"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good." storypeople

when in the early

when in the early morning hours
we wake up to unexpected spring,
i push the hair back from your forehead,
your even breathing the same
as in your just-before dream.

i, too, dreamed.
dreamed of waking up and seeing your face,
and then i did.
and the trees swayed outside the window,
and the warm wind creaked in the eaves.
and then i thought of a hundred other miracles
that i had never noticed before.

*****

photo by neil e. das

~Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love.~ psalm 107

Some days we can't seem to see far beyond the night. The darkness threatens to overcome us. I find myself always coming back to this, to whatever happens during the waiting of the long winter. To the quiet, sustaining, faithful love that keeps us all together. The glow of the houses, gold against the blue twilight. Branches creaking and bowing under the ice and snow, the howl of the wind. The promise of things at work, deep under the surface, the faith in things unseen.

This year the seasons are measured not by events, but in the counting of weeks. We are now to twenty-six. A few days ago I saw the wee baby spinning and spinning in the womb, held fast in a photograph the nurse took as he or she took a perfect pike position with feet over the head, sitting all to one side in my lop-sided belly. Hello, love.

We dream of spring, trying to be contented with the breathtaking blue sky and ice covered trees shining in the high, cold light. The sliver of winter moon and sharp stars. Even quieter than usual, quieter than ever before, we find poetry in the stillness of the long nights. In the hush of snow on the lawns and streets and roofs. We all hunker down, drink some tea, and wait. Trying to remember that eventually there will be the thaw of the brown earth, and first green buds that now hibernate safely under the surface. Through the weeks we are moving slowly along with the fears and joys and sorrows, remembering to give thanks and wait patiently for signs of spring, and to pray for who we will meet and and to surrender to the one who guides who we will become.

happysad

our small corner of the world wakes up to rain one morning. the bitter frost has decided to interrupt our one long september. i watch as those around me do life: raising kids, finding someone to spend the rest of their lives with, making vows, experiencing loss, wrestling with calling and career, seeking out their true names. i look around during this time of stillness and waiting and see that there is Someone telling a bigger story. and see that the redemption that is pushing its way through is not something i can presume to rush or understand. i think of the places where ache and falling apart haunt some with sleepless nights and terror filled days. what sense does this make in the story? yearning and hope together that the promises are true.

o come, o come.

we put on a new mix, a birthday mix. the kind of music that hits you so softly right in the gut. so beautiful that all you can do is cry, the feeling of home in songs first heard yet familiar. the wind gusts against the windows and i take up the task of baking again. the house has needed this. i have needed this; the return to works of the hands that allow the heart to meditate on other things. the sounds of things being accomplished in a slow and prayerful way, and the music that fills the warm house are a balm. small works of cultivation all around, the sense of simple joys.

the sound

three wise men and mary

from "Kings in Judea", a play in The Man Who Would Be King by Dorothy Sayers

***
Caspar: Alas! the more we know, the less we understand life. Doubts make us afraid to act, and much learning dries the heart. And the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Wisdom and Love live together at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Melichor: We are rulers, and we see that what men need most is good government, with freedom and order. But order puts fetters on freedom, and freedom rebels against order, so that love and power are always at war together. And the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Power and Love dwell together at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Balthazar: I speak for a sorrowful people--for the ignorant and the poor. We rise up to labour and lie down to sleep, and night is only a pause between one burden and another. Fear is our daily companion--the fear of want, the fear of war, the fear of cruel death, and of still more cruel life. But all of this we could bear if we knew that we did not suffer in vain; that God was beside us in the struggle, sharing the miseries of His own world. For the riddle that torments the world is this: Shall Sorrow and Love be reconciled at last, when the promised Kingdom comes?

Mary: These are very difficult questions--but with me, you see, it is like this. When the angel's message came to me, the Lord put a song in my heart. I suddenly saw that wealth and cleverness were nothing to God--no one is too unimportant to be His friend. That was the thought that came to me, because of the thing that happened to me. I am quite unlearned, yet the Word of God was spoken to me; and I was in deep distress, when my Baby was born and filled my life with love. So I know very well that Wisdom and Power and Sorrow can live together with Love; and for me, the Child in my arms is the answer to all the riddles.
***

in memory, Dr. Vincent A. Das

psalm 84

How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may lay her young,
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
my King and my God.
Blessed are those who dwell in your house,
ever singing your praise! Selah

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
As they go through the Valley of Baca
they make it a place of springs;
the early rain also covers it with pools.
They go from strength to strength;
each one appears before God in Zion.

O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah
Behold our shield, O God;
look on the face of your anointed

For a day in your courts is better
than a thousand elsewhere.
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the
one who trusts in you!

a timbered choir: 1996, V
~wendell berry

Some Sunday afternoon, it may be,
you are sitting under your porch roof,
looking down through the trees
to the river, watching the rain. The circles
made by the raindrops' striking
expand, intersect, dissolve.

and suddenly (for you are getting on
now, and much of your life is memory)
the hands of the dead, who have been here
with you, rest upon you tenderly
as the rain rests shining
upon the leaves. And you think then

(for thought will come) of the strangeness
of the thought of Heaven, for now
you have imagined yourself there,
remebering with longing this
happiness, this rain. Sometimes here
we are there, and there is no death.

from Frans Wright. "Arkansas Good Friday: III"

"And I have heard God's silence like the sun
now I long to return to it.
no matter my infantile clinging
to this gorgeous material of such early wisteria and
lilacs, the wind
in the redbud and light-giving new heart-shaped leaves
music visible if completely unheard, I'll return.
The angel's going to raise his wings and sing that time is
no more
nor tears: that numbered
sea of them is gone--
now there is a new sea, new earth, new sky--
And I will know what to say at the end: what end?
And I can add I found this world sufficiently miraculous
for me, before I'm changed."