Among the Trees

You know how sometimes you get to the end of a day and you don't want to say "it was a good day" or even "it was a bad day," but you pause, breathe a little deeper, and then you sigh "it was a day"?

Well this has been a week. Please excuse the melodrama; just last Sunday, I was a teenager.

Things I did that made this week a week:

• curled up under my rain jacket in Panera (these are the times I wish it were more socially acceptable to carry around a blanket), cried over a book of poetry, and drank so much sweet tea I couldn't sleep all night
• ate fan-freaking-tastic birthday cupcakes made with love by two of my favorite people
• [unsuccessfully] attempted to register for classes and get football tickets for the fall
• talked to my mom about scrapbooking
• made "lentil loaf" (there's a reason this post doesn't include the recipe)
• came home from work one day and collapsed on the couch until I mustered enough energy to microwave some eggs for dinner (clearly the raving success of the spinach burgers last week was balanced out by lentil loaf and microwaved eggs this week... what can I say?  I'm restoring equilibrium to the universe)
• made plans to go dress shopping with one of my very fashionable older neighbors this weekend
• hung out with some awesome preschoolers and danced and celebrated the ways we see God provides for us
• cried because people are hungry
• hit a girl (and got hit!) in a jam-packed Zumba class
• picked a lot of flowers and put them in my hair
• blew out birthday candles and wished that I would always be surrounded by people who love me as well as the 1158 crowd does (oops... does writing it mean my wish won't come true?)
• thought a lot about trees:

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

-Mary Oliver

And so I've been trying to "walk slowly, and bow often." Because my sometimes-flighty, no-longer-teenage self has a lot to learn from the elegant, coming-back-to-life tree in our front yard, from the grasping branches at the park down the road, from the pink buds littering the sidewalk on my walk to work. They're inviting me to stay awhile, to hold out during the long cold months and trust that spring, flowers, growth are coming, to offer unashamed fragrance and beauty to the world. "'It's simple,' they say." Maybe not easy, but simple.

Sights for Sore Eyes (seriously though... this pollen is killing my eyes)

The wonderful, perfect, wanna-be-like-her-when-I-grow-up Meredith and I celebrated Mass at St. Bernard's Abbey. We missed the dress-up-and-cover-your-hair memo, but the monks didn't seem to mind at all. Also, the homily was one of the most stunning invitations I've ever heard to come to the table of grace and stuff our faces with the goodness of Christ's forgiveness so we don't walk away hungry. Only the monk said it much, you know, prettier.

Then we ate pizza. Lots of pizza. With pineapple.

The next morning (who am I kidding... it was the afternoon before we even got out of bed) we went on the loveliest walk, full of snaky trails, sunshiney rocks, and a topsy-turvy-tumbly stream. 

Then I was off to Tuscaloosa. I don't even eat at Taco Bell, but  it's always the first thing I notice on McFarland, so I have this strangely forceful attraction to it. I may have sort of almost cried.

First stop in T-town... Church of Movement Toward Freedom. These folks--my family-- know how to do community (and fried chicken!) exceptionally well. 

And then... GLORIOUS REUNION! Fried green tomato BTL and a chocolate shake. Oh also it was pretty nice to see my roommates again. (Of course you know that by "pretty nice" I mean it was like someone plugged in the world and everything, EVERYTHING just lit up.)

I swear there is nothing better than eating brownies and watching monsters fall in love with a little girl. Nothing in the whole wide world. See also: what cool college kids do at night. 

THIS! I swung by my favorite art gallery EVER (the Paul R. Jones Gallery downtown-- houses 20th century African-American art)  and found a lovely collection of pieces around the theme of migration and the way cities forced people to start rubbing shoulders with each other a little bit more. Coincidentally, that mayyy be something I've been thinking about recently. Just a little bit.

Ben Rector sang about giraffes and it was STILL face-meltingly gorgeous. That's all I have to say about that.


...And tomorrow it's back to Atlanta for more adventures, more precious community, and (hopefully) much less pollen!

Now-but-not-yet

We got to the Good Friday service (which wasn't really a Good Friday service at all) a little late. I wish I could blame MARTA, but it was actually because I got lost. (Me? Lost and late? Shocking, I know.) But no one seemed to mind as we settled into the back row of the synagogue to welcome the Pesach Shabbat, Passover Sabbath, with the rest of the congregation.

And somewhere between the beautiful kirtan and the silent meditation it hit me.

We're all living in the now-but-not-yet.

We celebrate freedom from captivity in Egypt. We eat quinoa instead of bread to remember the gleeful, terrifying fleeing as Pharaoh finally let us go. We shake tambourines and proclaim, Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad. Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. We remember Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, Miriam and Moses, and we dance in the presence of Jehovah Jireh, the Lord who always, always provides.

Or, we celebrate freedom from death. We take the preschoolers running around the church looking for Jesus only to find out that He is risen. He is risen indeed! We watch the sun come up on Easter and let the signs of life remind us that life itself is being renewed, restored, redeemed. We sing the hymns loud, trusting that this resurrection points to a future one.

But we all live in the same shattered world, a place where the imago dei is on display but goes unnoticed. Image-bearers of the Most High parade, meander, or sometimes slouch through life seen as sex objects, gun targets, too much of one thing, not enough of another. And we cry or yell or sit quietly with the not-yets as they slap us in the face, all the while looking forward to the coming—whether we believe it will be for the first time or the second—of Moshiach, the Messiah, who will bring the complete redemption of the world.

In a world torn by violence and pain, a world far from wholeness and peace, a world waiting still to be redeemed, give us, Lord, the courage to say: There is One God in heaven and earth. The high heavens declare His glory; may earth reveal His justice and His love.

—The New Union Prayer Book