the swifts, the swifts

it sort of looks like i'm taking this blog over. someone stop me please.

in the mean time, why don't you all in the North come down and have a picnic and watch the swifts fly into the chimney at Chapman School.

it's really a most amazing sight.

here's some more information.

we've got till the end of the month.

quotes::notes

here are a few quotes from the Hauerwas lecture that have been singing to me...

• one of the crucial issues here is how we learn to be dependent on one another. we must learn to confess that as a hospitable people, we need one another because we are dependent on one another. the last thing that the church wants is a bunch of autonomous, free individuals. we want people who know how to express authentic need, because that creates community.
• the church is a family into which children are brought and received. it is only within that context that it makes sense for the church to say, "we are always ready to receive children. we are always ready to receive children."
• the issue is how we as a christian community can live in positive affirmation of the kind of hospitality that will be a witness to the society we live in. that will open up a discourse that otherwise would be impossible.

what i've been reading

online anyways...

• an article written by an Oregon homeschooling mama about the problem of rich christians
• an article from last fall by Michael Pollan about the future of our food
• an answer to Pollan's article written by a farmer
• an article by Hauerwas about the church's response to abortion, but really about the deep ways in which we care for each other

i might write a (little) bit more about what is catching my eye, but Nico is calling out just now.

in response to kindness

so glad that Jess posted this well-made poem for us to read. i've been thinking on it these long months since it first arrived. i was talking to Nicki about the group that doesn't discuss things so much...she said that Troy had told her he had written things in response, but hadn't posted them. and i realized that i had talked to AP about all kinds of things that found their beginnings here, but hadn't posted. it seemed like it was thinking and talking about these things!

so a few thoughts:

• why kindness? could the poem work with another word? say love or grace or truth.
• are kindness and sorrow really the twin deepest things?
• Nye's poem brought to mind a few other poems. one by William Stafford, one of Nye's teachers. here it is.

Why I Am Happy

Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
it's terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.

And I know where it is.

i first heard this poem at the end of a writing workshop. our teacher sent us out into the world as writers, ones who know where that deep blue lake is. ones who have entered that easy time.

and this by Wendell Berry. boy, i quote him a lot. i even received a hand made pillow with Wendell's picture on it as a baby shower gift.

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

to me both these poems speak of an ease and openness that i don't find in the Nye poem. it's almost as if there's a kindness club. and unless you've experienced sorrow, you can't know kindness.

but that hasn't been my experience...

my legs started cramping something terrible as i was working to get Nicolas out. i really needed to bear down and push, but the added pain of leg cramps was making it difficult. even after he was born, the pain continued. and then Nicki came and asked if i wanted her to rub my legs. she had sweet smelling lotion that she had thought to bring from home. and she rubbed my feet and legs. this was after she had cuddled Mabel on the couch and read to her. after she had taken Mabel outside to see the stars on the night her brother was born. and it was 3 in the morning.

kindness.

kindness

Here is a link to a poem/poet that is new to me. Naomi is part of the Seattle Arts and Lectures Poetry series this year. I have also attached a bio on Naomi if she is new to you too.

I gave up dissecting poems after my freshman year in college, but I am interested to hear other people's responses. I know that springtime is hectic and between babies and sewing and schools there might not be a lot of time for blog. But, I wanted to share this.... I will post my response in a bit after people have had a chance to read or listen (garrison redording) to it.

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/07/23

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/174

testing...testing... anybody out there?

hey friends, just wondering if anybody wanted to respond to this... anthony, it may be up to you as the post-er to get the ball rolling.  i'll wait for responses, and then propose moving on to something new.

nic

Living Friendship Dying

Since no one has taken up the torch, I'll post an article to discuss for the next few weeks. A few of you posted your Sunday events last weekend. My Sunday was a carefree day of drinking beer on a beautiful beach, a relaxing treat about an hour away from where I am living. On the way home we saw a terrible accident; it had been a motorcycle and a car in a head on collision. There were three dead bodies, two stacked on top of each other, and a third sprawled out face down on the ground with rocks piled up all around him, presumably so cars would go around him. The car looked like a giant rock had been dropped from the sky onto the hood and windshield. Of course, when you see something like this at any time, it is tragic and moving. But this time it spun me into a very contemplative mood, which I am still in. 

I've often contemplated what it means to die, but it has been very different from such an isolated context, isolated from my friends and family, I mean. Today, I read another W. Berry article, "Stand by Me." I'll let you draw your own conclusions....