Immersions Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Whistle Pig

May’s winding down. I’ve launched a passel of heart-wrung essays and poems into cyberspace and now await editors’ yeas or nays. Waiting. Waiting. Yes, I get twitchy.

“Good Spirit,” I prayed this morning, “have your way. And please, send a blog idea.”

A marmot arrived.

In our front yard.

Think upsized squirrel, with teeth that keep growing
Think savvy trickster with a droll silhouette
Intrepid tunneller / whistler / survivor of storms

Turns out these pudgier cousins to groundhogs and woodchucks arise, in May, from six months of hibernation. Seeking a mate.

Well, this one’s gonna be lonesome. After 32 years in our cedar house on the hill, this is our first visitation.

In nearby Spokane, there are colonies of them, downtown, near the river. Out here? Never.

The nickname whistle pig (for the distinctive warning call) feels undignified for an animal viewed as a wisdom keeper by some Native American tribes. Some Africans view them as agents of healing.

Christians feature them in their artwork and literature; they also malign them as symbols of gluttony.

(Gulp. While researching the critters, I binge-ate four lunch bag servings of Cheetos today.)

So. Perhaps, a heaven-sent warning?

BUT THIS . . . stopped me:

An encounter with a marmot can be read
as a sign of forthcoming assistance
in a big endeavor.

Fanciful? Perhaps. But I’m on the cusp of submitting a full-length manuscript of poems to a most excellent editor. Except . . . I’ve stalled out. Several hundred hours have gone into this project already over the past year. If the publisher accepts it, then there’s the expected undertaking of marketing and publicity—undertaking, as in engaging with certain death. I am abysmal at business.

Since the marmot feels “sent,” might this be a good-humored nudge to . . . finish up already, and hit “Send”?

“The Marmot is also a reminder that we should never give up on our dreams and goals,” writes Andy Willis, “no matter how difficult they may seem.”

Now that I can take on board. How about you? Can I join you in prayer for your current undertaking?

How do you cope with looming expectations when you feel inadequate for the task? I could really use help on this. And prayer!

P.S. Speaking of fanciful, here’s a poem I wrote several years ago, from a marmot’s point of view.

Whistle Pig Polka Beneath the Monroe Street Bridge

My fellow tunnel junkie, old twinkle-toes Hans,
warms up in our downtown digs. Too bad
Spokane’s first wooden bridge turned itself
into cinders, sifting across the gorge. These days
reinforced concrete, blithe as a skipped stone,
curves across the river like marmot ears. All-day
roar of the waves plus traffic—who hears the small
footfalls, dancing across our triple arch stage
long as 448 of us, laid out, snout to tail?

Ask any oompah-loving rodent playing the tuba,
or mini-concertina (wheezing beneath the cars
with Bohemian flair): hop-steps, close-steps,
claw-foot twirl—duple time fires the blood!
As to those chewed car wires, and the occasional
neighborhood landscape binge, Hans decrees
we all carb load. Half our lives are spent
dreaming up choreography during hibernation.
Some of us want to believe a bridge is forever.

Appeared in Spokane Writes, 2017

Whistle Pig on the Run — Dreamer’s Action Capture

Feature Photo by Eli Allan on Unsplash

Classic pose with log Photo by Miguel Teirlinck on Unsplash

“On the run,” courtesy of Dreamer, who first spotted our guest

Flourish!

by Laurie Klein 19 Chiming In

Flourish . . .

The amaryllis bulb was an Advent gift: scarlet lilies-in-waiting. Yet this one, the size of my fist, was dirt-less and nearly airless, sheathed in beige wax.

Would it grow?

Forced blooms perform out of season, indoors, often far from their natural habitat. Over the years, I’ve tended potted amaryllis. During months of overcast skies, they suggest Spring will again effervesce.

Within days, the first leaf knifed upward. A green bulge followed atop a stem that eventually separated into four elongated buds at right angles, each one shapely as a calligrapher’s flourish.

Red petals flared, a visual fanfare like living fireworks.

Then . . . a second stem, another quartet of six-pointed stars. It seemed a parable-in-progress: as in, we carry within what we need to blossom.

I lopped off wilt but left the waxy coating intact: one bulb, no water, nothing to feed on — save itself.

A few weeks later, six (6!) additional buds crowned stem number three. That’s rare!

Lately, my heroic bulb — now tamped into soil — is eking out rootlets, launching new leaves.

Sometimes we mortals seem to blossom overnight. We call this a breakthrough. An epiphany. A veil lifts, and fresh insight bowls us over, perhaps via glimpses of mercy, mirth, beauty, or truth. The revelation is quick.

We use the word “quickening” to describe that first stirring of the fetus curled in the womb. In a moment, life ignites. As with plants, so with people: verve generates roots and blooms.

But then come the gradual, wearing forces of heartbreak, soul erosion, physical breakdown. What then?

We may feel deprived, perhaps curtailed as my holiday bulb. Yet hope beckons. We learn new ways to weather impediments, outlast their strictures. A season of imposed limitations can also evoke unexpected creativity, break us open in glorious ways.

Will we also store up strength for the future?

My amaryllis bulb must endure being sidelined, for months, to flower again — some fortitude required.

Writer Mark Nepo says, “We are worn to who we are meant to be.”

Not born, but worn. Our personal growth curve benefits from subtractions as well as additions. The old equation holds: he must increase, but I must decrease. No fanfare. No fireworks. Thus, are we conformed to Christ.

This is one way we begin to behold — in ourselves, in our world, and in one another — what is tender and vibrant, if also fleeting.

Eternally drawn through seasons of rest and nourishing grace, we flourish anew.

Lord of Life, you never force us. Instead, you equip us, then coax us to show forth your colors. Remind us you’re still at work—even when nothing remotely green seems to be rising.

Friends, where are you in the cycle: Newly abloom? Temporarily shelved? Somewhere in between?
What is the invitation? Where are you feeling stifled? Is it time for a small fanfare?

Photo by Vincenzo Tabaglio on Unsplash

You might also enjoy this, from the archives:

A Respect for Emergence

by Laurie Klein 16 Chiming In

Of all the nerve. A moose plunged through our snowy wonderland.

The neighborhood Bullwinkle gouged the back forty trail. My trail. I have slogged a reliable floor on snow shoes by compressing numberless, nearly weightless flakes — bound together by weather and gumption.

Moose tracks boggle my sense of proportion. Those hoof prints could be family-size canned hams.

And those gouges compromise balance: a boot teeters, an ankle gives way. No wonder my usually mellow soul bristles.

Overnight, the gentle herbivore collapsed whole sections of trail I have carved and re-carved, daily, over four months. Through sleet and sunlight and once, near whiteout.

Come spring, I mean to jog again. A gear junkie would buy snow shoes designed for running. I’m too cheap. For now, dogged phlogg-ing fuels my training regimen:

pitch body forward
trust metal claws
let poles swing, plant, propel

Rhythm cuts the trail.

Most days something pent up inside hollers, Move it! Make your way through this booby-trapped world.

But what about the wilderness carried within? Some of us crave drama. Others dodge it. How to navigate those unexpected sinkholes that compromise footing?

Weight wise, a bull moose is the equivalent of a grand piano. In the midst of deep drifts, the toes splay — akin to snow shoes. Each hoof’s surface area increases, which minimizes how far those long legs can sink.

The hoof is a hardworking trinity. There are compacted shock absorbers. Two cloven toes function like our middle and ring finger. A dew claw becomes weight bearing and enhances agility, like our pointer and pinky.

Ingenious.

And . . . almost heart-shaped. A terrible magnificence has cratered my sacred aisle, through bowed-over knapweed, through powder and windswept ripples and hummocks of ice.

Caprice? Necessity? Irreversible ruin?

Poet Molly Peacock writes about sustaining “a respect for emergence.” Bound to be awkward. Guaranteed to counter preferred rhythms.

Ideally, perhaps we navigate the intrusive by remaining attentive. Patient.

What if we welcome unwanted traffic on our perceived turf? What if something gentle yet powerful we’ve yet to identify calls to us now, from below the surface?

Lord, be our balance, our surefooted joy.

Friends, what keeps you nimble in challenging times?

P.S. You might enjoy this poem I wrote (many thanks to publisher Katie Manning, Whale Road Review)

Tracks

1
Loneliness moves by stab
and creak over winter hills—

crossbite of straps,
cunning hoops with teeth. Like prayer,

snowshoes re-float the body,
distribute its burden.

Wood or aluminum,
baskets-and-poles —

be our wings. Our boats.
Surrogate bones.

2
Fences run with the hills.
Snow fleas pepper the snow

beneath spruce. Skitter of mice
in whiskery lines, strut

and splay of the wild turkey.
Beneath my flat blue shadow

and, deeper down, the memory
of bared soles, mingled

with fossils. Today:
practice not sinking.

*****

“. . . yet I will rejoice in the LORD . . . my strength . . . he enables me to tread on the heights” (Habakkuk 3:18, 19a, NIV).

From the archives, you might also enjoy: Lessons from a Moose

*Quote, Molly Peacock, A Friend Sails in on a Poem.

Photo by Ivars Krutainis on Unsplash

Grit, Stardust, Healing Rigor

by Laurie Klein 23 Chiming In

Grit? Hardly. I awake, dismayed. Another day cranks into gear with exercises from my physical therapist, designed to get this body up and running. Dogged compliance? Vital. I agreed, months ago, to his regimen: healing rigor.

If I want to jog again — and I do — I gotta.

Today? Don’t wanna.

Last January a common runner’s injury waylaid me — a stress fracture, undiagnosed for three months, exacerbated by new bone spurs and acute arthritis.

“Don’t fall,” my doctor said, after reviewing my latest bone scan.

“Wear this boot,” the specialist said, after reviewing my MRI.

Oh, these bodies, part stardust, part grit, mostly water: vibrant one moment, frail the next.

Once the bone re-knit, I worked hard to regain strength, endurance, and range of motion.

Then . . . a sprain. More time out. More P.T.

As of now, my ongoing nemesis? The one-legged bridge:

Lie on back
Bend one knee
Raise body 15 times (twice daily)

Ooof. Floor joists creak beneath me, their weakening structure only perceived when called upon to bear weight. Kinda like me.

Resolutely, I muscle up — 1, 2, 3 — pant — 9, 10 — then muster that last vertical heave . . . 15!

Progress?

Zip. It doesn’t get easier. How can this be? I’ve been so faithful!

My favorite C. S. Lewis poem — with a bridge in it — comes to mind: “As the Ruin Falls.”

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek . . .

Oh yeah. This girl wants what she wants.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile . . .

I feel the nudge. Exiled from running late in life, this ole heart feels aerobic as well as emotional loss.

. . . And now the bridge is breaking.

Lewis is writing about his conversion. Human grit, intellect, and resolve proving insufficient, his broken heart gives way to God.

A secondary, physical application startles me as I consider Paul’s charge to believers: “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

Work. Out.

God sure has a sense of humor.

The name Jehovah-Jireh, “The Lord will provide,” appears in my reading for the day. I picture a mighty hand upholding me — despite my dubious one-legged bridge . . .

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

Amen.

Friends, what helps you say yes to routine demands—those things you dodge despite know they’re good for you?

https://allpoetry.com/As-the-Ruin-Falls

Hear Phil Keaggy’s musical setting and performance of “As the Ruin Falls” here.

Photo by Aleksandr Barsukov on Unsplash

My Christmas in Asia

by Laurie Klein 16 Chiming In

Christmas is coming . . . amid epic humidity. Über-hot spices. Unusual plumbing.

Dreamer and I feel like aliens in this small Thai village. They call us farangs: big noses, ghosts, white people. It’s December 2000, and we’re here with a short-term mission team. There’s so much to unlearn!

Culture shock flattens me. Think fallen arches of the soul.

Plus . . . deadly fire ants. Spiders big as hands. And roadside cobras.

I spent my entire 50th birthday getting here, crossing the international date line where time hiccoughs, then replays itself.

“Good thing we’re headed east,” Dreamer said. “Or you’d be 100.”

Friends, GodSpaceLight published this true story of mine last year. Pour yourself a tea or coffee and join me?

Today, wandering the winding, red-dirt village lanes, my feet feel a century old. Everyone else wears flip flops or sandals. Am I the only one wearing socks? Chronic nerve pain afflicts one foot, so I wear tennis shoes for support and micro crews for cushioning warmth. No shoes are allowed indoors, and red dust stains my socks — despite nightly scrubs in the tiny sink.

We’re here to assist the resident missionary. I secretly call her the Advocate. She mediates questions, cultural quagmires, and occasional quarrels, so she’s often unavailable to translate for us.

We all hone our pantomime skills.

Party

An all-day Christmas celebration to honor Jesus — that’s what the Advocate envisions. We have three weeks to prepare. And no budget.

In addition to Western games and prizes and goodies, our event will include an evening performance. For Buddhists. Who don’t speak English.

Will I please oversee the whole shebang, she asks.

I’d rather clear rocks from her field for the games. Then I think of the Virgin Mary’s willingness to shoulder what seemed overwhelming.

“Yes,” I say. Reluctantly.

The Advocate also asks me to mentor an Earnest Young Convert (I’ll call him Eyc). He doesn’t speak much English, but she tells me he wants an open mic session, ceremonial dances, and a children’s sign language choir complete with white gloves and spotlight. He’ll also write a play.

Days go by. Eyc declines to discuss the script with me. Or anything else.

I should not take this personally. But I am (supposedly) in charge. Stateside, I have directed numerous performances. Here, amid impossible circumstances, I feel painfully responsible for the event’s outcome.

But Eyc, independent and buzzing with ideas, keeps dodging me. I probably seem 100 years old to him.

One day, he makes an effort to connect. Or is it a dare? He hands me a stick crowned with a steaming knob of meat. Mmm-Mmm, barbecued rat.

I tell myself it tastes like chicken. Might he trust me now?

I begin to understand the three Wise Men braving foreign cuisine, day after day. Did they endure heartburn? Anxiety? Nausea?

Lord, show me the way forward here. And help me tread gently.

Into the jungle

Mary endured the donkey’s lurching gait. Despite increasing discomfort, she sallied forth.

Today, map-less, I roam the jungle. I’ve been sent to ask a stranger to make traditional costumes for the mystery play. If only I had a translator. How dare I impose? It feels like white entitlement. I dread being misunderstood, resented, judged. The errand gnaws at my pride.

But I keep walking. I’m toting yards of colorful cloth. Once I find the seamstress, I’ll resort to charades. But how does one act out, “Please, you don’t know me but will you make traditional costumes, for free, so that children you don’t know can dramatize a Western story you probably don’t want to hear?”

The wind kicks up. All the palm trees look the same. If I get lost, who will point me back to the village?

I think of Joseph trudging mile after mile among strangers.

Breathe, I tell myself. Pray. And watch for snakes.

The clearing . . .

At last! I find the seamstress. I smile and act out my errand — several times.

She studies the fabric. Then me. A level, assessing gaze, which feels weightier every second. But she nods. I give her all the colors I’m holding. I wish I could pay her.

As if sensing my discomfort she smiles, and it’s dazzling as well as contagious. God has preceded me here, preparing each of us for this exchange. I tent my hands, in grateful respect. She returns the gesture.

Then she points out another red dirt path. I hope it’s a shortcut.

The show must go on

Daily, Eyc rehearses his program. Nightly, I wash his youth choir’s white gloves. Ah, the irony. Leader demoted to laundress: socks and gloves, socks and gloves.

My ego rankles. Chagrined, I ask Dreamer and my friends for prayer.

“We love you,” they say.

“All is grace,” the Advocate adds. “Nothing to earn. Nothing to prove.”

I try to absorb this. Jesus, the ultimate leader, served God by serving others, with love, no matter what. Born in obscurity, he not only survived, he flourished — despite the struggling economy, local politics, and limited resources. Much like this village.

I begin to understand Nazareth.

“Aha!”

I feel less forsaken, but still displaced until . . . an idea arrives. Eyc prefers working on his Christmas play with the Advocate. Fine. I’ll create a life-size creche.

I scavenge scrap lumber for a stable. A teammate builds walls and roof line, guy-wires them to the Advocate’s house.

I raid her Lost and Found. A pillowcase crammed with straw and mounted atop upended bricks makes a fine swine. “Marry a man who owns a pig,” the village grandmothers advise.

Orphaned tube socks become winsome doves, with stray-button eyes.

If I can find black gloves, I’ll stuff them with sand, whisker them with dental floss: voila, two worshipful rats.

My creche will be amazing. Culturally relevant. Or I’ll eat my socks.

I LOVE repurposing castoffs. Surrounded by palm fronds, stick-figures with coconut heads stand in for the holy family. They wear traditional Thai costumes, sewn by the woman I met in the clearing.

Finally, something I can control!

Curious, bedazzled, the village kids handle everything. In their delight, they topple my birds and beasts and figures. Best to zip-tie and guy-wire all of them to the stable. The props, not the children.

Christmas Showtime

Party food and games enliven the day. At dusk, our makeshift stage glows beneath a rented light tree. Open mic begins. The temperature drops. A shivering kid lights a nest of gathered twigs — too close to the crowd. Pals bring armloads of straw; the blaze ignites. What are they thinking? I corral two youngsters, steer them toward safety.

More little arsonists take their place.

Why don’t my teammates intervene? Smoke billows. Flames crackle and leap.

Meanwhile, the gloved sign language choir captivates the crowd. Rapt, they applaud, oblivious to encroaching fire . . .

Luckily, nobody’s hair or clothing goes up in flames. No one suffers burns. The brief inferno peters out when the rascally kids abandon it, to watch Eyc’s play.

And what an opening act! Child actors stagger, feigning drug highs and drunkenness. A sham fight ensues. Good Lord. Is that a hooker, crooking her finger, stage left?

I can’t watch. I escape to the Advocate’s kitchen, toe off my shoes, then stand at the sink in my wretched socks, washing dishes. A teammate enters, her face troubled.

“I think you should know the kids are dismantling —”

Oh no. The creche? My creche? I fling my dishtowel and hurry outside.

They’re tossing my cherished sock doves back and forth. Fighting over the holy family’s attire.

Turns out my teammate cut the guy wires for them.

I have no words. Choked by hurt and fury, I turn away.

An hour later, only a few guests remain. As our team debriefs, a Thai woman seeks out the Advocate. The villager wants the farangs to come to her house and explain Christmas to her husband.

We are amazed. The sole car in the village, the Advocate’s station wagon, can hold nine people.

“Who wants to come?” she asks.

I just want to go home. Instead, I’m stranded among jubilant friends, unable to shag a ride to the place I sleep. Call me the prodigal’s elder brother, but I want no part in the Christmas celebration.

Nor do I want to examine why.

Christmas Eve, an hour later

The team returns, all talking at once. When they’d arrived at the woman’s home, villagers crammed her front room, curious about Jesus. Eyc’s play must have presented the gospel, after all. The Advocate retold the Christmas story and led them in prayer.

Each person there had pledged to follow Jesus.

Luminous now, my teammates turn to me. Isn’t it awesome? How do I feel, they want to know.

Well, for starters, bewildered by news beyond my imagining. And something darker I can’t name. I nod and smile, but I’m saving face. I want out. Dreamer and I head for our nightly commute to the place we live. As if sensing my angst, he gives me space.

Creche, sounds like crush

Dreamer falls asleep smiling. I lie awake, confused. Offended. Which makes me feel guilty and even more left out. I should be ecstatic. But after weeks of feeling dismissed and mistrusted, now I’m ashamed about my fury over the ruined creche.

I groan, place the cool side of the pillow over my face. I begin to understand Herod. Jealous for my private kingdom — and wanting adulation for what I built — I have blinded myself to the reason behind it all: Christmas. God with us.

In my mind’s eye, I kneel, grasp the imagined hem of his robe, picturing traditional Thai cloth in vivid colors. And somewhere in the background, the Buddhist who’d sewn it. For free. Simply because I’d asked.

Lord, forgive me.

And something like relief flows in, leaving my soul “sore amazed.” I begin to understand the shepherds.

Then, I taste Mary’s hushed bliss.

I am 50. I could be 100. I feel newly reborn, broken open by grace. By Story. By Christmas in Asia. Tenderly. Thoroughly. What a strange and wondrous world, where we can briefly take steps in the shoes of others.

All is adventure.

All is grace.

Friends, which character in the Christmas story resonates with you this year?

Poet Mary Oliver asks:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

You might also enjoy this Christmas post from the archives

Soul Mimosa — Photos, Music