Insomnia Poetry

Waiting

Sleepless icons

turned over

take a rest from watching, why don't you?

oh hush Basil and be quiet Anthony

there's nothing here to see.

The Art of Life

     "Be kind," has always been my answer (Ephesians 4). How do we live? Simply one day at a time. In loving-kindness. Because of His loving-kindness.

He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah)

     G. K. Chesterton insists that all Christians are artists. Some of us devote our lives to God through the work of musical instruments, or paintings, or other cultivated and disciplined aesthetics. 

Wordless Post

Spencer Myer plays Carl Vine

Mythago Wood: Desire

Robert Holdstock penned his break through novel Mythago Wood in 1984. The prose is simple and poetic, the story rooted in the myths and folklore of Britain. Holdstock's level of creativity and power to evoke mysterious atmosphere  -- I especially love his descriptive passages of wooded landscapes -- won him great respect among Tolkien scholars and readers. That was my sole reason for picking up the book.

I read it straight through in one sitting, left it alone for a few weeks, and then re-read parts of it. I think Holdstock bit off more than he could chew, but the first third of the novel and its last few pages are wonderful. The technique he uses to create character depth is genius...yet frustrating.

But before I get into that, I want to state that we are all of us created to worship (Psalm 115 comes to mind). In Mythago Wood the protagonist and his companion search for what, they believe, is ultimate happiness -- they hunger for the fulfillment of their greatest, and sometimes secret, desires.

Flannery O'Connor: Democratic Art?

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        I encounter more and more advocates for this kind of thing....and it bothers me. I believe it's to combat that generalized characterization of artists as "snobby." That's all well and good -- down with snobbery, I say. But we need to do away with both kinds of snobbery -- the educated and the uneducated. There are those whose only music experiences are pop songs and thus refuse to hear anything remotely educational about music for fear that gained understanding will "ruin" their enjoyment. Isn't it interesting that, in a way, they're absolutely right?

        I'm losing my focus. What was I trying to talk to about? Oh, yes, Flannery! I came across this:

“Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.” 

-- Flannery O'Connor

        Huzzah Miss O'Connor! Art is accessible to those who can receive. Art is a language, it communicates -- why do audiences think they have a right to understand a painting the moment they look at it? Why do they think hours of training and work by the artist should be communicated in less than a second and, worse still, to everyone? If you don't know the language, how can you demand to receive what's being communicated? Art is not democratic.

        Beethoven believed that he was composing for future generations because the current one wasn't willing to "undergo the effort needed." And he was right. What if he had thought otherwise....?!

Clean Heart, Quiet Mind: Venite Adoremus Dominum

The fear of the LORD is clean, and endureth forever -- Psalm 19         

     Around the middle of July the following events aligned: some free time, a little bit of money, an invitation to visit dear friends in Texas, and I found myself registering for the Anglican Way Institute Summer Conference. I was going to see folks I loved and missed -- the conference was an afterthought. There are two amazing blessings that came of that little adventure to Dallas, and one of them was my first encounter with The Book of Common Prayer.

Advent Meditations: Contentment in Joy

     "I have always had a longing for the mountain....it was then that I was most happy." -- Psyche, the god-bride, in Till We Have Faces 

     "All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings." -- C. S. Lewis, in a letter dated Nov. 5 1954


     I've been told that there's joy to be found in contentment, but then I start wondering how does one find contentment to begin with? And I've realized, for me at least, the whole idea is backwards. Yes, it's good and right to practice gratitude for the things one receives, but it's also (dare I say more?) important to be thankful for the things that are withheld.

     Everything I have is from God's hand. But I have to remember that the things I don't have are kept in His other hand, away from me. He decides both things.

     But what if the thing I desire is inherently good? That I hope for some particular blessing? Being assured that all things are from Him, I'm bold to desire good things and happy to wait for the answer of yes or no. This is to say, that I am happiest when I recognize in myself a good and wholesome desire for a good thing -- that fact alone is great joy, perhaps even greater than if I was given the actual desire. In being joyful I find contentment.

     All of this is to say that I love the second quote, that real joy is often experienced in realizing that "our best havings are wantings." And I think I see, for the first time, that the reverse is true for contentment: that our best wantings are havings. Or, again, as Lewis says elsewhere, that it is "thoughtful wishing" instead of empty "wishful thinking."

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Anglicanism: We're All Mad Here

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     I have been tracing the worship history of my life, my family's life, meditating on important years and moments. While it's like following a thread of plot in a story, I can't help but think it's like the princess's thread that leads her to salvation in George MacDonald's fiction...that is, her thread is invisible to the eye and can only be found when she stretches out her hand.

     Following along blindly -- and yet not blind -- I am aware of two things. First, I am insanely blessed: born into a Godly family whose primary aim was, and is, to teach me to love God. Speaking of thread analogies, my mother has often said that raising little Christians is like giving an architect a plum-line....he cannot hope to build a skyscraper (or, say, a cathedral) if he does not have a reference to the truly vertical. Loving God is the plumb-line. "Love God and do what you please," my Mum quipped Augustine to her kids. I'm not kidding. And I think Augustine would like that, hearing it come from a mother.

.....I'm getting distracted.