hope Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

Anchor

Anchor, 1962: AHOY, Maiden Voyage!

My best friend and I embark today in the rowboat—first time without a grownup. I grip the oars, gung-ho to go.

Mom commands the pier, shifting her weight from foot to foot as if soothing a baby.

“Are your life jackets snug?”
Triple cinch knots . . . by you, I say.
“Extra sunscreen?”
Got it. (Small eye roll from friend.)
“You don’t want another—”
MOM, we’ll be fine.

Double thumbs up and we’re off. At our feet, a mound of rope, canary-bright, curls alongside a new anchor.

“WAIT!” Mom calls. “Do you have your watch? I want you back in an hour.”

I wave and grin, feeling strong, in control, unstoppable.

Down lake, we drop anchor. Sploosh!
Rope un-loops fast, all friction
and hot neon blur—Z-z-z-z—
down to the last coil until,
phloop, the tail end flips

(Oh no!) over the side . . .

floats for a moment,
then disappears
into the murk.

L. O. S. T.

And who failed to tie the line to the boat? Flighty, unreliable me. With every stroke toward home the word irresponsible whirls in my head, a growing vortex sucking me down.

So, why remember this now? Sobering, unfamiliar responsibilities. The occasional sense of hovering doom. The brain whispers You’re going to mess up—an echo of what I felt long ago, in the boat.

Oh, I know all the right words . . . “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (He. 6:19).

Still. Bogus beliefs formed in childhood can go undercover. Shelf life? Notorious.

To dodge looking deeper, I open an escapist novel. A character says, “Why don’t you question some of your wildly incorrect underlying assumptions once in a while?”

Oh dear.

Each youthful assumption that surfaces exposes a faulty conclusion lurking beneath it. With tentacles.

I can’t be trusted.
I’m a failed adult.
I don’t deserve hope like an anchor.

Yow.

Near the end of my mother’s life her broken mind drifted, detached from reality. Briefly lucid, she gripped my arm and said, “I feel like a little boat, all alone in the middle of the ocean.”

Nothing dissuaded her. Had she let me, I would have rocked her in my arms and sung to her.

I failed to find a way to soothe my mama, but fresh grace seeping through me today might comfort my beloved.

This fact remains: I lost my dad’s anchor, but I am not lost.

Still. “When hope recedes, so does the capacity to move toward . . . wholeness,” grief counselor James E. Miller writes.

To become a healing presence, I must reckon with self-judgment. Enact the old heave-ho. And picture Jesus present with me so long ago in the boat as well as the aftermath.

Re-anchored in truth, I can navigate shifting circumstance, perhaps steady our journey.

No way to feel strong, in control, unstoppable. Sometimes guilt muscles in, and worry rides shotgun. Will a life jacket appear for my beloved when needed, tenderly fastened?

Will he sense Someone who loves him watching, watching for his return?

We’re all underway. Healing may be different than curing.

Amid the murk of cascading decisions and the burden of waiting-waiting-waiting: friends, can we welcome hope?

Centuries ago, Augustine wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Lord, steer us toward wholeness. Expose old assumptions.
Ease the dead weight of ambiguity. Helplessness. Senseless pain.
Anchor us in you, our hope, now and always. Amen.

What helps you live free of former assumptions?

Rowboat Photo by Jasper Garratt on Unsplash

No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done, Sophie Hannah

Hands gripping miniature anchor Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash

Here’s a wise, practical, deeply compassionate, beautifully written book I am loving:

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

Leaven, Longing, and the Infinitesimal

by Laurie Klein 18 Chiming In

Leaven — even packaged, it’s alive.

(Just dormant, at present.)

Like most of us, yeast needs

a little warmth
some food
and room to grow

Because I’m using dry yeast, I “proof it”:

Sprinkle yeast over lukewarm water
Stir in sugar

Dance for 10 minutes

While set aside, the leaven starts “budding.” Who else in early March wouldn’t welcome a small domestic sign of Spring— aside from the annual cleaning list?

Yeast cells are bona fide (“in good faith”) fungi, one of earth’s oldest microorganisms.

I’m feeling somewhat aged, myself, by virulent infection. I long to see something rise.

And today, it does.

I make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the bubbling foam.

Unanswered health questions clamor. I knead them right into the dough.

Why this, why now?
How much longer?
When will you answer, God?

Audible

We smell leaven, see its effect, savor its taste and texture. While my dough rises, I research yeast.

In 2001, nanotechnology leader Jim Gimzewski wondered if live yeast cells might pulsate, producing detectable sound.

Using an atomic force microscope, he and assistant Andrew Pelling measured vibrations at roughly 1,000 times per second. They fixed the microscope’s delicate probe in place like a record needle, resting atop the cell’s membrane.

When they amplified the sound, ethereal notes (C-sharp to D above middle C) filled the laboratory.

Journalists have compared the subcellular tones of yeast to the eerie whistling of whales.

How like the Creator to hardwire music into eccentric locations.

In my kitchen, I lean over the bread bowl, lower my ear, hold my breath …

Today, tomorrow, and yesterday

Because yeast cells with genetic mutations make slightly different sounds, researchers hope doctors might one day be able to eavesdrop on our cells, perhaps heading off disease before symptoms arise.

Thank you, Jim Gimzewski and Andrew Pelling. Years from now, someone battling the superbug, C. diff, as I am, might experience swift intervention.

The idea raises my spirits. So does that warm, yeasty smell in my kitchen.

Thank you, ancient Egypt,
for your unearthed
blueprints of bakeries—
4,000 years old—your hearty
loaves, shaped like birds
and fish of the Nile.

Thank you, Master Leeuwenhoek,
first man to view yeast
under a DIY microscope,
and Louis Pasteur, for explaining
how yeast works, and
dear Fleischmann’s®, supplying
our great-grandparents with leaven,
and decades of recipes, passed down.

Such a simple, sensory way to join hundreds of thousands who’ve waited, and prayed, and baked, and waited some more, for hope’s leaven to work.

And thank you, “O Thou who, in the fullness of time, didst raise up our Lord …”*

“… we rise up and stand firm …”

until, at last, we too are golden.

Blessed. Broken. Passed around.

Health Update: I’m on a new 3-week round of medication. I see an Infectious Diseases specialist in one month. Thank you for your ongoing concern and prayers! By next post, I hope to report the long siege is over!

You might also like Longing: What it Wants, Where it Points

Read more about Sonocytology (the study of cell sounds) here

*A Diary of Private Prayer, John Baillie

Loaf photo, Monica Grabkowska on Unsplash

Fleischmann’s® Yeast website (includes recipes)

Grace … in media res: (in the middle of things)

by Laurie Klein 18 Chiming In

Grace … in media res

“In the Middle of Things”

Between our creaking dock
and the park’s rocky point,
leaching blue
from Fowler Lake’s surface,
the perilous sandbar lurked.

Rowing across it one day,
I spied my future:
strewn across restless sand,
a scatter of strange shells.

Shells meant PEARLS.

And P.E.A.R.L.S. meant . . . CA$H!

Any kid who loves books
can tell you

• Pearls fall from the sky
when dragons fight, and
• Pearls always match the color
of the host oyster’s lips, and
• Pearls are made of moonlight,
trapped inside dew

The part about salt water?—
completely escaped my notice.

What would I buy first?

Sixty Years later

As a kid obsessed with treasure I’d probably spotted freshwater mussels. My schemes of wealth now seem endearing.

But the wide-open heart, the hope and dreaming … this is still me.

Especially in media res, “in the middle of things.”

It is the hour of pearl, Steinbeck wrote, the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

Isn’t this how we often awaken, half-aware

• the dog wants breakfast
• deadlines loom
• chores clamor
• sellers may reject our bids
• loved ones battle disease
• hopes wane
• relationships fray

Where are the PEARLS?

Pain proves annoyingly democratic:

and almost all shelled mollusks afflicted by broken shells, or parasites, or one measly grain of sand can—incrementally—create a living gem.

… the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.*

We mortals, too, must process harm and grit and doses of brine, withstand rogue currents and shifting ground—while keeping our (eventual) luster hopefully strung through average days.

Give me room. I’m trying to make pearls here.

No.

I’m trying to save my self.

And I can’t.

Grace is weightless

(So Ann Voskamp writes.)

And wait-less, I’d add.

Grace is a gleam in the soul. It soothes and guards us against each day’s irritations and intrusions.

Grace is a pulling force, attracted to tacit fear and each relational shard we secretly harbor, or overlook, the mediocrity chafing our days and thoughts, our loves, and lives.

Grace lurks.

And it shifts, as needed, to meet our next breath.

Singular as each whorl
embossing our fingertips,
every pearl embodies
opalescence alongside
insult and imperfection.

Grace waits for us at the imminent, ravaged ends of hope.

Any pearl sightings at your place lately?

*Frederico Fellini, Italian film director and screenwriter.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Oyster Photo by Charlotte Coneybeer on Unsplash

Scales: Deliberate Tippage

by Laurie Klein 24 Chiming In

Scales

Symbol of justice.
Tool for measurements. Proportions. Ratios. Ratings.
Do re mi fa sol la ti do: syllables assigned to musical steps in an octave.
Verb for ascent.
Colorful chitin covering moth and butterfly wings.
Bony overlapping plates on crocs and dragons. Clown fish.

I see the clown fish bubble toy at the Fair. What a hoot! I breathe deeper, forget the crowds and heat.

Later, I read the news and feel . . . overwhelmed. On a scale of 1 – 10, I’m at -3.

I read a poem titled “Work,” by Catherine Pierce.

… I remind myself
for every person razing there’s another engineering
a ladder of light.

The scales tilt.

Hope stirs my thoughts, my pen. I fumble an incomplete litany onto the page. Perhaps you’ll assist me?

For every business depleting a natural resource, there’s an angler practicing catch-and-release.
For every flash flood in a cave, entrapping children, there are divers donning their gear, risking all.
For every soundbite polarizing a nation, there’s a volunteer translating for detainees at the border.

I think of murderous Saul, in Damascus: blind, fearful, huddled in darkness. Enter Ananias, carrying out his work as messenger. He lays his hands over Saul’s eyes.

“Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again.”

What can you add to augment our hope?

For every ________________, there’s a ____________________.

You might also enjoy “Catch and Release”