journey to Bethlehem.

Every Wednesday night, I spend an hour and half with 15-20 Jr High aged youth. They are loud, energetic, funny, and so fun to be around. But, as anyone who works with this age group knows, they often make me very tired. And while I know they had fun, I'm not always entirely sure if they connected with God.

As youth group ends, I look around the fellowship hall where we meet and it looks like a tornado has gone through... whatever snack we shared and activities we've done, have somehow exploded into every inch of the space. I sigh, and know as tired as I am, it's going to be at least a half hour of clean up.

The thing about all this is, that despite their energy sapping wildness and the trail of mess that they leave behind, my kids amaze me. The way they love each other, the way they laugh together, and the way they see God, opens up my heart in unexplainable ways. I realize that I have become so "adult" in my spirituality that I forgot that church shouldn't just be deep, it should be fun. That God is never boring or neat, but explosive and imaginative.

But more than any of this, my kids show me the simplicity of loving God. They enter into their relationship with God with such openness and honesty. They love and trust so wholly, but never fear asking questions. One of the simple joys of my Wednesday nights is that when I'm cleaning up the mess, I also get to look at their prayers, pictures and reflections that they leave behind.

Last night one of the activities we did was a journey to Bethlehem. A few students at a time went into a candle lit space where there were several stations for prayer and reflection. At each station there was a short scripture about one of the characters in the Christmas story, and an invitation to imagine what it was like to be that person through some reflective questions. They entered into the story with such authenticity and imagination. Their post-it reflections helped the Christmas story come alive for me in a whole new way. Here's some of what they wrote down:

Imagine you are a wise man: "I would feel weird following a star, and scared. But it would be amazing when I saw Jesus." "I would be so happy."

Imagine you are a Shepherd: "I would be frightened, but curious." "I might be disappointed that it was a baby, but I would be hopeful too." "I would wonder what the heck is going on." "I'd be happy to tell other people about the good news." "I would tell everyone about it."

Imagine you are the angel: "I would be happy and maybe joyful to spread God's word. i would be excited, and feel kind of powerful [because] delivering God's word helps people know about what is happening. I wouldn't be worried that people won't believe me, because it needs to happen and it is joyful to deliver God's word." "I would be scared what people would say about it and afraid of doubt." "I would feel good spreading the word and I would be excited. " "I wouldn't worry about anything because of God's power." "I would be excited to tell people the joyful news but worried to see if they would believe me."

Imagine you are baby Jesus: "It would be scary, but excited. I would feel cold and see cows and birds around me. I'd be happy and thankful to be with my mom. I'd feel proud that God sent me and I would want to grow up and help all people." "I would be happy and excited that God sent me to be the Light of the World." "I would feel vulnerable and comforted." "I would feel small, sad and scared." "I would feel cold from the wind and hear the animals making noises."

Imagine you are Mary: "I would feel hopeful and amazed." "I would be happy." "I would be scared and happy, nervous and joyful." "So happy."

Imagine you are Joseph: "I would be mad and weirded out when Mary got pregnant." "I would be disappointed and angry." "When the angel told me that the baby came from God I would feel awkward." "When Jesus is born I would be happy and excited." "I would be nervous and hopeful."

These simple reflections reminded me that Christmas isn't just an old story, but something that lives in us. It has real, vivid emotions, and expectations and hopes and fears and loss... all of which we still experience in our own lives. And yet with all these mixed emotions, we are still called to journey forward, to worship, to trust, and to share this amazing story with the world.

Another activity we did was this mosiac icon of the Mother Mary and Christ Child made out of advertisements (pictures above). I stole the idea from here - I think it's a great idea if you happen to be looking for a fun and easy art project for a group at your church. Ours doesn't look quite as good or as clear as I'd hope, and my youth got bored with it a little quicker than I'd expected (warning - it takes a long time, especially if Jr High boys are involved). But in the end they were excited about the end result and being able to see it turn into something, and I was happy that they transformed consumerism into something beautiful together.

I hope you are all getting to experience Advent in new ways this year. I love this season... it's such an amazing time to see the world through the eyes of a child: with love, hope, joy and imagination.

opening.

I went to a writing workshop last Saturday. It was taught my the lovely and inspiring Jane Hirshfield. If you aren't familiar with her work, check it out. "This was once a love poem" is a favorite of mine.

The workshop involved developing first lines that don't just open up a poem or essay, but open the possibility of many directions. It reminded me how much I crave to be playful and creative. How my soul longs to pour out images, without summarizing or boiling down or analyzing. Sometimes we just need to let ourselves be creative without purpose, just to see what comes out.

Here's one of the lines that came out of my writing at the workshop:

"A mound of wet clay contains within itself an infinite number of possible becomings, but its beginnings are always the same: dark, sloppy, and of the earth."

sexist much?

Please watch this (especially the part that starts at 1:54) and tell me you share my rage:




An open letter to Mark Driscoll:

I find this offensive on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. The idea that the church is in decline because it is "chicafied" is completely outrageous. Most pastors are men. Most worship services are shaped by men. Blaming it on "femininity" is not only offensive, but illogical. Secondly, being manly has nothing to do with hairy chests, and slaying other men in pools of their own blood. I like how you talk about David as this macho man, but conveniently leave out his passion for music, poetry and dance, and focus only on brashness, brute strength and violence as though that is what made him innovative. We do need innovators in the church. We also need men, just as much as we need women. But having a penis has nothing to do with being innovative. And there are incredibly creative voices (both men and women) who are being stifled in churches everywhere based on assumptions such as the ones you clearly are making about what it means to be manly or to be feminine. As a woman who is called to ordination, innovative worship and ultimately, I believe, church planting, I am so deeply disappointed that you, one of the dominant voices of the Christian church, would be so insensitive to such important gender issues and would make such broad generalizations. We need young innovators in the church, without a doubt, but stereotyping is not the way to do it. I find it difficult to articulate just how angry and disappointed I am that this is the kind of "creative innovation" that is being spoken into the Christian Church. This is good old-fashioned sexism at its worst. Please stop spouting your anti-female rhetoric in Christ's name.

creative prayer.

I came across these ideas on the Rethink Youth Ministry website. I love them because they are so simple, but allow really expressive and physical ways to pray. Some I knew about and have used, but others were new to me. They could be used in worship or small group settings or private prayer... and I think they could translate to some adult groups as well. Man, if I had a youth room, I would do the magnetic poetry prayer wall today. Anyway, these are so good, I wanted to share with my other blogging friends. Enjoy!

Tinfoil prayers - Pass out a sheet of aluminum foil to each person. Invite them to take time in silence to craft the foil into the shape of something they want to offer up in prayer. They could create an object, an initial of a person's name, or even something abstract. When finished, students can choose whether or not to share about their prayer request represented by their foil creations and then all foil prayers are placed in the midst of the group for a closing prayer.

Play-Doh Prayers - Much like the one above, youth are given a lump of Play-Doh and asked to create a shape representing a prayer need. When everyone is ready, join in a circle and have persons, one at a time, place their creation in the center of the group and in some way attach it to the other Play-Doh creations to represent the way our shared prayers become one.

Pipe-Cleaner Prayers - Pass out several multi-colored pipe cleaners to each person and invite them to create a shape that represents a prayer need in their lives. When all are ready, present each prayer creation verbally or in silence and then have the group work as one to attach all the pipe cleaner shapes together.

Photo Prayers - Sometimes youth just can't think what to pray about so this idea uses photos to spur young people to consider the prayer needs in their lives or world. Cut out photos and images from magazines and place them in the center of the group. Invite youth to retrieve an image that connects with them and some need for prayer in their lives. Ask each person to share why the image grabbed their attention and how it speaks to them about a prayer concern.

Candle Prayers - Place a ton of votive candles in your worship space with a larger central candle in their midst. Light the central candle and invite youth in silence to come forward and light a votive from the central candle to represent a prayer for another person in need. Allow this to be an unstructured time so that youth come forward as they feel ready and allow individuals to light as many candles as they like.

Bulletin Board Prayers - Establish a bulletin board or other wall space in your youth room where youth can regularly post photos, news articles, and messages lifting up joys and concerns they want to share with the group.

Magnetic Poetry Prayers - This one is a little more ambitious. Create wall space in your room painted with magnetic paint (yes it exists) and provide an ample supply of magnetic poetrywords for youth to create a wall of creative prayers to share with others. Similarly, paint a section of wall with chalk paint and allow students to graffitti their joys and concerns right on the wall.

Sand Prayers - Set our a plastic container filled with sand. One at a time, invite each person to go to the container and trace in the sand a world or symbol of something for which they seek forgiveness. When they are finished, invite them to pass their hand over what they have drawn, obliterating it as a way of accepting God's forgiveness.

um... creepy?

So, I've always kind of liked this guy's youtube videos. Yeah, he looks kind of creepy, but in a fun, harmless entertaining way. And he lips-sinks animatedly to up beat, old favorite songs. It's like, "oh, silly, creepy old man, look how ridiculous you are! You creep me out a little, but you also make me laugh. How fun!"

But apparently he's a registered sex offender. He's not harmless at all. He's a real live dangerous sex-offending creeper. My heart is sad.

Boo. That's the worst.

but, what do i love when i love my god?

I'll just say it plain: I had a bad day in ministry today. One of those days when the students I work with just didn't engage, when nothing seemed to work, when they didn't want to be there. And because they don't want to be there, I didn't want to be there. I found myself wondering, "what's the point?" Why make them come to something they hate? I've tried re-imagining what youth ministry looks like. I've tried everything I can think of from games, to discussions, to worship, to small groups, to interactive prayer. I've tried to simply be present, to listen, to relate. But today, they looked disinterested and bored. They talked to each other, and rolled their eyes, and wanted to be doing anything else. I crave for them to connect with God, but today I confess that for a moment, I thought, "If they don't want to, there's nothing I can do. I give up.

But when I came home, Kyle was telling me about a passage from Augustine's Confessions that he had been reflecting on, and it reminded me of something beautiful. Instead, of asking, "why don't they care? why don't I feel more respected and appreciated? why do I do this? what is the point?" This amazing passage re-oriented my thoughts, and breathed life into my faith at the moment I needed it most, by asking a question that is bigger than all my negative thinking:

"What do I love when I love my God? Not material beauty of a temporal order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self,when it listens to sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind;when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating;when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire. This is what I love when I love my God.

But what is my God? I put my question to the earth. It answered, "I am not God, and all things on earth declared the same. I asked the sea and the chasms of the deep and the living things that creep in them, but they answered, "We are not your God. Seek what is above us." I spoke to the winds that blow, and the whole air and all that lives in it replied, "I am not God." I asked the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars, but they told me. "Neither are we the God whom you seek." I spoke to all the things that are about me, all that can be admitted by the door of the senses, and I said, "Since you are not my God, tell me about him. Tell me something of my God." Clear and loud they answered, "God is he who made us.” I asked these questions simply by gazing at these things, and their beauty was all the answer they gave…

I know that my soul is the better part of me, because it animates the whole of my body. It gives life, and this is something that no body can give no another body. But God is even more. God is the Life of the life of my soul."

So, today I am reminded of the Life, who gives life to my soul. The one whose embrace is never severed. The one who I taste, see, and feel in the deepest unexplainable ways. The one who is expressed in all the beauty that springs out of creation, but is more than the sum of all created things and beings. So, the question of why I do ministry has a simple answer: because I love my God, and the question of who I love when I love God is one I want to spend my life contemplating.

The question of who we love when we love God, is why we try to find God's presence in worship, why we talk about our faith, why we argue about theology, why we struggle to re-imagine the church in a way that is relevant. Today, I will not throw in the towel. Today, I will pray that the God I love will be present in ways I cannot begin to imagine, and that I, and every student I work with, will come to know the one we love in a deeper way.

saturday afternoon bounty.

I love fresh produce. Today, I came home with this beautiful pile of apples and pears among other things (lots of other things). And these are all grown on local farms on the west coast. Today, I'm in love with our bountiful earth and the Creator of all this life and beauty.

the hours.

I've been rereading the lovely (and pulitzer prize winning) book by Michael Cunningham. It is magical. He is truly a lyrical writer. A novelist, with a poets sense of music and beauty. Here are a few of my favorite pieces of this sad and achingly beautiful story about human longings and relationships:

"What I wanted to do seemed so simple. I wanted to create something alive and shocking enough that it could stand beside a morning in somebody's life. The most ordinary morning."

"[The story] was full of a love complex and ravenous, ancient, neither this nor that. It will serve as this afternoon's manifestation of the central mystery itself, the elusive brightness that shines from the edges of certain dreams; the brightness which, when we awaken is already fading from our minds, and which we rise in the hope of finding, perhaps today, this new day in which anything might happen, anything at all."

"Why is it so impossible to speak plainly, to ask the important questions? What are the important questions?"

"She feels the presence of her own ghost; the part of her at once most indestructibly alive and least distinct; the part that owns nothing; that observes with wonder and detachment, like a tourist in a museum."

"It seems possible that she slipped across an invisible line, the line that has always separated her from what she would prefer to feel, what she would prefer to be. It does not seem impossible that she has undergone a subtle but profound transformation, here in this kitchen, at this most ordinary of moments: she has caught up with herself... She will not lose hope."

"There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though one knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more."

dance break.

I have long believed that if people had a mandatory dance break in the middle of their day, we would be about a billion percent happier. If we would just give ourselves a moment to be silly and to move our bodies... then we would feel a little free. We spend so much time sitting. So much time contained. What would it mean to really let ourselves let loose, to not just think and feel things, but to embody them? What if offices had dance rooms instead of break rooms? Or what if church leaders as they invited people to pray said, "let us move joyfully and dance," instead of "let us bow our heads?"

I think it would be good. I spend too little of my life dancing, and truth be told it is very difficult to be in a bad mood if you are on your feet, jumping, swaying, moving your limbs in rhythm.

Katherine Mansfield once wrote something about the way we treat our bodies like some kind of rare antique. She suggested that we act as though moving or being silly is shameful - so we contain ourselves. In the story "Bliss" she wrote, "She still had moments when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, or to stand still and laugh at -- nothing -- at nothing, simply... What can you do if you are [an adult] and turning the corner of your own street you are overcome suddenly by a feeling of bliss -- absolute bliss -- as if you'd suddenly swallowed a piece of that late afternoon sunlight... Is there no way you can express it without being drunk and disorderly? How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?"

She wrote that 1918, but 90 years later we are still just as idiotic. When we feel something, we rarely express it in any way except what is dignified or labelled as socially acceptable. Or better yet, we deal with it in the privacy found behind closed doors. But, have you ever watched the way a child plays? The way they run and spin and laugh with true abandon? I want that kind of freedom. They are unabashedly joyful. And I wonder if adults haven't so much lost joy, as much as we've lost suitable ways of expressing it.

Have you ever watched those "Where the Hell is Matt?" videos on youtube? Basically this guy goes all over the world, and just does this silly dance. Is seems completely absurd, but I think he's on to something. The truth is the world has watched those videos a million times because in them we see something we crave. Silliness. Fun. Humans just being human together.

In a segment for NPR Matt says,"When I dance with people, I see them smile and laugh and act ridiculous. It makes our differences seem smaller. The world seems simpler, and my caveman brain finds that comforting."

I am with Matt. I want to smile and laugh and be silly with people, For a few moments I need the world to seem a little less complicated. So, I'm going to try to make more time for dance breaks, and hopefully invite others to join me.

I hope that you'll treat yourself to a little dance break today, too.

inspired.

Sometimes, I stress about my job. I worry about all the youth I haven't connected with. I worry that I'm not fun enough or honest enough. I worry that often the youth seem bored and disengaged. I wonder if what I do matters.

Then I have a moment when the amazing youth I work with remind me that God is doing something very real in them. And that I am blessed just to witness it.

At the youth lock-in on Saturday night, I set up some prayer stations and at one of them they wrote down some of the things that were on their hearts and laid them at the foot of a cross. Today, I was reading through what they wrote and I felt inspired by the beauty of their spirits.

Here is the list of their prayers:

family. friends. and life.
You are love, life and purity. I feel for anyone who does not yet know you.
My relationship and belief in God.
My parents and grandparents, all people in suffering, people dealing with pain or with handicaps.
The ones who are always there, Christ, family, relationships, long-lasting impressions and people who listen.
People who are suffering, loved ones, others, friends, people who feel alone and lost, Please help them feel better, God.
Bring me back.
People you love, ones who love you, church, sufferers, ones who help, family and friends.
My family, old friends, lonely people, my aunt, people with incurable diseases.
Home, new opportunities, love, life, family, friends, those who are suffering and those in need.
Life , love, worship, family together, home, friends, and joy.

I am humbled by their compassion and their honesty. Their hunger for God in their own lives and their hunger to see God comfort and heal the lives of others is amazing.

I can't believe I get paid to hang out with these incredible people. Today, for at least a little while, I set aside my worries and was simply thankful. Through them, God touches me.

I love her.

Yesterday, I went to ridiculously packed concert in the park to see Neko Case. Her voice takes my breath away. Her song lyrics are incredible. If you are not yet a fan, you should become one.

my name is katie and i am not hip.

So, one of my youth told me that last night's youth group was "kickin," which I had to assume meant fun. Then I was facebook chatting with another youth and they wrote "lmao" and I had to ask Kyle was that meant (laughing my ass off). Also, I now use twitter, but still don't really understand it or its appeal.

Moral of today's story: hanging out with teenagers makes me feel old and super lame... please tell me I'm not over-the-hill and culturally irrelevant at the age of 25 :)

i've been thinking.

That more people should read Romantic poetry. It's not sappy. It's not mere descriptions of flowers and trees or gushy love poems. It has to do with the soul. Romantic poetry is about the soul's longing for beauty and for meaning... its an intensely personal inner monologue, that has universal appeal. For who hasn't looked at a beautiful scene and tried for a moment to allow the view to transform and fill them? Who hasn't sadly looked back at youth as a time when fulfillment seemed simpler and attainable? Who hasn't felt the ache to feel something big and beautiful and uncontained? Who hasn't longed to be somehow connected to something beyond one's own skin? William Wordsworth in particular sings of all of this with words so lovely they seem to have more than meter and voice... they seem to have an actually melody. Everytime I read this poem, the song of it floats off the page and washes over me.

For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Sometimes, I wish I could spend my life being an advocate for poetry. Not a teacher or professor. But an advocate standing on a corner with a sign held high, or holding a sit in, or promoting legislation and giving speeches at rallies. "Save Poetry," I want to shout. We need it more than any of us know.

can't wait to meet this little guy.

So, I am so excited to say that I am going to be an aunt to Ashton Reid Parker, who I am already convinced is the cutest thing I have ever seen. My sister Mary Beth is expecting her first baby at the end of January. She found out that he's a boy this week and sent me the ultrasound pictures. Unfortunately, the pdf is too big of a file and I can't post it here. The pictures are amazing. I was in awe of his legs and hands and beautiful tiny body. It's hard to believe there is a whole person living inside my amazing sister. I just think pregnancy is so miraculous.

I am lucky to have a friend, Alakecree, who is training to become a doula. Basically, that means she will be similar to a midwife, in that she helps women through pregnancy and birth. She provides non-medical emotional and physical support through the process. Alakecree's occasional e-mails and links to videos and articles, remind me how truly incredible our bodies are. It makes me sad that most of what we hear about is how scary and painful giving birth is. A while back Alakecree showed me this video of a woman singing during the early stages of labor:



Isn't that lovely? Here, birth in an opportunity for peace, for celebration, and for worship. Instead of thinking of it being painful or gross, this video helped open my eyes to how beautiful the process really is. How in birth we experience an act of creation, and the wonder of our own life giving abilities. I am so excited for my sister and all she is experiencing, and all that she will experience in the coming months. I know pregnancy isn't all peace and singing, but I can say thank goodness women don't have to be the Betty Drapers of the 1960s anymore. [For those of you who don't watch Madmen, in last week's episode the character Betty Draper went through a horrifying birth. She was forcibly restrained and screaming for her husband (who was happily drinking and smoking in the waiting room), then she was given an enema and Demerol and had frightening and bloody fever induced dreams. And finally, she woke up in a drugged haze with a baby in her arms to whom she had no recollection of actually giving birth to. I could have a whole rant about the way men have made women feel ashamed of their bodies through the medical establishment, but I'll save it for another blog.] Anyway, YAY! Birth doesn't have to be like that. It is a beautiful celebration of life giving us more life.

Don't worry, I don't have baby fever. I don't intend to have any of my own anytime soon. I'm just so excited that my sister is going to bring a little person into the world, and just amazed at the miracle of life --- it is truly miraculous. Also, it means I get to be an aunt and have a little cutie pie to spoil and love (and give back to his parents). Ashton, I can't wait to meet you and welcome you to the world.

just in case you haven't seen it.

If you are in ministry, especially youth ministry, you've probably seen this already. But if you haven't yet experienced the amazing power of Ignatius and Flame Ministry, you need to watch this:



hehehehe.

It gets me every time. Probably because I've spent a lot of time in youth ministries and young adult ministries, and so much of it rings true to what we present as the "cool" Christian culture. Lots of hair gel and graphic design -- but no depth. I watch it and laugh (hard), and pray that Church can be something better and more authentic.

I'm using it for my youth group this week as a starting point for talking about what ministry is and what they envision youth group to be. Should be fun.

I'd love to hear your reactions :)

the day.

"The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet."

I woke up thinking of these lines by Wallace Stevens. These words make the day seem still and endless, like anything is possible.

offensive.

I find this commercial offensive. Or at the very least very poor advertising.

And it seems to be on all the time.

The first time I saw it, I actually said out loud, "seriously?" It seems to want me to say, Oh, look how clorox products have helped women do laundry for decades! As if all we've done in the last century is do the wash, and I will find that thought comforting. I hate that its blatantly directed at the female viewers, and the way it tries to cleverly joke that "maybe even a man or two" has done the laundry-- God forbid.

I believe that more than a man or two has done laundry. And I believe they are quite capable of doing it. This commercial is targeted directly at me (the adult female), and wants to create some comradery about how me and all the other ladies do the laundry and most of the boys are left out of the Clorox club. Look how happy we are wearing all those cute vintage clothes while we throw in one load after another! What a wonderful club we are a part of because we have a uterus! Well, here's news: I don't care to be in that club, thank you.

I actually don't mind doing the laundry at all, but every time I see this commercial I feel like never doing laundry again. It's not terribly often that the raging feminist in me comes out, but this add seems to do it every time... It makes me want to come up from the basement and announce to the world I am capable, I can do more than wash clothes, I don't want to miss out on history taking place because I'm stuck down there doing the laundry. I'm also offended on behalf of men everywhere. I know that you also purchase laundry detergent, and I'm sorry that Clorox has assumed only a few of you are capable and worthy enough of joining the magical Clorox world.

So, that's my rant for today. :) Am I the only one who hates this commercial?

different light and life.

I stumbled on Adrianne Rich's "An Atlas of the Difficult World" today. A poem I have loved in the past but not read in at least a year.... And today, it seemed a completely different poem. Parts of the poem refer to the foggy bay, the reaching redwoods, the vast shimmering Pacific. Images that were once almost imaginary, creations in my mind's eye that could be envisioned, but not experienced. But now, living in Berkeley, spending afternoons in San Fransisco, watching the sun slice through layers of fog, casting shimmery shapes across the ocean and sand and towering pines -- the poem takes on a new familiarity. Coming to this poem today felt like finding a sweater packed away for many months, that is rediscovered, and is suddenly treasured with new love and need during a cold season. Its a poem I can wrap myself in. She writes:

Within two miles of the Pacific rounding

this long bay, sheening the light for miles

inland, floating its fog through redwood rifts and over

strawberry and artichoke fields, its bottomless mind

returning to the same rocks, the same cliffs, with

ever-changing words, always the same language

--- this is where I live now. If you had known me

once, you’d still know me now though in a different

light and life. This is no place you ever knew me...

These are not the roads you knew me by.

But the woman driving, walking, watching

for life and death, is the same.

I connect so deeply with finding oneself in a such a different world and new life, yet experiencing the familiar language of the inner life that has always been your own. A feeling of existing in a new world, with an old self. Being unchanged yet changed in the same moment. And Rich captures it like few other writers could. With poignancy, with certain beauty and a tinge of sadness. She embraces her new world with such tender attention, and yet with her love of newness, there is a hint of longing to be recognized, and to be seen as the one you've always known yourself to be. I love the poem's rich descriptions of experiencing life in a strange yet known landscape -- they seem intimately familiar and deeply personal. The more powerful part of the poem, still, is the final section. It is the most quoted, most well-known part for good reason:

I know you are reading this poem

late, before leaving your office

of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window

in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet

long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem

standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean

on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven

across the plains' enormous spaces around you.

I know you are reading this poem

in a room where too much has happened for you to bear

where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed

and the open valise speaks of flight

but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem

as the underground train loses momentum and before running up the stairs

toward a new kind of love

your life has never allowed.

I know you are reading this poem by the light

of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide

while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.

I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room

of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.

I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light

in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,

count themselves out, at too early an age. I know

you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick

lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on

because even the alphabet is precious.

I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand

because life is short and you too are thirsty.

I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language guessing at some words while others keep you reading

and I want to know which words they are.

I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn between bitterness and hope turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.

I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else left to read

there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

The poem up until that section seems to be a mirror in which we see Rich, or at least in which we view a particular way of experiencing the world. But then she suddenly turns the mirror. We stop gazing at someone else’s reflection, and begin viewing ourselves. She sees each of us, our needs and intricacies are both particular and universal. I read it and feel my own hunger and thirst for poetry and art. I feel at home in the fact that she speaks directly to me and to others in our wide need to find beauty, and to make meaning. In this moment, Rich isn’t just writing a poem because she needs to, but she is writing to us, the readers, the dreamers, the hungry, the broken, the passionate and the tired, because we need her to write. We need her words. We need her mirror. And more than anything we need the blessed gift of somehow feeling seen. And that is what this poem does… it does not merely help us to see, but it sees us, looks up at us from the page and loves each of us ferociously. Loves us, whatever light and life we have landed in.

music of the mind.

Recently, two incredibly talented people joined forces and created something amazing. A neuroscientist and a composer worked together to create music and poetry that expresses the mystery and miracle of the human mind. The resulting art is truly amazing: its layers express such beauty and intensity. You can close your eyes and visualize brain cells interacting and bringing thought to life. In the harmonies you can begin to imagine the complex process of a sea experience becoming images and words. It's a celebration of humanity -- a celebration of the miracle that is consciousness. It's about everything that makes us uniquely human. The ability to imagine. To become. To shape thoughts and futures.

One of the lines of poetry reads: "Once minds began blooming, nothing was ever the same." I love this image, the idea of the mind blooming, like a plant opening to life and possibility. And suddenly the entire landscape was changed. There are so many miraculous things that happen every day that we take for granted... especially within the worlds of our own bodies. This artwork reminded me of this whole complicated world that exists within my skull and makes me who I am. Listening to this music and imagining the intricacies of the mind, I am completely in awe of this vast mystery that is life.

We so often see art and science as separate and even competing fields, but this is a great misconception. Both the arts and sciences search for and express truth and mystery. Art is not just about feeling, and science isn't just about reason. Both are this incredible mixture of reason and feeling. Both are about a passion for discovery and creativity. Both are significant. Both make us human. One is not to be valued over the other. Artists and Scientists are not in opposition with one another. Both are in the business of expressing and revealing life's beauty. I think this collaboration that represents the music of the human mind is proof that science and art are deeply connected, and intimately intertwined in the most wonderful way.

To hear the music and hear the whole story, follow this link to NPR's website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103713700

Happy listening.

new obsession.

I have a new obsession: a Canadian worship folk duo. These songs are so beautiful, and her voice is AMAZING. It's worship in its purest form. In short, I love Jacob and Lily. And I want you to love them, too:





beautiful.

hello again.

Okay, I know. It’s the oldest story in the blogger book. I started a blog and in all the excitement started with at least weekly postings; soon, these began to dwindle to a more irregular bi-monthly posting… and then April came, the end of the semester craziness began, and suddenly it was mid-June and there wasn’t so much as a word of update on my blog page.

Well, I’ve decided to resurrect my very sad and neglected blog. Mainly because life is full of beauty, chaos and general absurdity, that too often it goes unnoted and unnoticed. Blogs are this great place where we can jot down our thoughts and observations to share with each other, and to look back on later. The poet John Ashbery once observed, “What is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specific life, experienced or not, channeled into some form…” I think that blogging has to do with this urge to offer some bit of beauty to the world by putting our lives into a kind of form and offering it to others. Little snapshots of a life experienced.

I must admit, my desire to return to this world of internet sharing also has to do with the fact that I am coming to point of huge changes in my life. In May, I got engaged to the love of my life. Getting to spend my life with him is the biggest blessing I can imagine. Not only because he is a wonderful person, but because he helps me see things in new ways. Having a partner in the journey makes the landscape so much more beautiful. We also made the decision to move together to Berkeley, California (right across the Bay from San Francisco). I will be transferring to the Pacific School of Religion to finish my Masters of Divinity and Kyle will be attending the Graduate Theological Union to begin his PhD work. This means packing up and moving across the country, beginning the job search once again, finding new friends and new ministry opportunities—building a new life together. It is scary and incredibly exciting all at the same time.

Anyway, I’m back and I’m going to try to make regular updates. In honor of this momentous (not-so-much) occasion, I would like to celebrate with the creepy old man who loves the 30 rock theme song. He’s the best.

Poetry for Holy Week

As most of you know, one of the most powerful ways that I commune with God is through poetry. For me, it provides these images and spaces where I can experience the divine through my imagination. It provides these vivid colors and experiences which for me aren't just about God, but become God's very whisper. A whisper that says, "I am present, I am the miracle in ordinary things, I am the tension that holds together the paradox, I am the mystery that makes fragments whole." For me, reading poetry is worship of the most intimate kind.

This week, I was asked to read a poem in chapel, and this sent my on a search for poetry that was particular to Holy Week. Words that could express the poignant sorrow, darkness, mystery and celebration of the events of Christ's life, death and resurrection. Language that could touch somehow on this holy mystery that claims a God-man who was and is and is to come.

In this search, I found myself rediscovering the poetry of Thomas Merton. If you are unfamiliar with his work, you should definitely consider reading more about him. He was a life-time learner, monk, writer, and seeker of beauty. Deeply Christian, but always seeking for more of God's presence in all places, he was also profoundly interested in inter-religious and cross-cultural understanding.

Here are a few of his poems for reflection this holy weekend. Enjoy.

The Vine

When the wind and winter turn our Vineyard
into a bitter Calvary
What hands come out and crucify us
Like the innocent vine?

How long will starlight weep as sharp as thorns
In the night of our desolate life?
How long will moonlight fear to free the naked prisoner?
Or is there no deliverer?

A mob of winds, on Holy Thursday, come like murderers
And batter the walls of our locked and terrified souls
Our doors are down, and our defense is done.
Good Friday's rains, in Roman order,
March with sharpest lances up our vineyard hill.

More dreadful than St. Peter's cry
When he was being swallowed by the sea
Cries out our anguish, "O we are abandoned!"
When in our lives we see the ruined vine
Cut open by cruel spring,
ploughed by the furious season.

As if we had forgotten how the whips of winter
And the cross of April,
Would all be lost in one bright Miracle.
For look! The vine on Calvary is bright with branches!
See how the leaves laugh in the light,
And how the whole hill smiles with flowers,

And know how our numbered veins must run
With life, like the sweet vine, when it is full of sun.

My prayer is that we all find space to cry out to God in our anguish and sorrow, like the weeping starlight, and to know the hope of the Resurrected Christ, the living vine who felt our deepest anguish and sorrow, and who lives on to bring us life. Perhaps, even if only for a week, a day, or just a moment, we would all be lost in that one bright miracle.

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?

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?”

I love this poem because it calls us to be present, to be still, and to be what we are. Each of us are full of Christ in this very moment. So, rather than look towards a future of what we might become, I want to be what I am. To hear and see the whole world that is secretly on fire with God's presence. In this holy week, I want to be still, and hear the voice of the Most Holy in the sound of silence.

um... what?

Dear Christian Film makers,

Please stop making these horrible films. They are creepy, ridiculous and laughable.

Seriously. Stop.

With sincere thanks,

Katherine J. Trinter

wonderful dust.

Today is ash wednesday, the first day of lent. I am preaching for the first time at Lee's Summit UMC tonight, and am excited because lent can be such an amazing journey. And hopefully, I will be able to invite others on that same journey.

Joel 2 :12 says, "Return to me with all your hearts." I think this act of returning is what makes lent so beautiful. No matter how far we've drifted, how distracted we've been, how broken our hearts are, we are invited on a journey to return to God.

So where is it we are returning to? I've been contemplating that for the last few weeks, and the image that keeps coming back to me is that of God in the first moment of creating humanity. The earth is this flat wasteland, and through any other eyes would have looks dry and hopeless. But God sees possibility. He reaches into the dust, and sees possibility. From little bits of earth that seem like nothing at all, our great Artist God creates humanity, and calls us children of God.

Lent is a return into God's hand. It is an opportunity to make space in our lives for the great creator to transform us. By setting aside 40 days to intentionally pray, fast, and seek God, we allow God to once again reshape us. We return to the intimacy of that first act in which we were created. And just as God saw possibility in that dust, the divine still sees and creates possibilities in whatever mess we've made of our lives.

Wherever you are at, whatever pieces your life is in, God can recreate it. That is what the resurrection promises. This night, we cry out that we are nothing, we repent of our egos, our materialism, our selfishness, and our failings; we confront our own mortality, remembering that our days on earth are numbered. But in this very moment of admitting we are nothing, we are reminded of a God who can do all things. A God who calls us his children, and who at the end of every wilderness journey provides an Easter, a recreation, a promise of new life.

So, when you hear those words: "Remember that you are dust, and to the dust you shall return." Be reminded also that God is the greatest artist, and has intentions for us beyond our mortality. You are wondrous dust, with which God can do marvelous things, if only we return to his hands.

This year, I am committing to fast from food one day a week, to journal every day, and to spend less time surfing the web. I am excited about intentionally creating space and time in my life for the spirit to move.

My friend Flip came up with a really creative idea for Lenten practice this year, by committing to give one thing away each day for the forty days of Lent:



You can check out his journey throughout lent by viewing his video blog at http://flipcaderao.tumblr.com/ .

Whether or not you have any Lenten practice, I hope you are finding ways to experience the power, creativity and hope of the divine in your life. I'd love for you to share about the ways that God is moving in your life this season.

christian media.

According to this article by NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100927647 the highest grossing independent film this year wasn't Slumdog Millionaire or Milk. It was a Christian movie called Fireproof starring Kirk Cameron.




This NPR article about the continuing growth of Christian media and art really bothered me. And it's not just that Kirk Cameron happens to subscribe to a more conservative/evangelical theology that is different than my own. It has to do with this obsession we have of separating Christian and Secular culture. As if God is only present in one place. These Christian filmmakers talk about culture as though it's all about immorality and sex and violence, as if it is the enemy of God. But actually there is a lot of really beautiful, powerful God-filled art and film out there. Slumdog Millionaire and Milk are two great examples. Both films confront us with ideas about equality and justice and the power of love. All of these are essentially Christian messages. I really believe that God speaks through those films.

Fireproof has these very overtly Christian images of the Bible, prayer and the cross. These are important pieces of our faith, and in my life have been powerful forces. But with Christian music and film making I wonder if we sometimes end up just preaching to the choir. I mean, aren't the only people who are going to be impacted those that recognize and relate to those images already?

I've been thinking about the parables of Jesus. Rather, than speaking in religious terms, Jesus tells stories that essentially don't have God or scripture in them. They are stories of working people, of masters and servants, of families, of nature. Everyday things that people experience. But people could relate to those images, and in the story, even though religion isn't overt, we find God's presence over and over again. Christ understood that the redeeming message of God couldn't be divorced from culture and context. He didn't simplify God into a religious concept. He spoke in the language of the people, used metaphors, told stories and in doing so invited them into this great mystery of the Divine.

One of my favorite Christian books in Ben Pasley's Enter the Worship Circle. I love this book because it challenges its readers to find the divine everywhere, to make their whole lives worship. He writes, "Some might argue that since not all artists believe in God, we could not find God in their work. On the contrary, many artists who do believe in God have so poorly caricatured the nature of the divine that they do little but diminish God. It is often the innocent and uninitiated that give best expression to a vision of God... Whether in realism or abstraction, the artist has the ability to tell the story of experience, and we have the opportunity to listen for the Divine."

On the one hand, I do believe in Christian art. I believe that songs, stories and art that represent God as revealed through the Christian faith are important. I love going to worship and singing praise songs and experiencing artful expressions that embody who Christ is. Without artistic expression, religion dies and becomes sterile. It is an amazing expression of our living God. But to say that this is the only place that God is revealed and expressed puts such incredible limitations on God. We don't need to fear non-Christian culture, and assume that only overtly Christian art is "truly meaningful to the kingdom of God."

God is speaking in all these amazing ways, everywhere and every moment. If we draw a hard line between "Christian" and "Secular" we miss so much of the God who is present in all of creation. Also, when the Church becomes divorced from culture and the people of that culture, religion stops being relevant. We can no longer speak into lives in the meaningful way that Christ did. There's a huge difference between being counter-cultural and anti-culture. By separating ourselves from "secular" culture we don't save our Christian identity, but in fact we lose it. Christian identity means being Christ in the world in a meaningful way. It means meeting people where they are. It means experiencing God revealed where one least expects.

I mean, didn't you like Kirk Cameron better when he offered those happy accessible messages about growing up, finding identity and being a part of a family on the show Growing Pains?



I love bananas too, Kirk, and think they are an amazing part of God's creation. But is an apple less created by God just because it doesn't have a convenient pull-tab and hand grip? I actually think you are a nice guy, but please stop being the spokesperson for Christianity and get back to "sharing the laughter and love" like you used to.

Giving something the label of Christian, doesn't necessarily mean that it offers a more life-giving message.

lyrics.

These are the lyrics to the song that is played at the end of every yoga class that I attend. It is hopeful, comforting and so powerful. It has been in my head all week, and I think it's beautiful. Enjoy.

Close your eyes; Go Inside
Give up control, let a stronger hand guide you
Back to where you want to be
Dry your eyes, Don't you cry
It's all going to be alright
It's all a dream, a dream
you've been sleeping, a bad dream that's all it is
There's nothing wrong with you really
You're perfect just as you are
We've all just been acting silly
But now the game is over and we know who we are
Northern Star, Shine on me
Fill me up with starlight
Awaken my soul
My heart and my true desire
Walk with me, Take my hand
Trade love for fear
You don't have to be perfect
That's not why you're here
There's someone waiting to find you
There is something inside
Patiently loving and guiding
protecting and waiting
for you to decide
Let a stronger hand guide you
back to where you want to be
Back to your true home.

happiness.

I think there is an art to happiness. A way of just being in the center of your own life, being totally present, and just celebrating all that you are, mistakes and all. There is an art to being present in those moments that take your breath away.... The other day I was walking out of the grocery store, feeling the winter air, and the afternoon sunshine, arms full of groceries. And it just came over me: "this is my life. all of our hard work and journeying and questioning leads to these simple satisfactions, of light and air and food." And even if that very moment summed up all the meaning in life, I would be perfectly happy. I wish I had the wisdom to always live into that beautiful everyday ordinariness. That is everything. There is freedom in just appreciating all that is.

I was reading through the New Yorker today, and they did a wonderful tribute to John Updike with pages of excerpts from his writings. Updike's work is so full of those ordinary beautiful moments. It's so real, it breaks your heart.

Here is John Updike describing a young man who is driving a car through the middle of the night, his friend asleep in the passenger seat. For me this is a description of perfect happiness, the kind of complex simplicity that life is made up of, deep and meaningful precisely because it is so accessible:

"Nothing happened, the car stayed firm on the road, Neil slept, his face turned skyward... There were so many reasons for me feeling happy. We were on our way. I had seen dawn. This far I had brought us safely. Ahead, a girl waited who, if I asked would marry, but first there was a long trip. Many hours and towns interceded between me and that encounter. There was the quality of the 10 am sunlight as it existed in the air ahead of the windshield, filtered by the thin overcast, blessing irresponsibility... And there was knowing that twice since midnight a person had trusted me enough to fall asleep beside me." -John Updike

whelks.

a poem from the beautiful pages of mary oliver:


Here are the perfect
fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit—
and here are the whelks—
whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist,
but always cracked and broken—
clearly they have been traveling
under the sky-blue waves
for a long time.
All my life
I have been restless—
I have felt there is something
more wonderful than gloss—
than wholeness—
than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is.
But every morning on the wide shore
I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges
have rubbed so long against the world
they have snapped and crumbled—
they have almost vanished,
with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy,
back into everything else.
When I find one
I hold it in my hand,
I look out over that shaking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often,
but now and again there’s a moment
when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light.

miracles.

I sometimes pray for miracles. I wait in expectation for God to move, to heal friends who are sick or broken, to meet the needs of myself and of others. I pray to see the divine in some kind of undeniable way that will restore the faith of all of us. I look around and feel that in some moments we all seem so lost that we could never find our way to wholeness and happiness and love without some mighty miraculous sweep of God's hand. I sit and hope and wait.

But miracles are common things. As usual and solid as the ground that we step all over every day. There is hurt, yes. And so much poverty and brokenness it breaks my heart. But waiting does no good. I have hands to help. That is a miracle. I have a voice to speak. That, too, is a miracle.

I know in my heart that God moves through human skin, human thoughts, human love-- but still I so often sit and do nothing. Perhaps the most miraculous thing of all, is that even when I choose to be lazy, when I sit doing nothing, waiting for God to move; even when I am so utterly selfish, failing so incredibly... grace rains. It pours. Abundant blessings fill up my life. Miracles shower down on me, even when I forget to be a miracle for someone else.

Today, I ate a clementine and a banana, fruit shipped across the world, over lands and seas so I could hold it in my hand and taste it on my tongue. Today, I heard a familiar voice say I love you after a long day. Today, I sat with friends and talked about fears and hopes and smaller silly things. Today, I walked and the earth met my feet and kept me from sinking. Today, I read words on a page and was moved. These are my rich blessings. These are real miracles.

God is moving, every day, every moment, graciously inviting me to be a living miracle for others. To be the one who hears, gives, loves.... I hope that I have the courage to say Yes. To out pour miracles with the same kind of free abundance that is poured out on me.

an uncomfortable moment with angela lansbury.

At first I was just confused. Then I was a little uncomfortable. Then I laughed so hard I almost peed a little.

For your viewing pleasure, here is Angela Lansbury sharing thoughts about her body and her sexuality:

First of all, way to go angela! Your legs look better than mine and you are like 70 in this video.

Second, my favorite part is when she says, "I think feminity and sexuality go hand in hand." And she says it in her sexy voice, with the porno-style-soft-jazz playing in the background. Creepy.

Third, the way she says "massage" is amazing.

Fourth, if her goal is to present herself herself as "a woman of loveliness and dignity," I'm not quite sure this video achieved that... I mean the music? The constant massaging of herself? Really?

Fifth, for as much as this is halarious and disturbing, I also think its kind of great that an older woman who is not normally seen as sexual is saying to the world, "I am a woman, and I am sexual and that's part of my identity I won't ignore just because society tells me to." Kudos on the feminist message, creepy youTube video.

And lastly, all I can say is hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe. :)

beauty that moves.

I read an article in the New Yorker this week about the choreographer George Balanchine, one of the founders of the New York Ballet. One thing he used to speak about was his frustration of people always needing to attach a meaning to art's expression. When they see choreography they always asks, "What does it mean?" There is this need the audience has to qualify what they see on stage by attaching it to a particular idea or experience.

He once compared dance to flowers, pointing out, that when we view flowers we are moved by their beauty, but we don't ask what they mean to tell us. They don't "mean" anything, but simply are beautiful. Balanchine suggested that viewers ought to see his dancers in the same way: to accept their beauty and be moved by it, without needing to make some kind of sense out of it.

Often I think art does ask us to attach meaning. Sometimes artists (musicians, choreographers, poets, sculptors, painters) have a point to make, a story to tell, a challenge to present. But other times, as Balanchine points out, the point and challenge may be to just let it move us. To dwell in its beauty as it is, without adding our interpretation. As humans I think we often struggle to accept mystery and beauty. It feels chaotic to us, and we want to boil it down to something we can make sense of. It seems there are very few times that we allow ourselves to be moved, without asking what the point was.

I think this is why things like meditation, mysticism and yoga have become so popular in the recent decades. There is a craving to dwell in the mystery and stillness. Often religion puts so much emphasis on teaching and preaching. We sometimes act as though religion and spirituality is all about learning the "right answers." But most of us know that's not all there is. We crave more of God; we long to be moved in a way we can't put into words. I think the Emergent Church and authors like Tony Jones have tried to emphasize this point. But as a whole, the church (even the Emergent Church) still struggles with knowing how to dwell in the mystery. We still look at God, or a dancer, or a painting, and produce an answer: "Here is what it means. This is what it is teaching us." And sometimes that's good. We have learned a lot that way. But it seems to me we're missing out on something essential too -- the kind of beauty that moves the way Balanchine described. What truly moves us, is often that which cannot be quantified or qualified. So, I guess the question for all of us, whether we be artists or pastors, teachers or friends, is how do we express the inexpressible? How do we dwell in truths to large to think about?

To want something Passionately.

I just finished watching Woody Allen's latest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It's beautiful and light hearted, with underlying themes about the life-long search for passion and meaning. It also has the kind of strong, intense, female characters that are typical of Woody Allen. If you watch it though, I have to warn you, you will want to drop everything and fly to Barcelona. Right this minute. So before pressing play, pack your bags.

There is a moment in the movie where Scarlett Johansson's character, Cristina, says that its sad, really, that she loves art and music so passionately, but has no gift or talent to speak of. It reminded me of a similar moment in the film Adaptation where Meryl Streep says, "I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion: I want to want something passionately." I connect with that feeling of self doubt. That we feel so much beauty and see so much passion, but haven' t found our gift, our art, our passion. We see and admire that passion and art in others, but feel we haven't expressed that kind of beauty ourselves.

I am a lover of poetry, art, and music. I write often, paint (very) occasionally, and have sung in choirs and worship bands in the past -- but I don't have any kind of unique or extraordinary talent in any of these areas. I read poetry that is so beautiful it breaks me open to a whole new way of experience, and I know there isn't a sentence I have ever written that comes close to that kind of true art. I think I am so much better at appreciating than creating. I can look at a poem or a painting, and find so much depth. There is an art to that, I think. An art to seeing and hearing and studying. But I think it pales in comparison to the kind of art that creates, that offers something new to the world, that arranges the pieces of life in a new way, particular to a moment, to a person, to a feeling, to a life. That kind of particular expression comes only out of passionate creativity -- a creativity I strive for, but haven't yet found.

I wonder, do others feel this same sense? Do most of us walk around being appreciators and longing to be artists? Do artists see themselves as artists? Or are they also longing for that moment of true passion and inspiration? What is it that makes us feel that this daily art of living and loving isn't enough? Why do we always assume that other people's passions are more extraordinary than our own?

I don't have any answers today. But I know I believe that every person I meet is an artist. I'm not sure why I struggle to believe that of myself.