Christmas 2011

Looking back over my year in writing, here are a few reflections I have come across:

I break the bread, gladly, willingly even, but I am scared to drink from the chalice of passion. My thirst seems so dangerous and yet so necessary if I am to be a self.

Self-examination is the 'hell' or the valley of fear one must travel through in order to be closer to God. There is no such thing as the good soul that Dante talks about in Canto III. As soon as one chooses self-examination, the pretense of the good soul vanishes, forcing one to look at the sin and darkness of their existence as well as acknowledge their rightful place in hell.

I wonder at the survival instinct of humans. I marvel at our ability to absorb the tragedies of life. I laugh at Despair, ruthlessly attempting to rip me apart. You will not win. My hope absolves my fear.

Gentle words are a tree of life.

To indulge or contain. They seem to counter one another but I am finding they reflect one another. Indulging is necessary only once containment has taken place. Rather than being helpful, one without the other is detrimental and hazardous to one's well being.

No coward soul is mine.

"Honesty reaches up from within you and eventually tattoos itself on your face."

- Tom Pickett, actor in Vancouver

"There are two lines in my music. One line is my sins and the other line is forgiveness."

-Arvo Part

Here's to a Happy New Year.

HER words take my breath away

Do you like me?

I asked the blue blazer.

No answer.

Silence bounced out of his books.

Silence fell off of his tongue

and sat between us

and clogged my throat.

It slaughtered my trust.

It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.

We exchanged blind words,

and I did not cry,

and I did not beg,

but blackness filled my ears,

blackness lunged into my heart,

and something that had been good,

a sort of kindly oxygen,

turned into a gas oven.

Do you like me?

How absurd!

What's a question like that?

What's a silence like that?

And what am I hanging around for,

riddled with what his silence said?

- Anne Sexton, Lessons in Hunger

My soul says YES to this arrangement of words.

Yes, I am procrastinating.

Yes, I despise that word because it implies I am avoiding my studies but I would argue that I am still learning by discovering this poem and letting it dissolve like candy in my mouth.

So there.

Yes, I am going back to paper writing.

What a relief to read these words

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, or make any celebration of joy."

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

- Ursula K. Le Guin

Viceroy

I am happy not to be with you

MY viceroy butterfly

Utterly chaotic inside

Completely still outside

Waiting for others to make the first move

I plunged into your stillness

recklessly abandoning

thought or reason.

So human it hurts,

I look for something true

Unfortunately,

it wasn’t you.

Chemainus

For the past four months I have lived and worked in a small town on the coast of Vancouver Island. I have watched with wonder as the people of Chemainus have opened their homes and their hearts to me. I am forever grateful to all of the beautiful, innovative, and loving people I have met here.

Thank you,

Dave and Michelle, for opening your home to me and teaching me about the endless amounts of love one can have. Rebecca and Madeleine, for being bright lights of life when I was walking through darkness. Debbie, for Menno-mart trips, making me laugh til I nearly pee my pants, and being my God-sent angel when I needed you the most. Suzanne, for your endless hope and smiling eyes. Jim, for making a girl feel loved and appreciated. Derek and Scott, for being strong men in a world where it is often easier to stay boys. Bob, for your honesty. Eliza, for your frankness. Keely, for your soft heart and strong will. Kym, for laughing with me and sharing your children. Mark and Shannon, for making your life a work of art others can only appreciate. Marlie, for being my stand-in momma and the funniest woman I’ve ever met. Kathy and Ward, for appreciating hard work and running a business I can stand behind and be proud of. Scott and Su, for letting me experience your program and learn from your kids. Vern, for always listening to me. Mark and Erin, for being lovely housemates. Ruby, for always making sure you get a hug and a kiss before I leave the house in the morning. Hannah, for being hardcore and fearless. Dave, for showing me around the land you love so much, our shared passion for trees, and, of course, your fine taste in trucks. Sam, for including me in your fun. Joel, for dinner dates and much needed hugs. JD, for coming to visit. Dani, for your unrelenting love and compassion. My Creator, for mercy and grace when I don’t deserve it, for always, always providing what I need, and giving new hope where there once was none.

With all of my heart,

Thank you.

Unnatural Knowledge

a perverted trinity
upside down in
my head
Judas spins round and round
his misery completed in my mouth
I allow my own evil
to sit and fester
saturating his
forever tortured
body.

oh heavens
open up and let me in.
My love, my passion
can only be for you,
The Beloved.
Seduce me into
a feast for two.

Thanks for Thinking

A friend of mine wrote an excellent piece on the story of Job. Take a look here.

April 21

What April dusk cannot show
is revealed in the slow
growing of the trees.
Just when winter is overgrown
sun shines through
and saves the cycle
we rely on.



A bit of prophesy in my life.

Strange Waters

I've seen a high cairn kissed by holy wind
Seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins
Seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities
The mad whose blessing you must accept without pity

I've stood in airports guarded glass and chrome
Walked rifled roads and landmined loam
Seen a forest in flames right down to the road
Burned in love till I've seen my heart explode

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters

Across the concrete fields of man
Sun ray like a camera pans
Some will run and some will stand
Everything is bullshit but the open hand

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

Bruce Cockburn

Pride is Attractive

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone; regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendfull fortune may exhort the wise	90
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practise more than heavenly power permits. Doctor Faustus, Marlowe

It's been Snowing while I've been Staring

Fall on me

Spirit of cold

Snow of love

above the rut

I've pulled

myself

from.

Defeated no more

I breathe

into the

future.

Feb. 21

Baroque Art

Denial

When my devotions could not pierce Thy silent ears; Then was my heart broken, as was my verse: My breast was full of fears And disorder: My bent thoughts, like a brittle bow, Did fly asunder: Each took his way; some would to pleasures go, Some to the wars and thunder Of alarms. As good go any where, they say, As to benumb Both knees and heart, in crying night and day, Come, come, my God, O come, But no hearing. O that thou shouldst give dust a tongue To cry to thee, And then not hear it crying! all day long My heart was in my knee, But no hearing. Therefore my soul lay out of sight, Untuned, unstrung: My feeble spirit, unable to look right, Like a nipped blossom, hung Discontented. O cheer and tune my heartless breast, Defer no time; That so thy favors granting my request, They and my mind may chime, And mend my rime. - George Herbert

Prayer

Go to sleep my dying dreams, my dying desires
Go to sleep hidden devil, hidden hate
Well covered, waiting til dark to show your insolent head
Go to sleep, weary mind, restless rom the day's toil
Grant me dreams to reflect my soul
and spill my patient secrets
Grant me love to reflect your love, peace, patience,
all the way to self control.

In Silence

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your

name.
Listen
to the living walls.

Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?

Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.

Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.

O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you

speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.

“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”

- Thomas Merton

Number Seventy Eight

To the one who inspires my muse most often,

78

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned's wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
In others' works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning, my rude ignorance.

Dear Vogue,

Dear Vogue, I can't keep up with SIX YEAR OLD girls.