fluidity out there” (Woolf 97).

The dinner party scene illustrates this most clearly. As Mrs. Ramsay approaches the simple act of hosting a meal, she feels that “the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her” (Woolf 83). Throughout the entire dinner scene, she forces people to connect, even against their wills. Bankes must be her guest and sample the Boeuf en Daube. Lily must succumb to Mrs. Ramsay’s pressure and speak kindly to Tansley. At the close of the meal, Paul and Minta enter, engaged as a result of Mrs. Ramsay’s influence. Lily describes her hostess’ powers thus: “She was irresistible. Always she got her own way in the end…. She put a spell on them all, by wishing” (Woolf 101). Even Mr. Carmichael, the man over whom Mrs. Ramsay exerts the least control, shares a moment of unity with her as they both admire the platter of fruit. “Augustus too feasted his eyes on the same plate of fruit,” Mrs. Ramsay notices, remarking that, although “his way of looking” was “different from hers”, nevertheless “looking together united them” (Woolf 97). At the close of the meal, when her husband begins to recite the poem, she takes delight in the fact that “every one at the table was listening to the voice…with the same sort of relief and pleasure that she had, as if this were, at last, the natural thing to say, this were their own voice speaking” (Woolf 111). From the moment that she enters the scene until the moment she leaves, Mrs. Ramsay unites her guests—achieving, at the very end, a sense that this joint listening, this participation in the lone voice, was natural, and expressive of their own individual selves. Thus far, society and fellowship, communion of souls.

And yet, this unity that Mrs. Ramsay achieves is ultimately both superficial and fleeting. She, the binding force, must conquer her own desire to remain “out of the eddy” of interaction, to sink into herself and find “rest on the floor of the sea” (Woolf 84). Her first address to Mr. Bankes reveals that she really isn’t connecting with him: she pities him out of “one of those misjudgments…that arise from some need of her own rather than of other people’s” (Woolf 84). In the same way, all of the characters interact with each other in order to fulfill their own private needs, or out of a code of behavior that determines the roles that men and women must assume. Tansley speaks in order to “assert himself.” Lily at last succumbs to the pressure to “go to the help of the young man opposite so that he may expose and relieve…his urgent desire to assert himself” (Woolf 91). In so doing, she makes sure that they will never know each other—which, after all, is true fellowship. Thus, in forcing them to connect, Mrs. Ramsay actually ensures that true connection can never take place. Throughout the evening, the characters suppress their true selves in order to interact with each other. In the midst of the conversation, every participant feels that “something [is] lacking,” and worries lest their boredom be exposed (Woolf 94). Mr. Ramsay’s inability to conceal his genuine displeasure at Mr. Carmichael’s second helping of soup bothers his wife. When the candles are lit and “some change” passes through the party that makes them “conscious of making a party together” (Woolf 97), attention nevertheless is given to the “mask-like look of faces by candlelight” (Woolf 98). Mrs. Ramsay contemplates her children with puzzlement, wondering what was “hoarded behind those rather set, still, mask-like faces,” and noting that “they did not join easily” (Woolf 109). The party ends with the triumphant unity of the guests in Mr. Ramsay’s recitation…and then fades into the past. Even such unity as was achieved is only temporary, for it is always necessary “to carry everything a step further” (Woolf 111).

The dinner scene illustrates this paradox of the self. Lily describes the dilemma of living with the Ramsays (and, one might extrapolate, participating in society), as that of being “made to feel violently two opposite things at the same time; that’s what you feel, was one; that’s what I feel, was the other” (Woolf 102). Lily reflects on the “extreme obscurity of human relationships” with the despairing question, “Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at the moment of intimacy?” (Woolf 171) She expresses the act of relating in these terms: “Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface, and that is what you see us by.” For all of Mrs. Ramsay’s efforts to create fellowship between people, she regards her own life as “something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband” (Woolf 59).

Despite this frustration with the inadequacy of human interactions, the various characters seek each other’s company. The motives for this are, at a first glance, selfish: to fulfill some inner craving, to puzzle out meaning in a life that seems chaotic, or to fashion permanence out of fluidity. Yet these selfish motivations do not take into account that without society the self would perish, because it would have no way to access its potential, no standard against which to measure itself. All the characters in this novel crave fellowship, strive to know and be known by others, even when they feel the futility of such a quest and dislike being forced to compromise their inner self in order to attain even the superficial bonds they create. The entire novel hangs upon this tension, between the private selfhood of each person, and the inescapable necessity of interacting with other private and alien Selves.

How then, Woolf seems to ask, does one live? Out of this tension emerges the task of reconciling our Selves to living in a world that seems indifferent, that will not last…and perhaps, even through the hopeless incoherence of our relationships with other Selves, attaining something meaningful and lasting.

As an individual responding to Woolf’s novel, seeking to express the ways that it has impacted my Self, I engage the world. Accepting that this blundering medium, language, has clouded as much as it has distilled, I yet maintain the importance of striving for community through such arts. I know that without such relationships, without engaging the world and others through art, my Self would die. This knowledge leaves me with a challenge: to pursue integrity relentlessly, so that the relationships that connect my Self with the universe will harbor Truth.

Like Lily Briscoe, I have had my vision.

the quote of the year!

"There is an age of aesthetic accountability that you eventually reach."
-Adam Carter, responding to the question of whether or not shoddy art can be glorifying to God.

yummy

...Every day
I see or hear

something

that

more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light...

["Mindful," Mary Oliver]

For all of its misty moistiness, this day turned out deliciously! And even despite being overwhelmed and dog tired (like everyone else on this feverish campus), I am happy as I look forward to an evening of paper writing and laundry. Lately, my heart has been unaccountably exultant—I cannot count the number of times that a slant of light or a friend’s smile has sent it crackling and fizzing with inner delight. I think it must be Spring.

(Is your heart bursting yet?)

Was there no safety? No learning by heart the ways of the wolrd? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown? [virginia woolf]

...To tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money,

I don't even want to come in out of the rain... [mary oliver]

All that is glorious around us
is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chili, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn’s bright parade. And I think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. It is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes Mary Oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
boundless behind it. But everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain’s
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world. [barbara crooker]

(Mine is.)

one has need of fifty eyes

Why do I love To The Lighthouse so much?

One reason is its beauty. I love Woolf’s word usage: “fringed with joy,” “sunk in a green-grey somnolence,” “in a vast and benevolent lethargy of well-wishing,” “torches lolloping red and gold,” etc. Really: lolloping torches! That phrase struck me like so many Emily Dickinson images have, because of its freshness and aptness. I savored the lusciousness of Woolf’s prose to the last punctuation mark.

I also love it because it resonates poignantly with my own experiences. I can empathize with insufferable Tansley, who longs to “assert himself,” who is so prickly and lonesome and unhappy. I too battle with the destructive urges that compel him to disagreeable behaviors. I can relate to Lily, striving for integrity and wholeness in the midst of a thousand expectations that she fears she’ll never live up to (and perhaps does not desire to live up to). I also feel uncomfortably akin with Mr. Ramsey, his egoism and hunger for validation, his lack of humanity, and his blindness to the riches right at his fingertips. Mrs. Ramsey’s character allures me: her efforts against the inexorable fragmenting forces of life, her mission to thrust fellowship and meaning into interactions (even at the cost of her own need of privacy), her selfless energy. I cannot dislike any one character, not even Tansley, not even Mr. Ramsey, because I connect strongly with all of them. Nor can I overwhelmingly like any character—not Lily, not Mr. Bankes or Mrs. Ramsey—because they are depicted as human: flawed, petty, isolated.

I love how Woolf infuses the idea of what it means to be a woman into this novel: the incredible reserves of resilience, physical and emotional stamina, love, patience, and selflessness that are required of a wife or mother; the inescapable expectations that are held up to a woman in any phase of life; the difficulty of forging an inimitable self, beyond the roles that so easily engulf a woman’s personality. Even more, I found her depiction of humanity compelling: the inconsistency between ideals and realities that torments and baffles us, and our quest for ultimate meaning, validation, and love. To The Lighthouse made my heart ache, while at the same time making me giddily aware of the glory and intricacy of this complicated world. It filled me with a strong impulse to express grace in every way imaginable to all the people I encounter. I think it made me fall in love with the world and everyone in it, all over again.

...Another reason I love Mary Oliver...

The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning
in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather
plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,
lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body's world,
instinct
and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,
to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is --
so it enters us --
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;
and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

snow?!

I awoke at 7:30 this morning, and flipped the switch on my lamp immediately so that I wouldn't drift back off to sleep...I sensed that I was at that perfect stage of rest when any more would've made me sluggish, and any less would've been inadequate. Delicious! After laying back on my pillow and allowing the world to gradually pour into my senses, I leaned over the edge of my bed to grab my Bible--and glanced out the window--at the flurrying SNOWFLAKES turning their faces at me as they petaled down! Even now, as I sit here typing, the snow continues its silent barrage, coating the rooftops and treelimbs and sidewalk edgings with a slick white paste. I'll not even bring up the fact that a mere two days ago I was off gallivanting in shorts and a T-shirt through the cross country trails. Weird, weird.

Last day of break today: I hope to squander it away at Amy Buck's house, because my dorm is beginning to depress me, and (I balk to confess it) coffee can only provide so much companionship. I've become quite a social creature, for all my professed independance. And that's not a bad thing.

Resurrection Sunday

I love Easter. I love the word, "Easter," the echo of "eastern" that it hints at, the connotation of sunrise and newness. I love how ungainly it sounds, and how earnest.

I've just returned from my church service at Cornerstone OPC. Today is colder than yesterday or the day before, and I'm less tempted to hike about in the sunshine, as glinting and joyous as it is. If I were home, I'd be at Oma's house, a mug of coffee cupped against my palms, listening to the aunts and uncles chatter. I'd also have trudged over there in knee-deep drifts of snow. I'm happy to be here.

Last Easter I was in Salzburg, traipsing through the Sound of Music gardens, stretching out on the banks of a Danube tributary, photographing the castle and the spectular views, revelling in the bells tolling out over the Franciscan cemetery, or sipping beer at the Italian restaurant.

Tonight will be eventful, though. I'm going to Will and Manda's home, to paint Easter eggs and play games and indulge in homemade treats.

Until then, I think I'll go upstairs and fix a pot of coffee to have with my apple, and perhaps pore over a book (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel?) as the afternoon wanes.

He is risen!

Spring:

Well: here I am, the second day into my all-too-brief Easter break, and nothing accomplished, excepting a gorgeous three-hour hike on the cross-country trails and a book pleasure-read and savored to the last punctuation mark. All the portentous goals I so studiously mapped out on the m&m "to do" list notepad on my refrigerator...alas, remain there. But I have had a lovely time.

Spring is here! And, as Mary Oliver would chant, "There rises up from the earth such blazing sweetness/ It fills you, thank God, with disorder." I love that. As I wandered through the trails yesterday, I thought about that poem, and how perfectly apt those words were: blazing sweetness. And I thought about that passage in Job, "These are but the outskirts of His ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of Him," as I studied the mosquitoes in the mud puddles and heard the percussion of the bare tree limbs in the breeze. How small a whisper do we hear of Him...and yet that whisper in my ears is so thunderous and so majestic that I cannot comprehend it. It smites me. If these are but the outskirts...I tremble to think about Heaven.

Always when I seek to express the weight of glory that bears down on me, I feel only an aching inadequacy. These trite rhapsodies will never do justice to the reality that so moves me.

My journal is full, and it has been four days since I've last sought to translate my experience into a tangible form. I have to purchase a new one, but I haven't a penny: so online blogging will have to suffice.

Now, I have a paper to write, and coffee to slurp, and a friend to visit.
Tomorrow is Easter!

i will live here someday