Laurie Klein, Scribe

immerse in God, emerge refreshed

  • Home
  • About
  • Books
  • Blog
    • Small Wonders
    • Soul Mimosas
    • Springboards
    • Wellsprings
    • BiblioDiva
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Press Kit
  • Playlist

IF

by Laurie Klein 13 Chiming In

If only . . . it hadn’t happened.

Today, I wake up grieved by Wednesday’s violence in our nation’s capitol—only to be further dismayed by the media’s name-calling in the guise of news.

When epic troubles escalate, how do we resist the downward spiral of resignation? How do we nurture fresh reasons to hope?

Earlier this week I splurged on a pot of hyacinth bulbs. Buds closed tightly as raised fists lined three fleshy stalks.

This morning, bloom after star-like bloom perfumes the house.

When bulbs are responsibly “forced,”
the wild, greening wellsprings
that infuse creation
surge upward and outward: Now,
marvel transfuses my spirit, triggers
awe, releases a whiff of poetry.

My outlook shifts,
from grainy, film noir desolation
to hi-def, hyper-spectrum joy—each stem
redolent with modest glories. It reminds me
we’re all fiercely loved
by One who makes all things beautiful
in their time—even when growing entails
unspeakable suffering.

For God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

So, I am scouting evidence of order. Implicit design. Metaphor and deeper meaning.

I am seeking Love quietly lavished in merciful ways around me so that I might go and do likewise.

It’s a plan, albeit a small one . . .

If I do say so myself.

lauriekleinscribe logo

What’s rekindling your experience of beauty? Truth? Humor?

This “IF” quotation made me laugh:

“If I could go to dinner with one person, dead or alive, I think I would choose alive.” — B. J. Novak

If of thy mortal goods . . .

You might also enjoy: Hai*Pho — No, it’s not a new entree . . .

And here’s a famous poem about hyacinths:

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: Beauty, bulbs, hyacinths, love, marvel, poetry, resignation, wellsprings January 8, 2021

Lure

by Laurie Klein 16 Chiming In

Same path, same camera pausing again, this time to capture a curled leaf, each serration salted with rime.

lure of a leaf

Nearing the pond, I listen for ducks.

But my viewfinder zooms in on mats of algae, flash-frozen. Glazed and rumpled, here is weather’s awkward marriage of wind and degree.

Friends, I love this trail
meandering through
our neighbor’s woods, where,
with their permission,
I gratefully roam.

Only a week ago,
I traversed it on snow shoes—
which is why today,
after the thaw, I falter.

A rusty, misshapen bicycle someone recently abandoned rivets my gaze.

Whose is it?

kid lure

Beyond, I see the old metal gate—jackknifed open—first time in 29 years.

Then . . . something blue: a child’s scooter, flung down in the grass.

And the ramshackle shed, ever-padlocked, now gapes.

I snap photos. Inch past the scooter. Two rooms with a plywood partition beckon.

In the first room, wheel spokes,
clogged with pine needles—another bike
hunkering amid castoffs: a cracked
Kool-Aid pitcher with its retro grin,
jumble of crockery, blackened tools.

It smells like rust and silt and disappointment.

Can you hear the sinister soundtrack? “Turn back, now!”

A campy movie comes to mind: “I saw something nasty in the woodshed.”

Stifling a shiver, I ease
into the second room.
From ten penny nails,
four human-sized
sacks of black netting sag.
Glint of an eyeball.
A crooked neck.

My breath stutters.
A gulp. A step backward.
A shake of the head, to clear it.

And then, that pesky resolve to know.

I edge forward, peering through gloom.

Duck decoys. Four bags full. Cork versions meant to lure real ducks into settling on the neighbor’s pond.

I too feel lured in. Fooled, and foolish. Relief is a long exhale, a shaky laugh.

O, the lure of the unexplained. Eavesdropping on a forgotten life. Lurking enigmas. Secrets.

We tread the familiar, by rote, sometimes for decades. And one day somebody wrenches open a gate. Someone leaves behind woebegone relics, evidence of a story.

Similarly, there are locked rooms in my heart, littered with ghosts. Misleading notions. I harbor substitute emotions disguising something I don’t want to face.

I am sharply aware, in this moment, of simmering jealousy within, masquerading as applause for a colleague’s recent success. I’ve stuffed it away, feathered my envy with feigned goodwill. This is how I lure myself into believing I’ve mastered festering disappointment.

The Old Testament prophet Hosea heard God say, “I will now allure her. I will lead her into the desert. There I will speak tenderly to her.”

And isn’t this a kindness, after all, being led forward? Braving the musty, looking within, naming what’s still lurking inside the sack?

I head home: same path, same camera, no longer quite the same me.

lauriekleinscribe logo

Tell us, how do you interpret Hosea’s enigmatic words?

You might also enjoy: Constancy: The Tale of a Trail

Woodshed quote from Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons.

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: decoy, disappointment, lure, path November 5, 2020

Lessons from a Moose

by Laurie Klein 30 Chiming In

Heartsick and hunkered under a lap quilt, I light my prayer candle. The votive flickers within its chunky glass holder, a treasured, fire-in-ice gift from my lifelong friend. Yesterday, she was diagnosed with cancer.

Oh, friend. Oh shit. Merciful God, please intervene!

I yearn to help. And I want to bolt, escape to the woods, outrun heartbreak.

Beyond my window Indian Summer burnishes the aspen’s heart-shaped leaves to quavering gold.

Hold on. Those movements exceed a passing breeze. Branches thrash.

Camera in hand, I edge onto our deck: grunts … rustles … CRACK! — massive jaws are tearing off limbs.

I inch nearer. A dark, unblinking eye slues in its socket, meeting mine. Abashed, I shift my gaze. Behold, 800 swayback pounds of fur quixotically arranged atop legs like stilts: a moose.

moose, caught in the act

AND her twins.

Moose family

I study their commandeered buffet — this time, the crab apple.

Does the cow scent human? Have her calves ever seen one?

Stilling breath / bones / muscles … I try to communicate: No threat here and No greens for me today, thanks. After all, a mature moose weighs as much as a car, can charge at 35 miles per hour, and possesses front hooves designed to lash out in any direction.

So, I stay put, snapping breathless photos.

Then … simply watch, rapt. Only God could imagine into bone / joint / sinew-and-hide these stoic, browsing eccentrics. How effortlessly they radiate wildness.

Moose are focused. Adept. Insouciantly unafraid.

Moose: literally, “Eater of Twigs.” De-nuder of trees. And these three are thorough. The ornamentals will soon be whittled to nubs!

Stamping my feet, I shout. Flail. Make noises, mostly unintelligible.

It’s a lot like praying for someone with cancer.

Are such cries disrespectful? Do they communicate? Are they vacant gestures against a disease all-consuming in its hunger?

I mutter prayers anyway, writes author Brian Doyle.

Did they have any weight as they flew?

I don’t know.

But I believe with all my heart that they mattered because I was moved to make them. … believe that the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …

It’s the urge that matters — the sudden Save us that rises against horror, the silent Thank you for joy.

Even the wrenched-out gutterals — ?!#%?&?! — all that is ornamental pared back to the raw shoot.

So, I pray for my friend with cancer. And for others I know, also gravely afflicted with different versions.

I pray for all of us. That we remain focused. Adept in grace. Insouciantly unafraid.

lauriekleinscribe logo

What’s staring you down, eyeball-to-eyeball? I’d gladly add my prayers to yours.

Brian Doyle, Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies

Moose calf by the deck

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: cancer, focus, grace, moose, new eyes, prayer, see, sight October 11, 2020

Felicity, Schmogg & Roofless Minds

by Laurie Klein 22 Chiming In

Felicity: lately, it’s mostly a memory. For the eighth day running . . . I can’t run. Endorphin-deprived, this grounded-for-now body feels logy. Wistful. S-l-a-c-k.

A run leavens my day; it boosts the spirits as well as the heart rate.

However, we in the West are beset by hazardous air quality due to wildfires. Step outside and nose-wrinkling, eye-blinking, mood-sinking schmogg assaults the senses. Headache ensues.

Housebound, a wonder junkie may forgo her knack for awe, even overlook nature’s wordless felicity.

And while I’m deeply grateful for the roof overhead and walls that keep bad air out, how does one batten down for safety . . . yet keep the soul propped open, the mind and spirit ajar?

These days, seems most everything—most everywhere—is being turned upside down.

Remember the old Sunday School fingerplay?

Here is the church;
here is the steeple;
open the doors to see all the people.

Motion-wise, unlatching thumbs and spreading the hands inverts the building: interlaced “roof fingers” and palms become floor—complete with life line.

Ergo: one steeple-free, miniature open-air temple.

Ancient Greeks designed temples with an uncovered space that housed an image of deity. This required a new adjective: Hypaethral (hī-ˈpē-thrəl: quasi-rhymes with “Hi C thrill,” for all you dear sopranos, reading this post).

Hypo-, means “under or beneath,” and aithēr, “air or heaven.”

So, fellow homebodies under heaven, with our blessedly non-leaking roofs clamped overhead, how do we as living temples—each of us quietly housing the image of God—proceed?

As the runner’s sole hitting pavement depends on friction, so we embrace the chafe of severe mercy. Hard grace. The whole of this whacked-out world is still a house for us all. A house for God. A roofless marvel of intricate connectivity. Delight, blessedness, eloquence, bliss—felicity still abounds.

Perhaps roofless is a state of mind . . .

Amid wildfires and COVID-19, riots and politics, global suffering and local schmogg, it’s still occurring out there, beyond the glass . . . PRAISE, I mean . . .

As Frederick Buechner says:

“The way Psalm 148 describes it, praising God … is about as measured as a volcanic eruption. … The whole of creation is in on the act—the sun and moon, the sea, fire and snow, Holstein cows and white-throated sparrows, old men in walkers and children who still haven’t taken their first step.

“Their praise is not chiefly a matter of saying anything, because most of creation doesn’t deal in words. Instead, the snow whirls, the fire roars, the Holstein bellows, the old man watches the moon rise.

“Their praise is not something that at their most complimentary they say, but something that at their truest they are.

“Watch how the trees exult when the wind is in them. … Learn how to say ‘Hallelujah’ from the ones who say it right.”

Day or night, barefoot or shod, kneeling or running, may we do no less.

Felicity of an open-air temple

What is the gift being offered us now?

Tell me, what metaphorical footwear might you lace on, in preparation?

lauriekleinscribe logo


P.S. If you enjoyed my earlier post on racial reconciliation (found here), here’s an excellent book currently furthering my education. White Awake: An Honest Look at What It Means to Be White, by Daniel Hill.

Daytime low-angle tree shot by Veronica Gomez Ibarra, on Unsplash; Nighttime low-angle tree shot by Dave Hoefler, on Unsplash

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: felicity, grace, hypaethral, praise, running, temple September 19, 2020

Bird Cage

by Laurie Klein 30 Chiming In

Resourceful, cheap, a little smug—I used to prowl yard sales for the unusual bird cage. I sought dormers and turrets, pagodas, onion dome castles . . . structures I adopted, then adapted, spray painting them in wavy gradations of color. I tucked them like sculptures among our perennials.

Soon, tendrils nosed through the grids,
swarmed the trays,
entwined hinges and doors.

Yesterday . . .

flitters, cheeps, manic thumps—
a trapped bird,
hurling itself from side to side.

I fumbled in vain with the door.
He rocketed toward the roof. And clung there.
If bird toes have knuckles, his turned white.

Gentle shaking failed to dislodge him.

Wings flailing, he wedged his head
through the bars of the ceiling—
clear to his downy throat.

Couldn’t go back. Couldn’t break free.

I eased the bird cage onto its side,
broke off the plastic tray.
Shards fell around us.

Half-strangled, his body went still.

Gasping, I righted the cage.
Gravity partnered with dead weight,
and this time, the captive slipped free.

Off he zoomed, leaving me in the wreckage:

  • Busted plastic
  • Marvel, at God’s timing
  • Guilt

I had been party to harm. Which could have killed him.

This realization aligns with questions I’m asking myself about dead-weight thinking, the kind that seeps in, over time, unknowingly absorbed.

For instance, racist assumptions so ingrained they’ve dulled my awareness. I want equality for everyone. But like the cage, I am part of a structure that imperils others.

And like the bird, I’m scrabbling for footing. Can’t go back; gotta break free. No more looking the other way.

I’m no one’s savior. I look to God the Savior for how to proceed. I want my blind spots exposed, so I can lament and confess them, receive God’s forgiveness.

Transformation begins in my own backyard.

These tools are helping me:

  • Coursera, online class (free): “Race and Cultural Diversity in American Life and History”
  • Praying / listening /asking questions / thinking on paper / praying
  • poem-a-day (free), featuring black poets through August (Read today’s here. Be sure to click the “about” caret)

And these poets:

Loretta Diane Walker:  In This House, Phyllis Wheatly Book Award. Sample poem
Ross Gay: Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Sample Poem
Natasha Tretheway: Native Guard, 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Sample poem
Toi Derricotte: “i”: New and Selected Poems. Sample Poem

lauriekleinscribe logo

What resources are you discovering? Please tell me about writers who are speaking to you . . .

 

Filed Under: Immersions Tagged With: bias, bird, bird cage, black poets, dead weight, racism July 20, 2020

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 20
  • Next Page »
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS

Subscribe

Please enter your email address below to receive emails from Laurie twice a month.

Your information is safe with me. I will never spam you. Read my privacy policy here.

Hi, I’m Laurie.

  • Scribe for wonder
  • Contemplative author/artist
  • Reader/performer/speaker
  • Imagination maven
  • Biblio*Diva
  • Expert on chocolate raisins
  • Click here to read more.

Where the Sky Opens, a Partial Cosmography

Where the Sky Opens, a Partial Cosmography
Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
Where the Sky Opens, a Partial Cosmography
Buy now!

Recent Posts

  • IF
  • “What Child Is This?” (Soundings, 3rd Impression)
  • Giving Thanks (Soundings, 2nd Impression)
  • The Wall (Soundings: 1st impression)
  • Lure

Categories

  • BiblioDiva
  • Immersions
  • Small Wonders
  • Soul Mimosas
  • Springboards
  • Wellsprings

Tags

adoption adventure anger attention Beauty change chosen contemplative death delight Gift Gifts grace graft gratefulness gratitude hope joy light longing love May mother mystery pain path peace possibility praise prayer Risk savor second thoughts senses shelf life soundings space stars stories surrender transformation trust waiting wonder yes

Copyright © 2021 Laurie Klein, Scribe Laurie Klein, Scribe All Rights Reserved Laurie Klein, Scribe Privacy Policy