final list

“And Yet” - Czeslaw Milosz

"Finding the Broken Man" – Scott Cairns

"Possible Answers to Prayer" - Scott Cairns

"Snowdrops" - Louise Gluck

"Love in Moonlight" - Louise Gluck

"Revelation" - Robert Frost

"We Grow Accustomed to the Dark" (419) - Emily Dickinson

"As Kingfishers Catch Fire" - Gerard Manley Hopkins

"I Wake and Feel" - Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Up-Hill" - Christina Rossetti

"A Good Cause" - Adelia Prado

Plus 2 Rilke poems, including the one I posted last time.

Honorable mentions...

“In Common” – Milosz

“End of Winter” - Gluck

"The Red Poppy" - Gluck

“Wild Iris” - Gluck

"The Silver Lilly" – Gluck

"To R.B." – Hopkins

“Land of the Holy Cross” – Prado

"The Theology of Doubt"- Cairns

"The First Spring Day" - Rossetti

What a wonderful process. I loved reading the poems over and over again, aloud to myself in my room.

In other news, snow day PLEASE on Wednesday? Also, we should start every school day at 10. I smiled bigger, tolerated more questions, and persevered in spirit much longer than usual.

snowed in with poetry

One of the high school teachers at CCA (Jesse Hake) and my friend/mentor, Christine Perrin asked me to compile a list of poems to present to CCA's senior class and basically do a workshop with them in preparation for a private reading at a local bookstore. The theme is self-disclosure and all it involves...vulnerability, trust, risk. There are only 5 seniors and the 3 of us (Jesse, Christine, and myself) will also read and reflect. So out of the canon of poems that involve self disclosure, I must choose 8.

So we p00led our most beloved resources. Christine brought Czeslaw Milosz, Scott Cairns, Emily Dickinson, and Adelia Prado. I can't live without Louise Gluck, Rilke, Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti. And why not through Frost in the mix and see if he fits?

I am excited to do this but it is so hard to choose! Thank goodness we got 16 inches of snow last night and having nowhere to go, I must stick with it and come up with a list today. I will keep you updated. I would ask for suggestions but I am afraid to throw anything else to the mix.

Here is a Rilke poem I am mulling over.

From "Sonnets to Orpheus" I.16

You, my friend, are so alone,

because...with words and pointing fingers

slowly we make the world our own,

perhaps the frailest part, most full of danger.

Who points with his finger to a smell? -

But of the powers that we dread

you feel many...you know the dead

and are frightened by the sorcerer's spell.

Look, we together must bear alway

parcel and part, like a whole at last.

It's hard to help you. Don't plant me in

your heart - for I would grow too fast.

But I'll guide my master's hand and say:

Here. This is Esau in his skin.

I don't know what's making me so afraid

tiny cloud over my head

heavy and gray with a hint of dread

I don't like to feel this way

take me back to a window seat

with clouds beneath my feet

from this one place I can't see very far

in this one moment I'm square in the dark

these are the things I will trust in my heart

you can see something else

something else

Sara Groves

There is more than one person in my life I think of, at the end there. "You can see something else." Deep, irrational insecurity is isolating. In those moments, we must learn to believe one another.

confession of a closet group-thinker

I just scolded my mom for wanting to skip the State of the Union address, and settle for the Fox News commentary tomorrow morning. "MOM, are you SERIOUS? Don't you want to hear the original source before you hear someone else's thoughts and selective quote-pulling?"

Yet I am focusing approximately 5% of my attention to said address while browsing the web, and half-planning to ask Collin for a summary and thoughts before I go to bed. Do I at least get points because Collin is not Fox News?

(If he reads this before I get to him, he will probably refuse to share his thoughts.)

updates

Provisions in my life that I enjoy:

1. Living with my family

-I am saving money. I see my dad a lot, and have a refreshing friendship with my mom and Hannah. Also, I've found that I prefer them to a lot of people (this is kind of funny to me).

2. Learning to cook

-I am pleased that I won't be a total domestic mess. I also enjoy it...stress relief and fun. Finally, there is instant gratification, which means a self esteem boost (kind of kidding).

3. Being at CCA

- It's a good environment to work in. I trust what I am learning and who I'm learning from. I am also making money.

4. Collin

-Lots of reasons..I could elaborate but he can only take so many compliments in one sitting and I'd rather not gush. I will say one thing:

Me = INFJ

Collin = INTJ

So, I mostly feel and he mostly thinks. As a result, I benefit a lot. He challenges and comforts me. And he's fun. And smart. and anyway...

5. PA community (Christine Perrin, Erin, etc.)

-It's a luxury and a privilege to see these people weekly. They provide necessary, timely, liberating counsel.

6. Not being a student

-I have leisurely evenings without a paper or exam hanging over my head. Also, I am reading WHATEVER I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT

7. Second City Church

-So many good things I could say. One of favorite things is that the pastor and people allow for the truth be manifested differently in individual lives. There is a richness in the dialogue among the people and I instantly sensed a sensitivity to struggle. Often the answer has been a call to seek joy with confidence; the reality is we are fallen and redeemed.

Aspects of my life I don't prefer (with clarification):

1. It's a challenge for me to teach young children.

-I should say "to work with young children" because I am not their main teacher. And it could be worse...I could be doing daycare, which I am not cut out for. Not now, not ever.

2. Being 500 miles away from Collin

-I remember anticipating the new ways that we would grow in our time apart..it's happening but...still

3. My apparently cyclical dark night of the soul strikes again

-This is significant...but on the other hand, I say oh well. All the provisions I listed earlier brighten my life.

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I plan to be a bit more faithful this blog and so I thought this would be a good start.

Also, I have been complaining a lot lately, and this is a good reality check, this list. I'm glad I did it.

love without fear

Well, my first few weeks at home have certainly been different than I expected. A lot more melancholy but just as much engaging in the ins and outs of my emotions as is to be expected. Home is a place of rest for my body but not so much for my soul. I'm not alone by any means...I have my supportive family and the occasional rekindling of friendship. For the deepest parts of me, I open up on paper and on the phone to Collin, ever an astute listener and thoughtful in his insight. I've grappled with a lot...what happens when all of a sudden I lose all excitement and initiative, not just about beginning a new life, but with the people and places who are most familiar and formative for my mind and heart? I just read the Four Loves and I'm suffering from contemplation overload. But I hope to unpack it over time, and revisit in small portions the wealth of thought and consideration that it stimiluated.

One thing that stuck out to me in the chapter about Eros was the tendency of lovers to be overly serious in their approach to love and sex. "Sensible lovers laugh." I have a hard time laughing at myself when it involves by vulnerabilities...it goes beyond unwillingness to the lack of recognition that I need to not take myself so seriously. Sometimes happiness is visits and provides memory and truth, which gives birth to joy in the time of emotional trials. But lately joy and the whimsicality of life haven't been that tangible.

And so I'm learning to not only let go of my initial responses to depression or insecurity...the desperate attempt to discern what's wrong, the frantic thoughts that assail my senses and tell me I need to be perfect. Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit...that quiet whisper that hints at something unknown, something not yet realized in this shifting of my emotions, to not yet act on that inclination to seperate myself from those I love until I have it "figured out." Thank God that he has in a sense "chosen us for one another"...how many times has another person accessed a facet of love, of faith that I haven't, and in that conversation opened up a world of possibility for me to behold along side them in, to discover with them.

I listened to "The Drunkard's Prayer" by Over the Rhine today. I've listened to this cd in various emotional states, and it has that universal quality of longing and rebirth. I was struck by what Karin Bergquist wrote in the liner notes about the experience that gave way to the song "Born," one that resonate so particularly with me right now and with what I read in "The Four Loves." Karin and her husband Linford Detweiler took time off from their extensive touring for "Ohio" because it hit them that their marriage was suffering from lack of time and rest together. In order to "get to know each other again," they decided that every night before bed, they would sit at the kitchen table, open a bottle of wine, and talk until it was finished. I love that image of discipline and effort as one part of the means to rediscover one another, and given time the laughter, the passion will regenerate and remind us that we are not "it" in this world...we can be whimsical members, benefactors, participants in and of something much greater. "When love and duty are one, grace is within you." (The Painted Veil)

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear

Pour me a glass of wine
Talk deep into the night
Who knows what we'll find

Intuition, deja vu
The Holy Ghost haunting you
Whatever you got
I don't mind

Put your elbows on the table
I'll listen long as I am able
There's nowhere I'd rather be

Secret fears, the supernatural
Thank God for this new laughter
Thank God the joke's on me

We've seen the landfill rainbow
We've seen the junkyard of love
Baby it's no place for you and me

I was born to laugh
I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love
I'm gonna learn to love without fear

"Born" - Over the Rhine

Chase: *looks over shoulder* "I forgot you had a blog."
Me: "Me too"

Well, it took me a whole two months into my senior year of college to have an intensely nostalgic moment about my time here. And it would be during a conversation with Chase at 2:30am, each of us working on the same paper we should have finished hours ago. I don't feel sad or debilitated by it...just that "there's a time and a place for everything" sentiment.

So yeah, I have more responsibility this semester than I've ever had in my life, but I have stuck to the promise I made to myself that I would not sacrifice fun. And there are so many people to ensure that! Love it.

I have had some pretty significant emotional ups and downs since being back, but somehow it steadies out. Ultimately, I feel settled, like things are finding their place in my life in a fundamental way. I've had a rough couple of weeks, but when I sit back and reflect, I'm surprised to find how content I really am, and am continually learning to be. It's a gift, really.