and so, with little enough fanfare,

i become twenty three. 

a nice day; The Housemate fed me today (hooray birthday pancakes) and i went to an interesting lecture hosted by the Washington Theological Consortium in the evening. listened to a pretty interesting discussion including quotes from Karl Barth ("i am so uncomfortable with him," said the Catholic professor, to a roomfull of laughter), a bit of Koranic exegesis, and thoughts about whether or not our religious traditions give us an advantage with God. met some M.A. and PhD students from Catholic University and imagined other courses my life might have taken. or, i suppose: might take, still. every once in a while i think about the way Michael King looked at me, that last month at EMU, the way he said you should think about seminary. we'd love to have you back here.

--

The Housemate took me to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco when we were there last week, and they have a whole room of poetry books. i got lost there a bit, trailing my fingers over the spines, not able to decide where to start. i managed to escape with only one book in my hands, which was lucky enough for my wallet, i suppose, although i can name a few titles i'm still coveting a week later. The Meridian by Paul Celan is one that comes quickly to mind.

the book i walked out with is Morning Poems by Robert Bly. the poem from that collection that i am currently sitting with (maybe a birthday poem; a new tradition):

He Wanted To Live His Life Over 

What? You want to live your life over again?
"Well, I suppose, yes...That time in Grand Rapids.
My life - as I lived it - was a series of shynesses."  

Being bolder - what good would that do?
"I'd open my door again. I've felt abashed,
You see. Now I'd go out and say, 'All right,

I'll go with you to Alaska.' Just opening the door
From inside would have altered me - a little.
I'm too shy..." And so, a bolder life  

Is what you want? "We could begin now.
Just walk with me - down to the river.
I'll pretend this boat is my life ... I'll climb in."

i am thinking now of Christian Wiman saying that a poem ought to help you comprehend more of reality. this Robert Bly poem makes me feel like i can see my own bolder life, a path of choices stretching out in front of me that i might just manage to take...

if it wasn't so dratted cold outside i'd type out Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day," but it just seems cruel to be thinking about warm things after walking five blocks from the metro stop to the theology building.

"tell me," though, even on this cold day, "what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"

San Francisco

and, okay. you got me. I did real work too.

practice makes ... if not perfect, at least a little better

some of my favorite signs

what's that, you ask? you have favorite signs? who does that?

someone working in a science lab, that's who.

and some other random work pictures...

food for body & soul

Is there anything better on a grey and dreary winter day than kale and onions carmelized in apple cider vinegar?
I think not.

mmm green things. (I can't wait for spring).

--

[For the Sake of a Single Poem]

… Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life.  You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a lone one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines.  For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)—they are experiences. 

For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning.  You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else—); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars, and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that.  

You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again.  But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises.  And it is not yet enough to have memories.  You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return.  For the memories themselves are not important.  Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them.

-Rainer Maria Rilke