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A Dedication.

  These words are for the artists and dreamers  Who want a slippery God, Not the stone one nailed permanently to a cross In old buildings, t...

Friday, March 19, 2010

this guy will melt your heart.


My nephew Ashton recently started smiling, and every time I see a picture he completely melts my heart. I mean, I really don't think I've ever seen anything quite so cute. I didn't think it was fair to keep him all to myself. So here he is.

Blogging world, meet Ashton Reid Parker, Professional Heart Breaker.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

imperfect paradise.


I'm taking a poetry class this semester, which has been wonderful. I don't love every poem we cover, but having poetry as part of my weekly school reading has been like medicine for my soul. It expands my mind and my faith in a way I can't explain in words. It helps me find beauty not just on the page, but in my life as it unfolds daily.

My favorite thing about this class is that we get to write our final paper/project about any theme, subject or poet we want. I had trouble trying to pick just one poet, so I've settled on a theme. The subject I am diving into is finding the beauty in what is imperfect. The poems I want to study are those that find meaning and even divinity in what is broken. I am excited to see how poets draw on theology and expand it. I'm looking forward to sharing the poems on this blog as I work on this project over the coming weeks. Here are a few lines from some of the poems I've already decided to include.



"To say it once held daisies and bluebells
Ignores, if nothing else,
Its diehard brilliance where, crashed on the floor,
The wide bowl lies that seemed to cup the sun,
Its green leaves curled, its constant blaze undone,
Spilled all its glass integrity everywhere;
Spectrums, released, will speak
of colder flowerings where cold crystal broke...

The splendid curvings of glass artifice
Informed its flawlessness
With lucid unities. Freed from these now,
Like love it triumphs through inconsequence
And builds its harmony from dissonance
And lies somehow somehow within us, broken, as though
Time were a broken bowl
And our last joy knowing it shall not heal." -James Merrill, "The Broken Bowl"

"Say even that this complete simplicity
Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
The evilly compounded, vital I
And made it fresh in a world of white,
A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
Still one would want more, one would need more,
More than a world of white and snowy scents.

There would still remain the never-resting mind,
So that one would want to escape, come back
To what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
Since the imperfect is so hot in us,
Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds." -Wallace Stevens, "Poems of Our Climate"


"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 shrinking 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." -Mary Oliver, "Whelks"

My hope is that all of us might have the eyes of poets: to find inspiration, brilliance and love in the most cracked and imperfect corners of our lives.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

banana-awesome-grams



Thanks to one of my youth introducing me to this during our trip to Tahoe, I am now obsessed with this game. I love word games in general (taboo? scategories? boggle? yes please!), and this is my new favorite. It's basically speed scrabble, minus the board and point system. Trust me you will love it.

I just ordered my own from amazon. I'm thinking about making banana bread and having a banana themed party upon its arrival. Who's in?

Lenten prayer.



"Artist of souls,
you sculpted a people for yourself
of the rocks of wilderness and fasting.
Help us as we take up your invitation to prayer and simplicity,
that the discipline of these forty days
may sharpen our hunger for the feast of your holy friendship,
and whet our thirst for the living water you offer
through Jesus Christ. Amen." (from the Vanderbilt Divinity Library)