Blog - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Sometimes We Need to Dwell on the Ledge

Dwell on the LEDGE? That can’t be right.

I want off!

Worry has me on robo-call.

It knows my address.

What am I dwelling on? Upcoming (and unnerving) opportunities to present my book, House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life. How do I “rest in the Lord” while also braving the little dog-and-pony show (read, generating publicity), which authors must face?

The learning curve feels like Everest! There’s a lot one can DO to promote a new title.

And I have questions: First, there’s this:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Col. 3:23) …

BUT ALSO, THIS …

“God said, ‘This is the resting place, let the weary rest’ [as in, simply be] …
BUT they would not listen.
So then, the word of the LORD to them will become: ‘Do and do and do, here a little, there a little . . . ’” (Is. 28:12, 13).

Even more alarming, Isaiah’s warning continues, declaring those who refuse to rest will be “broken, ensnared, and captured by enemies.”

Do. Be. Two verbs. A dynamic duo. Like Martha and Mary of old, we alternate between them.

For me, lurching between these differing energies rekindles that foot-buzz friction point while engaging the clutch during driver’s ed.

What’s a person to do?

Homonyms to the rescue!

Did you know “dew” is also a verb? Fleeting, organic, refreshing — natural condensation (morning and evening) bejewels, or “dews,” everything in its path. Magnifying what’s real. Reflecting the light.

Sometimes, we need to dwell on the ledge. For a while. Next time I rev up to DO something, I’m going to picture tranquil, shimmering dew.

Meanwhile, I came up with this — D.W.E.L.L. — (acrostic self-talk) — to help me rest in God’s presence. With each slow inhale and exhale I silently hold in mind the following word(s) or syllable(s). Then I repeat, as needed.

Dwell on the Ledge:

Deep … breath / Deeper … still

Wait … now / Re- … fill

Em … brace / each ex- … hale

Let … go / Let … God lead

Love … is all!

Friends, what eases YOU on (or off ) the ledge?

Thank you for your prayers and thank you to those who ordered a book. Should you feel in-Kleined, a (sentence-or-two) reader review on Amazon would be of great help in getting word out about the book.

May I read you some of it? . . . See opportunities below:

Four celebratory audio opportunities

1. If you’re near Spokane: JOIN ME Sunday April 28, 2:00 – 3:00 PT in the Genesis Center at Colbert Presbyterian Church, 4211 E. Colbert Road, Colbert, WA
A little live music, a spirited reading, and a free book, in gratitude, for anyone who donates to Habitat for Humanity-Spokane.

2. If you’re far away: JOIN REMOTELY, Sunday April 28, 2:00 – 3:00 PT: click the livestream option here: https://www.colbertpres.org/ (The recording may be archived for listening later.)

3. If you’re reading the book and have questions: CHECK OUT “House of 49 Doors: KPBX author interview” (scroll to April 11 session): https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/show/thursday-arts-preview

4. If you’re on Facebook, you can sign up for a dual zoom book launch: “SICKNESS, SECRETS & COURAGE”: Saturday May 4, 9:00 – 10:15 a.m. PT. I’ll be reading along with two gifted friends: Susan Cowger, author of HAWK & SONGBIRD, and Marjorie Maddox, prolific author (20 books!), professor, editor, and mentor. Marjorie will also moderate discussion. (I’ll read different poems than those slated for April 28.) We three would love to see you there! Please preregister to attend: https://commonwealthu-edu.zoom.us/…/tJwod…

(If we’re friends on Facebook, you can also go to my name here: scroll to graphic “Sickness, Secrets & Courage”: click on it and register using the link there.

You’ll receive an email on May 4 with the link to join the zoom meeting.)

Boot on ledge: Photo by Arūnas Naujokas on Unsplash

Confetti: erik-brolin-sp7ir7Xrs9U-unsplash

Klein photo: leaf with dew

Suspended

by Laurie Klein 18 Chiming In

We think we know rain . . .

But listen! What is that?
Icy hammers striking a steel roof?
A sideways, rattlepane squall?

Rain pelts forest, suddenly backlit as if by flood lights. April’s quicksilver theater beckons. How swiftly the downpour escalates, sluicing through tangled birch and fir—a sky-funneled deluge within a shaft of light so charged, so electrifying, I can’t look away.

Twigs festooned with bearded lichens tremble, weighted with liquid gems: winking sapphire, emerald, fuchsia. Gold. Branches upholstered in moss seep. So many big bright tears.

And still the celestial light dazzles, half-blinding, and the heart lifts, awash, as if somehow suspended outside time and yet . . .
purely here . . .
even as sun-warmed water across our planet keeps rising as mist, falling as sleet, crystallizing as snowdrift. Pond ice. Permafrost.

Think of it! Every trace of water—primal and present since the beginning—lingers on: from the face of the deep to the rivers of Eden, from the tears of Christ to these glints of glory.

Transcendence. Is this what I long for?

A shiver runs down my spine. I feel weightless, suspended. Nudged toward change. Or an insight. Something hovers, something divine, surpassing life’s normal limitations. I am here, trying to take it all in. No need to earn this fleeting gift, no pressure to prove myself, no price to be paid. I needn’t be one iota wiser or kinder, less guilty or more organized. I am enough as is, enveloped for now in rain-lit grace.

Later perhaps, I’ll retain an impression, an after-image. An internalized sweep of reverence to be relived.

Any moment it might swim up
into my consciousness,
leave me buoyed afresh with marvel . . .

How do we recognize a transcendent moment . . . and our place within it?

Suspended raindrop: Photo by Ed Leszczynskl on Unsplash
Grass: Photo by Thomas Couillard on Unsplash

Did you know it’s National Poetry Month? Heartfelt thanks to all who ordered House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life. If you need a gift for a poetry lover, the 40% off discount is still available here. Coupon code: DOORS.

House of 49 Doors: Entries in a Life

by Laurie Klein 31 Chiming In

House of 49 Doors is here!

Thank you, friends, for your prayers!

As with any vast project finally completed despite the odds, a recap might hearten us all amid our current — and coming — ventures.

January 2016:

Note to self: Another book? Never. Dodge — no, shun . . .

that ego trap
that marathon of minutiae
that +10 score on the poet pain scale

July 2022:

The email pings: an editor I admire.

“Dear Laurie:
I would be pleased to review another manuscript.”

Oh dear. No matter our field of endeavor, whenever we risk nurturing a new “brainchild,” insecurities clamor. Who am I to try? Or, Too little, too late. Too old. Too costly. (Read, Get out while you can.)

“Send it on when you’re ready.”

Did I have a book’s-worth of poems in me? Not likely. I felt steamrolled by politics, aging, loved ones in crisis, shocking weather, the state of my floors . . .

I missed the good ole days.

Hang on . . . I could resurrect the quasi-magical house of my childhood. The one with the turquoise door. Coax out my kid-self.

Would she talk on the page?

July 2022 – January 2024:

She did. As if awaiting my summons.

I named her Kid Larkin.

Eldergirl, sixty years her senior, replied. At times, the two voices entwined, mutually probing memory’s alchemy.

If poetry seems alarming, be not dismayed. House of 49 Doors unfolds like a story. Or a memoir. (If it didn’t sound so daft, I’d call it a novel-ish poemoir.)

A lot of words did NOT make the cut. The ones that did bear witness to wonder . . . threaded within and around a trauma I’d hoped to never relive.

Which sounds grim. Revived delights abound. The house speaks, with a shapely, three-story voice. The backyard muskrat expounds on family life. A menacing garfish models self-esteem. Even a maligned vesper bat chimes in via echolocation.

Turns out they all knew things I needed to read . . . so I could heal.

Most of the poems locate themselves on the premises or in beloved rooms. Hence, my title:

My intrepid sister located the circa-1950s photo of our house, taken by our long-ago neighbor, Lester Smith. She also double-checked the door count with me. (Try this with a sibling! Decant the memories . . .) Enhanced by masterful artist, Shannon Carter, the cover beautifully captures the enigma of shadows and shelter.

To revisit three years in that wondrous house made me willing to look when Kid Larkin insisted on excavating a family secret: the story of my childhood hero, beloved Uncle Dunkel, an army vet whose inborn joie d’vivre valiantly resisted his post-war death wish . . .

Until it didn’t.

And I was told too much, then told to keep it secret.

Sixty years later, Eldergirl finally let herself feel emotions long-denied. Such are the cathartic gifts of time, distance, grace. Art.

Is this part of putting one’s house in order?

Friends, I have glimpsed God’s interventions as never before.

“New every morning,” Dreamer recently quipped, quoting Lamentations.

In my head, though, I heard Kid Larkin: Shazam! YOU are new every morning.

You. Me. Each of us an ever-glowing, work-in-promise.

Paul’s verb choice in Ephesians 5:18b can be translated, “Be ye, being filled with the Spirit.”

So how about Be ye, being . . . made new?

Amid devastation there moves an unforeseen grace: the Great Mystery at work — even among the skeletons in our closets.

Is there a “next endeavor” we’re resisting?

Dare we take on a project too big for us?

Years ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes warned, “Many people die with their music still in them.”

Some will do best within a controlled sphere: perhaps in the wings, at work, or privately, in transit, or at home. Some will go public. It’s costly to translate part of oneself into a separate entity, then send it forth. We face evaluation by strangers. No matter the venue, the creator’s heart . . . still breakable. The proffered work . . . un-take-back-able.

Risky.

BUT it’s (still) a new year. You are newly new.

Friends, how will you put your house in order?

February 28, 2024:

House of 49 Doors published Leap Day Eve. Which seems fitting.

It still makes me grin. And cry. It helped me heal. It might help others. That’s why I mention it. Should you wish to explore it further, there’s currently a 40% discount available only from my publisher. Here’s the link. Click BUY, Select your country, Click add coupon,” type in DOORS. https://wipfandstock.com/9798385208067/house-of-49-doors/

And here’s the link on Amazon.

525,600 Minutes

by Laurie Klein 16 Chiming In

525, 600 minutes. Friends, how will we measure life this year?

Every day I hear “Seasons of Love,” by songwriter Jonathan Larson, pose that question. Poignant theme, catchy tune.

The little earworm with a big heart.

Dreamer has it on loop, so he can rehearse it. He and our oldest daughter will be auditioning for an ensemble within the Whitworth Community Chorale. We’ll all sing this April at the swankiest venue in town.

To perform again with our girl . . . in our seventies — the so-called exit-lane, I mean, on-ramp years (because . . . heaven, right?) — bowls me over.

For now, my seasons of love are earthbound, and I hold these fleeting moments dear.

525,600 minutes . . . The musical groove replays. Caught up in the syncopation, I have a mini-epiphany: it’s Leap Year; we have 527, 000 minutes!

Remember that small discrepancy between global calendars and earth’s orbit around the sun? A measly quarter-hour difference, over decades, will throw off the seasons. Think crops. Holidays. Travel schedules. Nearly every four years, we have to adjust.

We are making up for lost time.

How? A full day: sheer windfall.

I’m planning a day-treat — more doable on short notice than a personal retreat. If I schedule it in the next couple weeks, I’ll join almost 5 million “leaplings” (those born on February 29) as they prepare for the quasi-rarified observance of their birth.

So much constellates around that idea: birth . . .

Why not re-sync with the heavens?

Choose an ordinary day to reenter the timeless, friends — one spacious enough to absorb the “awe behind the obvious” as Rick Rubin puts it.

I enjoy shifting artfully numbered wood blocks on my universal calendar. “All my times are in your hands,” I murmur, as the new numeral faces front. I’ll start my day-treat there.

I might page through old albums. Lately, God is reviving my past (a kind of retrofitting, perhaps?), bringing the trusted model up to date.

I’ll lean into my favorite breath prayer throughout the day (see below).

Turns out the word “inspiration,” from the Latin inspirare, means “to breathe life into.” Notice that last syllable: rare? A definition far older than I am translates inspirare as “the immediate influence of the divine.”

Time is more layered than we think. Unresolved questions lurk there, often skewing our current worldview. I could write a book about that. And did (update below).

Plan your day-treat or, if you prefer, wake up and be deliciously spontaneous each given hour.

Grab a candle. Strike a match. Allow that brief singe and flare to usher you somewhere.

Friends, share one thing you’d love to do on your day-treat . . .

Trinity Wick Breath Prayer: from the archives.

Paced for the cadence of a relaxed breath, pray the first half of each line on the inhale; the second half on the exhale. watch for what kindles within.

(inhale) Holy God: (exhale) commune with me
Perfect Love: suffuse me
Light of the World: illumine me

(extinguish match to the following words)

Three-in-One . . . I, in Thee
Here am I, use me

“Seasons of Love,” by Jonathan Larson (525,600 minutes), from the musical Rent

Rick Rubin: The Creative Act: a Way of Being

Photo by Rachael Crowe on Unsplash

Sneak preview, back cover. Might have books in mid-March!

Inspiration & Blues

by Laurie Klein 25 Chiming In

Inspiration pops up in the oddest places. I just discovered a new-to-me color: International Klein Blue (aka IKB).

Picture velvety, seemingly bottomless depths of pure ultramarine.

It’s rich. Enigmatic. Alluring.

This pigment, chemically innovative from its beginnings, can appear to hover — as if breathing just above a surface.

Think about Genesis: the Spirit brooding over the waters.

And how “inspiration” also defines a life-giving inhale . . .

This earthly hue was first mixed into existence, midcentury, by French artist Yves Klein.

Some say he wanted to “represent the transcendent.”

A life inspiration!

In three words, how would I phrase mine? Turns out, I needed three tries.

Make things beautiful.

Listen, with love.

Repair via prayer.

Yves Klein, at nineteen, went for a walk on the beach and chose the sky as his territory.

At seventy-three, I need a smaller canvas.

When I was seven (the year Yves patented IKB), my parents packed our belongings. We moved to a bigger house, two blocks down the street.

Thanks to my mother’s passion and daring, we were soon entering our new home through a blue “statement” door — vibrant turquoise, to be exact.

Might as well have been neon. Strangers stared; neighbors shielded their eyes and pointed.

SO embarrassing.

How did I miss glimpsing the transcendent beyond when I swung open that blue blue door?

Now I want to say, “Brava, Mom!”

Friends, how will we color everyday life for those we love in ways that will hover — still vaguely present perhaps, even after we’re gone?

What if this year, no matter our age or resources, we pursue fresh inspiration with the best of our lives?

I’ll be wearing blue, of course.

Inspiration — wherever we find it, however it finds us — is pure gift. Anyone game to try wrapping three words around it?

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear about it . . .

Read more about Yves Klein and see his famous color here:

You might like this, from the archives: Benediction in Blue

Man with Umbrella Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash