Blog - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Shelf Life: Second Edition

Mid-1300s: Stone walls
confine her. No power,
no plumbing. No hearth.

An anchoress, by choice,
she is bricked in
for life—gruel, heels of bread,
perhaps an apple, daily
passed over the sill.
Waste, handed out.

Door-less, she understands
fear. Isolation and boredom,
restless yearning.
Famine. And persecution.
The Black Plague.

People line up
at her window, seeking
counsel. Mercy.
Her quiet listening heart.

She will become the world’s most famous anchoress—a woman voluntarily locked up to devote her life to prayer for others.

Julian of Norwich, they call her, noted for penning words that comfort me today:

“All shall be well,
and all shall be well,
and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian: Medieval poster child for well-being.

The first woman to write a book in English, she titled it Revelations of the Divine Love. Seven-hundred-some years ago.

Talk about shelf life!

T.S. Eliot quoted her, in The Four Quartets. As have numerous others. To this day, her book ranks with the great spiritual classics.

How might a woman sealed in a stone cell help us today as we shelter in place?

Begin with her body prayer, comprised of four simple (yet pivotal) movements:
Await . . .
Allow . . .
Accept . . .
Attend . . .

Friends, Julian’s body prayer bookends my days in isolation. Sometimes I use it mid-day, as a calming reset between chores. It helps me lean back in my spirit, breathe slowly, inhabit deepening peace.

I could riff on the four words beginning with “A,” but I trust their shelf life. I believe they’ll speak to you if you need them—in their own way, their own time.

I hope you’ll consider adopting, or adapting, Julian’s prayer. You can watch it here.

What simple thought or activity helps you in surreal times?

Read about a 21st century anchoress here.

Photo of hands: Milada Vigerova for Unsplash

Inset of anchoress: A bishop blessing an anchoress, from MS 079: Pontifical, held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (c.1400–10)

Shelf Life: First Edition

by Laurie Klein 20 Chiming In

I am 10 years old. Floor to ceiling, three walls of open windows beckon me. The sun room seems to pulse, summer breezes stirring up dust motes suspended in sunlight.

Angled toward the small lake beyond, the yearning silence of one grand piano.

No one notices me inch away as the realtor ushers my family upstairs, their voices receding.

I close the wall of French doors behind me. I’ve never seen glazed terracotta floor tiles. I slip off my Keds.

For now, I own this echoing chamber.

I ease the bench away from the keyboard. Sink onto the padded surface. Fold back the long, hinged lid: 88 keys. Ivory. Ebony. A playground in B&W.

One stocking foot stretches toward the sustain pedal.

Breath: held. Released.

No “Chopsticks” for me today, no percussive “Night and Day”—this moment calls for arpeggios, and because I didn’t ask anyone’s permission, pianissimo . . .

What half-way musical kid wouldn’t imagine the sold-out concert hall? And who on a summer’s day could lift hand over hand across ivories in brimming light and resist exerting a faster, firmer, more confident touch?

Notes blend like the half-furled petals of color on a pinwheel, spinning the spectrum into ethereal white. Joy effervesces. Time melts . . .

They come to find me, of course. Scolding a little.

***

To this day, I can summon the timeless shimmer of those moments alone at the keys.

If author Frederick Buechner is correct, eternity is neither endless time nor the opposite of time as we experience it. Like that spinning pinwheel that reduces colors to essential white, eternity is the essence of time.

Beyond fathoming. Ever available.

I seldom welcome the extended shelf life of memory when wrenching episodes resurface. They do, however, usually offer an invitation toward further healing.

It’s those replayed moments my soul glimpses God’s abiding presence that rejuvenate and nourish me. The opened door, the readied larder of the soul.

***

In these days of restricted access to people and places, is there a scene from your earlier life—perhaps still throbbing with magic and possibility—that might freshly nurture or inspire you? Perhaps it will awaken a shelved dream you might now have the time to explore.

Your high school aha at the microscope
That winning Little League swing for the fences
A thorny equation, solved
You, reassembling your dad’s radio—no leftover parts
Mixing drops from all your mother’s perfumes for that unforgettable gift on Mother’s Day

I hope you’ll consider inviting me in . . .

***

“God, as Isaiah says (57:15), ‘inhabiteth eternity,’ but stands with one foot in time. The part of time where he stands most particularly is Christ, and thus in Christ we catch a glimpse of what eternity is all about, what God is all about, and what we ourselves are all about too.” —Buechner, Wishful Thinking

Photos: Ebuen Clemente Jr on Unsplash and Clark Young on Unsplash.

You might also enjoy Appointment with Delight (click here)

Hai*Pho — No, it’s not a new entree . . .

by Laurie Klein 24 Chiming In

What on earth is Hai*pho? A fleeting, luminescent marriage: poem and image. Pho-to + Hai-ku.

“So much depends on the light, and the way you squint.” (Margaret Atwood’s astute observation.)

Welcome, friends, to my growing, mid-pandemic gallery. Here’s my first arranged engagement.

MARCH

Snowstorm on the way.
Hope takes a morning ramble
among buttercups.

Matchmaking with lens and keyboard prompts my imagination during our current lockdown. It propels me outside, clad in battery-heated sweatshirt (thank you, Dreamer!) and polka-dot mud boots.

And one blustery day . . . snow boots.

FIRST ROBIN

Cheerio, chirr-up . . .
Icy lacework of twigs and snow—
how the world rallies.

During these surreal times, it’s stimulating to focus on the diminutive Japanese art form. Haiku is nature-based, 3-lines, 17-syllables, arranged thus: 5, then 7, then 5.

It’s terse. Evanescent. Hopefully, memory inducing. And thought provoking.

LIKE US

A pond, locked in ice,
dreams of open water. Oh,
how we need the sun!

Hai*pho aims to grasp the come-hither hem of beauty and truth. Mercurial moods and possible meanings simmer beneath everyday surfaces that surround us.

Break the word down and voila! — a cultural marriage. Hai is Japanese, for “hello” and “yes.” Pho is Vietnamese for “soup.”

Hello . . . soup. O YES!

The pond shot above does have a soupy look. Perhaps hai*pho IS an entree. A little something to nourish hope . . .

EQUINOX

He summons the night
to dance with the dawn: shadows
elbowing sunlight.

How merciful that our hopes and prayers for healing across the wide world coincide with the equinox, emblematic of balance, and Spring, and Lent . . . everything quietly pointing toward Easter.

NEST EGGS

Shells. The fearful crack.
The soft, extended wing. Then . . .
beaks. Songs. All-new songs!

What creative endeavors are keeping you lively during the pandemic? I hope you’ll share in the comments. Who knows what you might spark in the mind and life of another?

“I will show them my wonders.”

—Micah 7:15

Regarding Spin

by Laurie Klein 32 Chiming In

Regarding Spin

Yes, I’m in stuttering health, creatively stalled, and a stranger to my former equilibrium.

Shall I blame ongoing writer’s block?
The pressing needs of loved ones in crisis?
A cherished pet’s decline?

Or, today’s news?
The silent ballot, awaiting my mark?

So many ways to spin it.

Is there such a thing as vertigo of the soul?

If this notion arrests you,
join me in imagining yourself

CLAY, ruthlessly wedged,
kneaded, those oh-so-persuasive
hands of the Potter
pinpointing your wayward grit,
and my hidden bubbles of air,
every last, extraneous gasp
p-r-e-s-s-e-d out, until
we are dense, compressed.
Warmed, and waiting.

Quieted. Secretive.

For here’s the geological truth: clay
stores up forgotten light
(so many small deaths, over time,
enriching the soil).

There’s only one way
to get clay on the wheel. Splat!

Kickstart and rotation ensue.
There is wobble and slippage,
exertion and whirl.

Discarded sludge.

And all the while, God’s muddied
palms enclose and imprint us,
with seemingly merciless thumbs.

Yet notice one wrenching,
centrifugal truth:
out-of kilter
clay, by its nature, wants
to fly off the wheel.

Ask any potter. Clay has a mind of its own.

I resist,
muscle my way
toward my own reinvention.

“Oh, good save,” friends say,
as if we can salvage, well,
almost anything.

Here’s another spin:

Today, the word of the LORD comes—
“Like clay in the hand of the potter,
so are you in my hand”—words
echoed by physics:
and we’re talking stillness now,
stillness perfected in motion.

For see how the clay finally rests,
with nary a wobble:

centered,
balanced,
perfectly earthed.

Adios, ego.

Hello, promise.

Dear Shaper of Clay,
temper today’s pressures and
questions and dizzy thrum.
May grace evoke nothing
less than
surrender, as the wheel spins.

Friends, your prayers for our daughter’s surgery and subsequent recovery were wonderfully answered. Thank you, again!

Photo: Quino Al on Unsplash

Sketchy Directions

by Laurie Klein 33 Chiming In

I follow the GPS cues
exactly (leaving home
early, just in case).

I’ve enrolled in an evening workshop: “Reflections and Intentions.” En route, I’m haunted by a Jan Richardson poem.

Travel the most ancient way of all, Richardson writes.
. . .
No map
but the one
you make yourself.

“Your destination,”
my GPS voice intones
(digitally confident and
almost smug),
“is on your left.”

Actually, no. It is not there.

Nor is it kitty-corner, adjacent, or around the back.

I cruise nearby alleys. Now what?

Welcome detours as doors deeper in.

Well, the most promising building in the vicinity contains numerous offices.

Once inside the building, I wander down halls seeking the combined classroom, Suites 101 and 102.

And there they are: on the other side of a windowed door with a keypad lock.

You have looked
at so many doors
with longing,
wondering if your life
lay on the other side.

How easily the door swings open.

Six doors flank the new hallway. I head for Suites 101-102. Then, an ominous click as the door I just came through, now one way only, automatically locks behind me.

I turn the handles of Suite 101, then 102—then give them each a hard shake. Locked. So, right room numbers, wrong building. Unless class is cancelled?

Even the outside Exit is locked.

Help, I’m trapped in a Metaphor for Life.

Wait, one door’s slightly ajar. A restroom.

Oh, please. Would YOU feel like resting?

A person can leave home in good faith.
You’ve done this, haven’t you?
You allow ample travel time,
follow directions, and end up . . . stranded.

And there you are, praying. I recently learned the most ancient prayer of all.

Richard Rohr reminded me that the Hebrew consonants used to spell God’s name—so sacred it is never to be spoken aloud—are visually rendered “YHWH.”

When correctly pronounced, Rohr adds, these consonants do not require movement of the tongue and lips. The gentle sounds replicate breath: (YH) inhalation, then (WH) exhalation. Each breath, lightly sketched. A different, deeper kind of direction.

“The first name you spoke, upon birth, was God’s name,” Rohr declares.

“The last breath you take will be the name of God. It’s the one thing you’ve done constantly.” (See video clip, below)

Friends, this is the most calming prayer I know. And every in-between, stuck place seems an ideal setting for it.

For today, choose the door
that opens to the inside.

Not too long afterward, a barista engaged in after-hours clean-up discovers me. She ushers me through the closed coffee shop. She Googles a map on her phone, then kindly points me in the right direction, not far after all.

Once again, the way forward proves unexpected. And, ultimately, timely.

What calms and re-centers you when you’re surrounded by closed doors?

Friends, last week I shared the YHWH prayer with our daughter, Kristin, who was hospitalized for acute, undiagnosed pain. I’ll be praying it again this coming week, Monday, January 20th, as she undergoes yet another surgery.

We’d be grateful for your prayers.

Let me know how I can pray for you?

“The Map You Make Yourself,” Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace

Listen to Richard Rohr here: “Becoming Stillness” (begin at 45:52 on videotape)

Photo: Mark Cruz on Unsplash

“I will show them my wonders.”

Regarding Spin

If this notion arrests you, join me in imagining yourself

Here’s another spin:

If this notion arrests you,
join me in imagining yourself