winter

winter
Originally uploaded by brookejared.

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden 

Sundays too my father got up early 

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, 

then with cracked hands that ached 

from labor in the weekday weather made 

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 

When the rooms were warm, he'd call, 

and slowly I would rise and dress, 

fearing the chronic angers of that house, 

speaking indifferently to him, 

who had driven out the cold 

and polished my good shoes as well. 

What did I know, what did I know 

of love's austere and lonely offices?

I have loved this poem for a long time. I am in the process of writing an essay about my experience as a nurse, mostly about how much I have struggled to love my job.I know this poem is about a father and a son, but the words have been on my m ind this week. Sometimes the work we do out of love is lonley and austere. As for the photo, it is not mine, but I liked it.

blue candle for a blue day

books

Some books I like.

The moviegoer by:Walker Percy
Blue like jazz by: Donald Miller
The Annie Dillard Reader by: Annie Dillard
Expecting Adam by: Martha Beck
Traveling Mercies by: Anne Lamott
Girl meets God by:Lauren Winner

It is good for us to read. It is good for us to get outside of ourselves. It helps us re-learn how to imagine-to have someone tell us a story as we try to picture it in our head. It is good to abandon the television at times and discipline our minds to engage in the written word. You might look at the world in a different way. You might even like it better. You might just be enchanted.

naked tree

I feel like I need to write something happy today. This is not because I feel happy. The pretty tree outside my apartment that was adorned in orange leaves is naked. The wind and the rain has washed fall away- not to mention Mr. Day Light Savings who has taken away my sunny evenings. This transition into winter is a hard one for me. I do not like to bundle myself up, It feels constricting. I like t-shirts and blue-jeans and a cool breeze. My friends laugh at me because in the winter I become attached to my goose down thro. I roam around the house, wrapping it around me like a toga. But alas- this is not the end of the world. Winter comes and winter goes- and I should try to see its glory- and perhaps be thankful I have a warm blanket.

Why do we feel burdens on some days more than others? I suppose with elections and war and cold weather, I am due. Burdens have a way of drawing out my longings- that longing to fight against the brokenness.

Annie Dillard- helps me.

"I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them..."

stories

So I was driving with my friend Leslie and she told me how a man at our church made an observation. The observation was about my generation and how we have no history. Of course, this is not true. We all have stories. He just doesn't know them. In the past three years, this man has seen an influx of young adults flock to his church. Before, this church was mostly made up of families. Families who stayed. This man knows that man's son. He knows when he was a little kid making his parents crazy. He remembers the child's baptism. He remembers when the child doubted and when he came back "home". He went to his wedding last week. My church is filled with these families. It is one of the reasons I wanted to worship there. These people knew each other and have known each other. Grown children sit with their moms and dads- and not because its proper. This is attractive- stories are attractive.

I don't think this man was saying that I did not have a story- but I do think he percieves something very real about us- the twenty somethings. We move. alot. Perhaps because we can. Perhaps because we left home and we don't know how to go back- so we wander around hoping we can make a new one.

So I guess the question I have is, what is home? The movie Garden State would say that Natalie Portman was home. It was the relationship that took away Large's homesickness- not the place, not the physical house where he grew up- not even his childhood friends- not even God.

The bible says I am a stranger. a soujourner. that my home is in heaven. The bible also says that I have a story- knit in my mother's womb. I am not just some meandering soul waiting for Jesus. I am created with a story. My actions are not arbitrary- but real lived out drama. The things that I do matter- they matter if only for the sole purpose that God delights in them.


I do not know why we wander. I wish that man at my church knew our stories. Perhaps we should learn to share them better.

save the drama for your mama

My husband saw this bumper sticker and likes to quote it me in my more "irrational" moments. I can be dramatic, this is true. I get bogged down a bit in the "what does it all mean" questions which can lead to hope, but also despair. I have found that despair happens more often when I forget my boundaries. As I quoted Douglas Coupland in a previous post, the secret (that is not so secret) is that I, we, you,- all of us need God. This is my boundary...that I believe in God. When I forget this, I peer into godlessness...which is nothingness. I watched this movie the other night called Garden State- and I lost my boundaries. This is a very good movie that explores the idea of home and homesickness. The relationships in this movie are broken- so broken that the lead guy, "Large" is just lost in sadness. The beauty of this movie is that Large meets this winsome girl(played by Natalie Portman) and they discover "home" in each other. It is a beautiful thing to see brokenness redeemed. One sees a glimpse of this in the film. However, it is empty in places. There is the notion that "this is all we have, so lets make the best of it"....and this, my friends, is where I forgot my boundaries(because I considered this as if it were true)..I am thankful for the story Jesus tells about the lost sheep. He says, "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country, and go after the one that was lost, until he finds it. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost"...He is able( to rescue me from sin AND sad movies:)

I would be interested in your thoughts (especially if you have seen the film)...
happy Tuesday

meshugga, community, and me

Well, I must admit that I have been a bit on the serious side since I started this site. I need to ask my mom if she listened to Simon and Garfunkel alot when I was in the womb. I have always had meloncholy running through my bones. This is perhaps why I have made friends with people like celeste. She is a human fraggle.( For those who don't know what a fraggle is...) As I was skipping class this morning and enjoying a cup of coffee, I was thinking about friends, community, and why the same people always come to Meshuggas( my coffee spot). I was thinking that making friends is hard. But I still want friends as do the people who were drinking coffee with me this morning. I think we go to Meshuggas because Patrick knows our name and lets us pay when we are ready. He lets us read his paper and he will even talk to us if we want to talk. I know that I am not saying anything new- but it just reminds me how I am like the strangers among me. This got me thinking about celeste because she innately knows this and is unafraid of friendship. Perhaps she saw this in me( that I was not so strange) and knew I needed her friendship. I think Jesus knew we needed friends, too. Isn't it interesting how Jesus demonstrated the way he wanted to be remembered. Around the table, with bread and wine...and friends. Perhaps we should be eating together more often.
brooke

Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland is a good writer. He might make you a bit depressed, so I caution you. What Coupland is really good at is sharing the "delimma"- particularly that of Gen x'ers like myself. I have only read a few of his books- all are haunting in their own way. The exerpt below is from his book "Life after God". My husband and I had two different reactions to this book. He found it very hopeless. I found it hopeful. In anycase, the end of this book makes a confession, and I think that confession is profound. thoughts?

"But then I must remind myself we are living creatures--we have religious impulses--we must --and yet into what cracks do these impulses flow in a world without religion? It is something I think about every day. Sometimes I think it is the only thing I should be thinking about.

Some facts about me: I think I am a broken person. I seriously question the road my life has taken and I endlessly rehash the compromises I have made in my life. I have an unsecure and vaguely crappy job with an amoral corporation so that I don't have to worry about money. I put up with halfway relationships so as not to have to worry about loneliness. I have lost the ability to recapture the purer feelings of my younger years in exchange for a streamlined narrow-mindedness that I assumed would propel me to "the top." What a joke.
Compromise is said to be the way of the world and yet I find myself feeling sick trying to accept what it has done to me:the little yellow pills, the lost sleep. But I don't think this is anything new in the world.

This is not to say my life is bad. I know it isn't...but my life is not what I expected it might have been when I was younger. Maybe you yourself deal with this issue better than me. Maybe you have been lucky enough to never have inner voices question you about your own path--or maybe you answered the questioning and came out on the other side. I don't feel sorry for myself in any way. I am merely coming to grips with what I know the world is truly like.
Sometimes I want to go to sleep and merge with the foggy world of dreams and not return to this, our real world. Sometimes I look back on my life and am surprised at the lack of kind things I have done. Sometimes I just feel that there must be another road that can be walked--away from this became--either against my will or by default.

Now--here is my secret:
I tell it to you with the openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love"...Douglas Coupland

for more on coupland...click

ginko trees

I am not even sure this is how you spell "ginko". This is my favorite tree in the fall here in St Louis. Their leaves are an odd shape and they turn this brilliant yellow color. When the wind blows, it's like ginko snow. There is a certain mellowness to the Fall which suits me just fine. A nice day for Gillian Welch. Be sure to listen to some tunes. Gillian is an excellent singer/songwriter along with her partner David Rawlings.

I hope to post some pictures soon.

Walker Percy

I thought I should intruduce my blog with an explantion of its title. My husband and I stumbled upon Walker Percy sometime a couple of years ago through a mutual friend. This was actually before we were married, so perhaps there is a tender place in my heart towards Percy because so many of our first conversations were about his writings. Anyhow-Love in the Ruins is the title to one of his books, and perhaps my husband's favorite. Ironically, I was beginning this book when we started dating and soon found myself to be strangely "distracted". I have never finished it. In any case, I like the title and hope to understand what Walker Percy meant by it-someday:) Perhaps I am drawn to the words because they describe something of my own life. What does love look like in brokenness?

for more on Walker Percy, click.