Yeah, so, the past month has been an intense one for me in every way. A bit emotionally brutal. We can all relate, I’m sure. It’s shown me a lot of new things about myself, also revealed some new glimpses of this mystical mystery named, so simply, “Love,” in our language.
I’ve been a student of the nature of Love for the past 7 years, which doesn’t seem very long, now that I write it down, but, I have to report, just this short time of study, it has changed me in every area of my life.
My studies are always, first and foremost, practical. To me nothing I ‘believe’ is worth anything if it does not actually work in my living to bring me healing, make me a better human, remove my baggage to reveal my highest and best self, lead me into paths of peace and load my arms with fruit to share with fellow pilgrims along the way…and, so, I began by asking God to reveal what love was and how love worked.
My first flash came in 2009, riding on a CT commuter train from New Haven to Branford, looking at the marsh fly by. I had been asking for some days, intensely seeking, when God showed himself to me as ‘LOVE.’ That brief instant changed everything for me. I experienced the Aleph of The Mystery and left that train, completely changed a flash or, in real time less than 30 minutes…
Many wonderful writers have helped me along this open-ended, unlimited path of discovery on this topic. I must give much beautiful credit to Henri Nouwen, who helped me early on in my excavation of this topic. His revelations, and life surrendered to this mystery, have inspired much learning in my own voyage on this simple, yet so radical, path.
Over these years, I felt lead to share some of my tiny bits of insight with others – it has just been so amazing! So beautiful! So everything – I just wanted others to open to it as well, to learn and heal along with me! Over these years I have learned to be a writer and a poet. Until recently I didn’t feel I could claim those ‘titles,’ but I do now, just another way love has changed me. I am so grateful.
This brings us to yesterday, which brings us to Frederick Buechner’s 90th birthday! Buechner is one of the best, most beautiful, writers ever. Sometimes I stop breathing when I read his words. I won’t say more, at this moment, as this is becoming a very long post, but here’s my best advice: read him!
Recently someone, somewhere, on Facebook, posted words by poet, Fred LaMotte. They deeply touched me and so I ‘friended’ him. Then he began posting his words and I found myself on Amazon ordering one of his books. I received it last week, and it has been moving me into some very deep waters.
Yeah, so, back to yesterday, I re-posted a happy birthday write-up about Buechner and then…
I got this comment from Fred LaMotte:
He was the reason I became a teacher and a school chaplain. When I was a 10th grader at Exeter Academy (near Boston) he was the school chaplain. It was before he became a writer. One dreary morning in late Winter, we were 700 half asleep boys in morning ‘Chapel’ (it was just an assembly really), and decided to read to us. He read the entire 7th chapter of ‘The Wind In The Willows,’ ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn.’ It was very long and I think I might have been the only one stayed awake. It was amazing. Not only did it show me my first real piece of spiritual writing, but I thought, “Wow! This is his job? Reading to people about the great God Pan? I want to do this!” Thank you Frederick Buechner.
💞
WOW!! Then Fred LaMotte shared that chapter of the Wind and the Willows, ya know, the one that inspired some pretty intense poetry, which is, at this moment plowing up some new fields in my back forty…
I have not read The Wind in the Willows since I was a teenager, and, at that time I remember thinking it was rather stupid. My thoughts being something like, ‘Good grief, what in the heck is this about?’
Yesterday, I finally ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. Yesterday, a gift of love I offered was returned to me, unaccepted. I ‘got it!’ I broke down. I took my shoes off and bowed to the glory. There’s no right or wrong here, just gift. I choose to be only grateful to continue on in the, ‘yes and amen!’ of it all.
I have no idea what Love (God) will teach me next. I am a very humble beginner. No Master here. Just a girl who cannot believe how lucky I am to be on this narrow road. A very unlikely pilgrim, I. Always wearing inappropriate shoes for climbing these steep hills, but somehow, always getting the view of the most beautiful sunsets imaginable. I guess it’s true what Babe Ruth said, ‘You can’t beat a man who keeps getting up!’
Here’s a song I wrote for my children’s musical about my life of faith, named: The Fantastical Inside-Out-Upside-Down Journey of a Rich Little Poor Girl
You Otter Know (verses spoken in the style of Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant/choruses in Sinatra style)
I was walking in the forest
I was feeling all alone
The birds and bees were sleeping,
the weeping willow weeping
Then I heard a little creature
Start moving oh so slow
and the little brook began to play
music with its toes
the woodpecker was keeping time
upon that tall oak tree
and I could not help start dancing
cause I knew it was for me
and as I whirled and twirled about
I came upon a log
and the beaver and the otter (Frank Sinatra style Beaver. Sammy Davis Otter)
were acting more like hogs (pushing each other to get to the log stage with microphone)
and then they each began to croon
they’re words were oh so rare
I stood there for a moment
my foot still in the air
and they sang to me…
You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home)
and the band it just kept playing
and my happy heart did gasp
Cause this was so much better
than that silly talking a**
uhhh donkey
Then my heart it felt so happy
and my eyes at last could see
That though I hadn’t been aware
You’d never once left me
and as I danced on down that path
I swear I sang this song
The one my friends had written,
which had been there all along
and I sang…
You otter know I love you
loved you from the start
(if you’ll beaver me
then I’ll beaver you
You never walk alone)
You otter know I love you
love your precious heart
(beaver me it’s true
I’ve always loved you
You’re never far from home
💞
AL
Ephesians 1:4
Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.
New Living Translation
You don’t have to melt
until you are ready.
Remember this:
Each moil of your unoiled joints,
every numb stiff gristle of resistance,
cramp of anger, clabber of shame,
clot of envy, opinion or belief,
is simply a mass of refusal
contracted into “me,”
a particle afraid to waltz
with its field, a wave
that will not settle to its sea,
a sky who thinks it is a cloud,
I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, and things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and to all things that stand at the doors of my flesh…My question was the gaze I turned to them. Their answer was their beauty.
– St Augustine
Lovers find secret places inside this violent world
Where they make transactions with beauty. – Rumi
Close your eyes.
Fall in love.
Stay there.
– Rumi
We live, shields up,
prepared for battle,
expecting war.
We harden ourselves,
with the best of intentions.
Our best defense is protective prevarication.
Our best offense is distracting laughter.
Violence becomes a way of life.
Tenderness becomes a thing we try to remove from our children
as early as possible.
We think we know this –
if we can control the carnage,
if we don’t allow our weaknesses to drag behind us
like toilet paper stuck to our shoe,
No vulnerabilities allowed to peak out like saggy undergarments.
No imperfections leaking out of our ears or fingertips,
we’ll win.
We got this.
We set life up without possibility of change,
without allowing any new circumstances to come to us…
then love comes
with it’s un-understandable mystery
and finds us not ready.
Who could ever be ready for this?
then we seek places,
benches, beaches, back seats…
places to share with the other.
unexpected moments of joy and connection
find us at newly found secret spots
where shields are lowered,
vulnerability given,
tenderness ruthlessly
invades the moment
and beauty is transacted.
soul’s mingle,
hands touch.
Life gets messy and wet.
Car windows steam up on drizzly mornings
as love comes peeking through
working to melt stony hearts,
to return us to joyful living
these are the moments life was made for,
two souls torn from the same clay,
loving each other for a million years and more,
suddenly find each other within the same moment,
and it takes our breath away.
Life itself is the great sacrament through which we are wounded and healed. If we live everything, life will be faithful to us.
❤️
– John O’Donohue
this birth of awaiting changes
this for that
tit for tat
tuxedo memories
pinstripe debonair
glamour hangs
like confetti in the air
life goes
round and round
flinging dreams
synthetic roads
leading nowhere
screams and laugher
hardest when not fair
up one side now
down the other there
we hang on
we stomp our feet
and swear
this ain’t right
this we cannot bear
life goes forward
ever on and on
wanting only
to change our point of view
we are loved
no matter what we lose
love will win
love always life’s sweet muse
sight or blind
the vision ours to choose
❤️
AL
Men must endure / Their going hence even as their coming hither; / Ripeness is all.
Passion is a feeling that tells you: this is the right thing to do. Nothing can stand in my way. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. This feeling is so good that it cannot be ignored. I’m going to follow my bliss and act upon this glorious sensation of joy.
When we choose indifference, we betray our world. Yet the world is not decided by action alone. It is decided more by consciousness and spirit; they are the secret sources of all action and behavior. The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world. In this way, even in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.
John O’Donohue
Excerpt from
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)
quote by Wayne Dyer
here’s the thing…
what’s a girl to do with all this happiness?
what sort of containers can hold this amount of wild joy?
will howling at the moon help?
or dancing in a beautiful fountain with you?
will you take a back road to see me?
tell me I’m the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen?
will you love me?
living well doesn’t depend on it…
but it would be nice…
to share this happiness with you
do something wild?
spend some beautiful time together
on this beautiful journey?
Let’s allow joy to flow in big puddles all around us,
do some soul dancing,
till we swim in the ocean of all this amazing grace!
💞
AL
Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.
life: acoustic & amplified 