Laurie Klein, Scribe

immerse in God, emerge refreshed

Little Things: Between Noels, Part I

by 14 Chiming In

Little things . . . Once upon a yard, I collected maple samaras. Ladybugs. Pea-sized mystery-spheres I found under shrubs — until Dad explained bunny droppings.

To this day, I still watch for meaning amid the miniscule.

Friends, here we are again, between Noels, past and pending. I’ve been reading about creatures that might have shared that long-ago Holy Night. Welcome to “Little Things: Between Noels, Part I (of IV).”

Because little things are a mixed bag.

For instance: Years ago, after our daughter returned from a mission trip tormented by hatching head lice, Dreamer and I spent hours combing sticky nits from strand after strand of her thick hair.

Parental love to the rescue — liberating one cherished, vulnerable scalp.

Aesop said, “No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted.”

Do our grown children remember our past, painstaking efforts? To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, When little things afflict us, even small actions can console us.

Two sisters in Holland, arrested for rescuing Jews during WWII, were remanded to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In Barracks 28, the ten Boom girls slept on reeking pallets swarming with fleas. Their prayers of gratitude for being alive and together included repeated pleas for relief from the infestation.

The vermin, however, thrived.

And those blood-sucking parasites? Turns out, they repelled sadistic prison guards. No inspections. No beatings. No rapes.

Compassion to the rescue — paradoxically — via pestilence.

So consider the likelihood of itch mites infesting Bethlehem straw: Some types bite; others burrow beneath the skin and lay eggs, causing a contagious, festering rash.

Did they forgo their nature and leave baby Jesus in peace? Oh, I hope so! And if not, do mites possess any redeeming qualities?

I Google . . . and find . . . no crucial link in the food chain, no rare source of protein, no secret component to help cure disease.

And yet. The utterly despised were granted proximity to Emmanuel, God with us. Compassionate, cherishing Love vulnerably offered to all creation — no matter how repellent or negligible.

Sometimes, it’s the little things. Head lice, fleas, itch mites — one Creator, three ordeals. Head-scratchers, all. Like the teachings of Jesus: If you want to be first, embrace being last. Find yourself by losing yourself.

Truth nips: It gets under our skin and bides its time, hatching later perhaps, as revelation.

Merciful, mysterious God, thank you for your enduring forbearance and endless largesse — embodied for us through, and in spite of, so many little things.

Friend, where might a dash of compassion take you next?

“Anyone who thinks they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room.”   —The Dalai Lama

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Flea story here

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

You might also enjoy “Small but Mighty”

Turbulence & a Trail of Crumbs

by 23 Chiming In

I stumble into it— amid the chaotic, semi-darkness of dread. During a week of wars and rumors of war, political mayhem, and monstrous weather, I glimpse, like Gretel and her brother escaping the grim fairy tale forest, a subtle map . . .

. . . in my case, a design covertly laid down for me to trace, akin to bread crumbs marking the way home. Where hope lives.

Patterns: I hunt them, love them. Armed with a camera I’m the one belly-down in the dust framing shots of thousand-year-old lichens, scaly doilies of living graffiti.

Dreamer’s the guy on a ledge seeking vistas and panoramas — ideally, with moody skies and mountains.

Twyla Tharp, eminent dancer and choreographer, believes we all like to take in the world from our preferred focal length. If I had vanity plates, they’d read Z00000M.

Recognizing patterns delights me. Discovery can redirect my angst, make me believe under-the-radar love is still at work, brilliantly choreographing possibilities. Invitations.

Or is it coincidence?

In a week of worldwide upheaval, a trail of crumbs points me toward renewed hope.

A friend forwards an announcement: the immersive Vincent van Gogh exhibit’s in town.

Dreamer and I and one of our daughters immerse: WOW! Vividly exuberant, sometimes wrenching, wall-to-wall-to-ceiling-to-floor imagery — unfolding via ingenious, computerized motion — swirls around us in glorious patterns. And vital breaks in the pattern, which further intrigues a viewer’s eye.

Family photo-op: We pose with a reproduction of “The Starry Night” as backdrop. The photo now resides on our fridge. As if we are still living inside the painting.

turbulence & harmony

News items yesterday: French and Chinese researchers have analyzed van Gogh’s “The Starry Night,” including color choices, brushwork, and the roiling, celestial panorama. Turns out the images intuitively follow the mathematical theory of flow patterns, kinetic energy, and turbulence — discovered 52 years after the tormented artist expressed, in paint, these very equations.

Fourteen of the vibrant swirls and the spaces between them closely align with Russian mathematician Kolmogorov’s theory of turbulence.

“Turbulent flows are a frequent occurrence in everyday life,” Yongxiang Huang says.

We see them in time-lapse cloudscapes, a gushing hose, and river eddies.

Van Gogh’s smaller brushstrokes mirror another law related to turbulence, called Batchelor scaling, which describes the way fluids mix. Picture Joni Mitchell’s “oil on the puddles in taffeta patterns that run down the lanes.”

How do things like this happen? Vincent, in his final year, amid schizophrenia’s disordered thinking, glimpsed a truth about nature yet to be identified and explained. He followed a trail of crumbs to see where it led. Living in a psychiatric asylum at the time, he could not have framed the imagined scene for us, in our day, without his particular sensibilities and turbulence at work in the world.

Astronomer Janna Levin says “There’s no star, besides our sun, close enough to look like anything but a twinkle.” She adds, “The only reason it twinkles is because of the turbulent air ….”

That luminous shape in “The Starry Night,” near the horizon? Most likely Venus.

Turbulence enables us to perceive light. Beauty in motion. Order beneath chaos.

Our world keeps shifting like mad. Thank God for every crumb that leads us toward a brighter outlook!

Friends, the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Turbulence ahead . . .

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Do patterns delight you? In what ways have they altered your outlook?

LINKS: high-resolution scan by Yinxiang Ma: “The Starry Night,” accessed via Google Arts and Culture. More info here

You might also enjoy “Each Day’s Election,” from the archives

Photo, courtesy of Vincent (and exhibit personnel)

 

Statio: Any Given Moment

by 13 Chiming In

Statio: Latin, noun . . .

Wait, let me begin again, in English. And let’s take the scenic route.

Take that mystery B&B bedding—last week, on our anniversary. No, it wasn’t flannel or linen. Ditto T-shirty jersey. Not to mention slide-right-off-the-side satin.

I’d never felt anything like it: sleek, lightweight warmth, yet cool to the touch, deliciously crisp. An all-over caress.

statio

Sometimes what passes through our fingertips or settles over our skin affects more than the body.

In our times of industrial looms, stories like these offer a fresh twist on “material witness.”

Might there be a spiritual parallel to modern factory thread counts?  

The number of threads per square inch indicates quality. Fibers closely woven in a “criss-cross, over-under pattern” known as “percale” create breathable lightness, surprisingly durable. Like the sheets at the B&B.

Like the qualities of a yielded life.

Which brings us to statio, an ancient monastic practice still lovingly observed today. Imagine a small devotional segue between activities: “the time between times,” as Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B., says. “If I am present to a child before I dress her, then the dressing becomes an act of creation. If I am present to my spouse in the living room, then marriage becomes an act of divine communion. If I am present to the flower before I cut it, then life becomes precious.”

Statio prayer is a mesh we weave: invisible, real, often wordless.

Any given moment will do—time offered to God even as we receive it from God. 

How? Well, pause invites repose. Eyes closed, I focus on deepening breath (rather than headlong thoughts). Then . . .
Criss-cross, over and under . . .

  • I might add an audible sigh of surrender; receive an intake of grace
  • Or I physicalize yielding: cross hands over heart, then extend top hand, palm down, cradle it with bottom hand, palm up
  • A whisper works, too: “Here am I, great I AM.”

Disrupting momentum’s urgency, we can practice reset between one task and the next. The more often we pause, the closer our “threads of connection” align. We live more consciously.

Clearing the mind, even briefly, calms the soul, clothes us in peace.

Half a century ago, I wove Dreamer’s wedding shirt: cotton warp, twisted linen and silk strands, with raw wool feathered into select rows, as accents. Distinctive texture. Terrible snags! Fragile silk went full bedhead: knots, static, split ends—triggering my temper—stupid snarl! I wanted to hack everything off the loom.

Forget blessing my beloved.

Likewise, when a physical fever afflicts us, we fling off the sheets. Then, chilled, we scramble back into them knowing they’ll hold us; rewarm us; an all-over caress.

Can statio happen here, in the hard places—in that fractional moment before our next action? Perhaps it’s as basic as gratefulness we can do something, anything . . . or not . . . at peace either way.

Is this how we “criss-cross, over and under, percale” a day? What stops us from realigning with God’s presence before reaching outward?

Lord, you inhabit every fractional space,
the time between times,
betwixt words,
amid each inhale and exhale,
one foot’s lift and the other’s step . . .

Friends, will you join me? We could start small: a statio prayer before we rise, as we dress, after making the bed.

How else might you proceed . . . now, as the season turns?

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“Listen to the tale the threads of your life have woven.” —Sarah Ban Breathnach

For more ideas on statio prayer, click here.

You might also enjoy this, from the archives.

Chittister, Joan. 1990. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 176-178.

Photo by Alif Caesar Rizqi Pratama on Unsplash

 

 

Called by Name

by 12 Chiming In

Called by Name

Sometimes a story comes my way. It’s not about me. And then, somehow, it is. When I pay attention, a personal longing or loss—often yet to be named—flickers. And sometimes, flares. Which gets me thinking. Maybe this marvelous tale will kindle something in you.

Called by Name, like a match, flaring

Called by Name

For Aiden
(noun, Irish, meaning “Little Fire”)

Baby Aiden sits on a rug the color of embers,
snapped into a onesie
gray as a mourning dove’s wing:
a blue-eyed boy with stones for ears.

What about lullabies
and Mother Goose? Or incoming surf?
Will he ever thrill to applause,
hear a footloose puppy’s joyous arf?

And Aiden’s people, after tears
and surgical tubes, after the draining
and praying and waiting: what then?
“Aiden,” his mama calls, yet again.

A slow-motion blink, his gaze
turning pure flame, wide
toothless grin—he’s hearing, hearing
his name, his bold, beautiful, blazing name.

***

I’ve watched Aiden’s moment on video, over and over: the palpable flash of revelation—the child’s face, pure wonder!—then his whole body responding, exuberant, knees and hands padding forward.

Consider, for a moment, our names, inscribed on the hands of Christ.

If you’ve been reading this blog as well as the comments over the past few years, you will have encountered Aiden’s grandpa, a man who memorably names what moves him. He recently told me the long months of waiting and praying for Aiden have been good—in part, for the empathy gained, and for the hope of comforting others who are suffering. This family truly understands being called by name.

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Juliet asked.

Picture a certain garden, on Easter. Among the risen Rabbi’s first recorded words, one noun stands out: “Mary.”

Chosen. Known. Named.

What if the Savior calls our name today, and we hear it as if for the first time?

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From the archives: You might also enjoy Gaiety . . . to Go

And Open Sesame

Baby’s ear Photo by Laura Ohlman on Unsplash

Flaring match Photo by Elia Mazzaro on Unsplash

 

Which Way

by 22 Chiming In

Which Way?

Picture a big hollow stump, underwater: flat rim, heart rotted out. Two barefoot girls can straddle the edge, toes curled. They must steady each other when fish eggs slime the surface, catch hold of each other when waves wash in.

Using the stump as a platform, my childhood friend and I invented a game: “Spur-of-the-Moments.”

  1. Hold your breath
  2. Submerge, jackknifing knees
  3. Rocket skyward, striking multiple poses (points for the zaniest)
  4. Ta-da! Splashdown

Failure to stick the landing meant flailing through milfoil, and muck, snootfuls of billowing silt, moments of sputtering.

Twisting, mid-leap, sometimes I lost my bearings. Which way was home?

Jump cut to current politics: nationwide waves of dismay, hope, anger, dread, triumph, loss. An old tongue twister comes to mind: A skunk sat on a stump. The skunk thunk the stump stunk; but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

Which way is up?

My pastor reminds me, “What God builds will last.”

Despite urgency, transitory players, perceived obstacles. Despite hollow declarations and erosive backchat. Threats and reprisals. Fluid truth.

Generous God, give me the long view.

For me, yearning for what’s eternal means trust plus action:

eschew fear,
enact contagious kindness,
emulate bold hope.

In other words, align with the life and teachings of Christ, whose earthly days among friends and foes alike both inspire and challenge me. Sometimes hourly.

The old stump game was wildly impulsive: hasty, unthinking, rash. Also . . . fun. Somewhere between my best impulse and worst reactions there must be a potent, if precarious, balance point. A shot at delight. Freedom from feeling grieved, angry, jaded. Daily diminished by worry.

Perhaps a prayer for graced spontaneity?

Dear Maker and Lover of Trees, grow my integrity—minus distortion and irony. Grant me taproot faith when the figurative waters around me deepen and roil. 

Here’s how The Message voices the Savior’s concern for us:

“Are you tired? Worn out? . . .
Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
“Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (Matt. 11:28-29).

Harder times ahead seem inevitable. How I appreciate upbeat friends like you! Your comments and presence buoy my spirits—no matter what fellow voters decide or who wins public office.

Sediment happens. Amid the campaign muckraking, let’s point each other toward calm waters. No need to be sucked under. Let’s seek wisdom. Love well. Then, take the next leap.

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on
toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing,
but encouraging one another—and all the more
as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV).

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Amid candidates out stumping and hair-trigger tensions smoldering, which way is home? What helps you, en route, to sustain balance?

You might also enjoy:

Upbeat People, Unsung Transitions

Regarding Spin

Which way now?

Underwater: Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Chipmunk in hollow stump: Photo by Leila Boujnane on Unsplash