Immersions Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Call of the Wind

by Laurie Klein 8 Chiming In

Call of the Wind

Alarm

Picture David’s royal bed,
his oldest lyre suspended, vertically,
overhead . . . all night

an eerie, braided hum-m-m
roused by wind at play
among the strings. Chilled,

dream-stalled,
blinking — did he
burrow down? We know

cold blooms within
our bones in lonely hours.
Watch with me, as he

rises, lights the hanging lamp,
scrapes away the sand of sleep.
Kneels. Unfurls the Scroll.*

+++

Yours truly, on the other hand, chronic night owl, has finally found a natural cure for my insomnia. A little protein before turning in helps me sleep, at last, in heavenly peace.

And yet.

Rising in the darkness to meditate appeals to my yen for the mystical: solitude, breath prayers, listening silence.

I could hang Dreamer’s Celtic harp from the ceiling fan . . .

Safer by far to ask Ruach, wind of the Spirit, to occasionally nudge me awake. The older I get, the more I want to spend what hours remain meaningfully.

“Awareness needs constant refreshing,” author Rick Rubin writes.

Call of the Wind

Jesus often got up in the wee hours to listen and pray. Like King David before him, he traversed a world ravaged by terrors and keening need.

Think of it. The same Spirit that breathed on celestial harps and angel choirs at the Savior’s birth later called Jesus to rise, meditate by night in deserts and gardens, on perilous seas and mountainsides.

What was it like that night in Bethlehem, unearthly music filling the air?

Shepherds left their bedding. Lit a torch. Robes furled against the cold, they sought Torah’s promised Messiah: the Living Word.

Emmanuel.

Creaking knees, a groan, the crackle of flattening straw. Then . . . timelessness: the breath of God, tiny lip-smack and gulp. A hiccup. The baby’s sigh.

All the adults must have stilled in wonder, their mindsets expanding, outlooks extending.

In our day, imagining those small sounds enlarges my soul’s inscape, urging love’s outgrowth.

This Advent, amid our war-torn world — overrun and undermined by outrage, greed, and hype — I am listening for Ruach. Trying to breathe in sync.

O to become a psalm: wind-swept, humming . . .

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

*Jewish midrash tradition honors David’s lyre-as-alarm-clock, and his tender response.

Quotation, Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being.

Hear a Celtic harp (similar to Dreamer’s) played by wind blowing across an Irish cliff.

Hear a box wind harp.

Rabbi Israel Goldfarb plays a replica of King David’s lyre here and another song here. (May take a few seconds to download, but so interesting)

You might also enjoy this post from the archives.

Sleeping man photo by Lucas Andrade on Unsplash
Windblown blue fabric photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

Open Sesame

by Laurie Klein 21 Chiming In

Open Sesame . . .

Hand your children a treasure hunt clue — to open last — on Christmas Day:

Find the one space in our house
you’ve never discovered;
the next clue is waiting,
under the covers.

Off they run, room to room, upstairs and down . . .

Seeking

that hidden, under-the-eaves place
behind their bedroom wall, where
you knelt, while they were at school,
nailing plywood to joists,
unrolling the red oriental rug
to cushion their small bare feet — that open
space, where you crowned the vent pipe
with twisted, brown-paper limbs
and colored leaves that
tremble, each time the door opens.

A secret room.
With posters for windows.
With a cupboard brimming with books. Wooden houses that nest like Russian dolls. Repainted toys.

Year-round peace, goodwill to all who stoop to enter.

This year I imagine telling our grandkids, again, about no room in the inn.

“But where did the room go?” “Did somebody take it?” “Why didn’t they share? (We always have to.)”

Christmas approaches. I want them to experience hiddenness. Marvel. Creative spaciousness, born of spirit.

So, I’m starting early, by savoring stories, essays, poems, and secret rooms you may not have thought about.

“It takes childlike faith to believe in a reality beyond the grim one we know so well,” Philip Yancey writes, “and to keep celebrating regardless.”

Do you believe we can recover innocence? If so, how do we begin? Can it be sustained? Shared?
Ideas?

P.S. Daniel Taylor says, “A story that still bothers you sixty years after it happened might be a story to pay attention to.”

Friends, thank you for praying! My new poetry collection, House of 49 Doors: entries in a life, will be published by The Poeima Poetry Series, in 2024! Within these linked poems, a family secret—stifled for six decades—unfurls: relived by my preteen self, named Larkin, and revisited in the present-day by Eldergirl. Amid vivid memories of my eccentric childhood home (and the wild creatures living nearby), long overdue healing and gratitude finally rise.

Which reminds me: Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. About that Advent book I’ve been savoring. Here’s the link.

A Radiant Birth: Advent Readings for a Bright Season. It’s a Christmas treasury and it includes both quotes above. Morning by morning, the pages beckon me toward discovery. Entries read like clues. I step into a fresh dimension, thoughtfully arranged for a seeker, revealing aspects of alternate worlds within our familiar one.

Photo by Leyre Labarga on Unsplash

From the archives: Sometimes the Gift Tears You Open

Rich in mercy

by Laurie Klein 28 Chiming In

Uh-oh. I spot the unmarked,
four-inch ridge of pavement
a smidgeon too late …

But I’ve jump-cut ahead.
Flash backward with me —
before the detour.

My husband, Dreamer, and I go cycling most evenings. We wear black tights and neon-yellow jerseys (plus neon argyles, for yours truly).

Picture two elderly bumblebees.

Dreamer rides a high-tech, acid green trike; I pedal a black recumbent. Seated roughly two feet above the ground, we count on our strobing head- and tail-lights as well as flapping pennants to alert drivers of our presence.

Perhaps passersby think we’re “spry.” It’s hard to miss Dreamer’s white beard.

Tonight, while powering through a neighborhood construction zone that includes a long stretch of gravel, I collide with the small, aforementioned, asphalt cliff.

The bike jolts.
Bones judder.
Adrenalin surges;
my tire collapses.

I wobble … but don’t fall.

“Everything okay?” A man out walking pauses to ask.

Dreamer carries a pump and patch kit. “Got it covered,” he calls.

“Thank you for asking,” I add.

By the light of the setting sun, innertube removal commences. Always a challenge.

Then, Dreamer’s pump fails to work. By now the pedestrian’s long gone. Streetlights bloom around us.

SOS phone calls to family ring … and ring … unanswered.

What now?

“I could hoist the front end,” I venture. “Walk the bike home.”

Dreamer frowns. “Five miles?”

“Oh.” I feel hope waver, thready as smoke from a guttering candle.

As if in response, a bright blue truck pulls alongside. “Hey, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Came back to check.”

It’s the walker who stopped earlier. Glory be. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Brought my pump, just in case.”

The guy, an avid cyclist, brims over with rescue stories. He’s funny and kind and generous. Four bike-savvy hands complete the task.

Then, in with the good air …

Long ago, Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury said, “Our charity [for others] is so little fervent, yet you, Lord, are so rich in mercy.”

Would I have stopped? Twice?

A long hiss-s-s-s. My newly patched, re-inflated tire goes flat. Again. We stare in dismay.

“Nearly dark,” the man observes, “and getting cold.”

As if we haven’t noticed.

“Let me give you a lift.”

We don’t even know his name.

Turns out Dreamer’s trike won’t fit beside my recumbent.

“Hop in,” the stranger says to me.

By myself? I wonder if it’s safe. And then: How dare I suspect such largesse? I want to say, Okay, but let us pay you. But I know my offer would disappoint him.

I clamber into the passenger seat.

“We’ll follow your husband,” he says. And at 12 miles per hour, we do. He even offers to go back to his place to get Dreamer a jacket. Breathtaking kindness, rich in mercy.

Our rescuer reminds me a little of One who arrives — in various guises — asking: “Need any help?” The same One who smiles when we mention our self-sufficiency. And who returns, despite nightfall, with our welfare in mind.

The One who sees us safely home.

You are my help in the darkness, the psalmist says. “I will rise to give you thanks” (Ps. 119:62).

Before our new friend pulls away, we learn his name is Rich.

Friends, who’s restoring your faith in humanity?

Photo by Chris Becker on Unsplash

Weight and Wait: More than a Homonym

by Laurie Klein 19 Chiming In

It starts with a nudge.

A trusted friend, moved to pray for me, did so. A single word came into his mind. No explanation.

Wait or weight? he wondered.

Another listening pause. Both, he thought.

Soon afterward, his email lights up my inbox. I feel like a glass tube holding noble gas — stirred by a steady glow within and aware of humming, spiritual voltage: a prayer akin to neon.

I feel seen.

I’ve been awaiting someone’s decision. Unsure how to proceed, I’ve let the weight of not knowing siphon away my joy.

My friend pledges to “pray for the weight of glory to be revealed in and through [me].”

Times of waiting — so common in crises, relationships, and big projects—can short-circuit our outlook. Song, meditation, prayer, the Word — we flick our go-to switches yet often fail to discern what’s next.

An aspect of life as we’ve known it sputters and dims.

Perhaps God will generate something new?

You will have heard about the mythic firebird, the phoenix that rises from the ashes, soaring to new life.

Have you heard of “Phoenix regeneration”? It’s the final stage in a tree’s lifecycle.

According to arborist William Bryant Logan, when roots atrophy, water stutters through trunk and limbs. Eventually depleted, the tree surrenders its crown first. Ninety-some feet or more of a once-vibrant life topples.

But afterward . . . little images of itself may sprout from the lower trunk or even from the root flare, wherever a living connection between root and branch survives.

Does this rejuvenation suggest grace, incognito?

If new rootlets take hold, traces of the original tree will reemerge. You could almost call it immortal. Arborist Logan does, then goes on:

It is as though a person rested her arm on the dirt, spread out her palm, and two perfect new arms emerged from her lifeline, complete with all the muscles and tendons and circulation, the hands, palms, fingers, and fingernails.

O the Good Spirit loves an inside job.

Meanwhile, we really can shrug off the weight of having to perform. The gradual outworking of God’s holy perfection, already indwelling our souls, will reproduce traces of God’s nature in and through us.

In other words, be of good courage. No matter the present weight, wait. Providence will appear.

As if to underline the point: yesterday a sparrow careened into our window, then plummeted to our front step, seemingly dazed. Those bright eyes blinked, but the body, still standing, albeit hunched and ruffled, seemed paralyzed.

En route to church, we tiptoed past her, sharply recalling God’s eye rests with love on every creature. Surely she’d be gone by the time we returned, having regathered her strength.

Home we came. She’d moved several inches to the right, her downy head now leaning into a dead leaf. Would she keel over?

I brought birdseed and water, prayed she would rise. I wanted so badly to stroke her soft back, but caution checked my impulse.

Often it’s best to forgo interrupting what we don’t understand.

Maybe you or someone you love feels like that downed bird: stalled out, too shocked to regroup. May I pray?

Lord of All, restore and renew each person reading these words, wherever they feel depleted, uprooted, or fallen. Comfort them. Deepen their hope amidst the unknowns, even as you prepare their upward trajectory. Amen.

A tree. A bird. A God of Light who loves the living back into motion, by stages.

How do you cope with the weight of waiting? I hope you’ll share with us . . .

With thanks to Maria Popova, of The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings)

Quotations taken from Old Growth — selected poems and essays from Orion Magazine, including pieces by Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Pollan, and others.

Photo of clock between tree trunks by Yaniv Knobel on Unsplash

Photo of sparrow by yours truly

You might also enjoy this post from the archives: Waiting Grace, Hearts on Ice

Whistle Pig

by Laurie Klein 28 Chiming In

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