light for the longest night

for friends in far-away places,

for my friends working in Kurdistan,

friends in Burkina Faso and Pittsburgh, 

Tallahassee and D.C.,

for family near and far,

for refugees,

for all those who welcomed me,

for Baltimore,

for the prisons,

for prisoners and prison guards,

for the work that is yet to be done,

for cold hearts,

for forgiveness,

for hope,

for all this broken world -- 

Lord.

Hear our Prayer.

slow growth

for some reason, i was thinking this evening about a conversation i had with my friend Nolan four and a half years ago when i was working at camp hebron. we were talking about grace, and i said i think of it like the rings of a tree: that you keep learning the same things over and over again, a little bigger each time. that you are given the time and space to learn it again -- this is what grace means to me.

i didn't think of it at the time, but a necessary part of that metaphor for grace is that it takes a lot of time.



this year has been very slow, full of stillness and aimlessness and wandering. i have been like the fox in wendell berry's famous poem, the one who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. i have had an abundance of time to think, to wonder, to wander, to read and write and sleep and take my body out for walks under the vast dome of the sky.

i have learned a lot of things, some of them over and over again.



my new job starts in three weeks; the evening class i'm taking begins in two. i will be busy again soon, and i will be glad of it. i am ready for a new season, for a different kind of growth.

for now, though: it is the longest night of the year, and my life and my heart are quiet and still.



i am lying in the early darkness of my unlit bedroom, contemplating the words Ann spoke at church yesterday on the 4th Sunday of Advent.

i am learning the Christmas story for the 24th time. 

summer pictures part 5

summer pictures part 4

end of summer musings

There is a day

When the road neither 

Comes nor goes, and the way

Is not a way but a place.

-Wendell Berry

-

I missed singing with people during the year I lived in Baltimore. The Quaker Meeting was nice enough but they don't sing. 

This summer I went to the community hymn sings with my Nana at Stumptown Mennonite Church, and let me tell you, if you've never heard hundreds of voices gathered for four-part sacred music, you should add that to your bucket list.

I love singing hymns for how they sound, but more than that, or inseparable from that, I love the feeling that comes along with them. I love to look at the publishing date in small print at the corner of the page and imagine people singing the same songs a hundred years ago, or a hundred and fifty years ago, or two hundred years ago. It is the easiest way for me to envision the cloud of witnesses Hebrews talks about -- to think that there is something so constant that people might sing the same songs generation after generation in praise of it, and here I am joining in...participating in the same faith, holding on to the same rituals. 

I was at a funeral this week for a man I barely knew. Despite attending the same church for something like 18 years, we were almost strangers, which isn't so surprising given that we were separated by 50 years and twin reserved personalities. And yet somehow I felt so much kinship towards him. Because: he was quiet, and bright-eyed, and kind to me? Because he loved music. Because he reminded me of a character from Jayber Crow, maybe, I don't know. 

In any case, I was at his funeral, and I've been in a thinky mood all week. I've been thinking about something Judy Mullet said in my freshman Honors class six years ago: when someone dies, she said, we lose a connection with them, but through that loss we also lose a distinct way of connecting with God, and this is it's own thing to mourn. I've been thinking about art, and participation in the creation of beauty; about how each time people gather to worship, that moment is unique and cannot be relived again. I've been thinking about the fact that it's in their use that hymnals become beautiful. 

I've been thinking about community and mortality and regrets. I've been thinking about the hymn sing I went to back in May; how I saw the two of them there, how I don't know what possessed me to run over and say hello, how glad I am that I did. I've been thinking about how I know that no matter how long I live, that is one perfect moment that I never will regret.

-

summer pictures, part 3