I brought out the electric Christmas candles for the windows on Friday evening. My house has two old-fashioned bay windows, one in the living room next to the house's front entrance and one 'round the corner looking out on the cross-street from the dining room.
The candles in the dining room window are on a timer. They switch on in the late afternoon and turn off at midnight. The candles in the front windows have sensors that turn them on late in the afternoon and turn them off after sunrise.
The sun, I believe, is up, on this first Sunday in Advent, though I can't see it yet from my front window. The houses across the street, and all of the houses east of them, block the horizon. But the sky is a bright and pale blue; the sun is in the sky and has wiped away the pink clouds of dawn.
The living room candles are still on--no, two have gone out. The other two will quit soon. Late last night when I went to bed, I thought about my eight lights--four on, four off. Not quite the ten bridesmaids of the parable in Matthew--but still, half were lit through the night, half not.
The analogy doesn't go very far. There's no failure of preparedness in the dining room. The electricity will flow all night. I could easily reset the timer to keep the lights on until dawn. Or I could replace those candles with ones with sensors and skip the timer altogether. I bought four photosensor candles on sale after Christmas last year, plus a dozen extra bulbs. I'm ready.
(What I didn't do was plug my laptop into the charger last night. It may make it to the end of this post, or it may not. )
But what am I ready for? I have to leave for church in twenty minutes. I'll come home afterward to say good-bye to the son who is going back to college later this morning. He's ready--we went to Trader Joe's late yesterday afternoon to buy him groceries. He's done his laundry. His mind is turning towards papers and studying for finals. After he leaves I'll go back to church and rehearse Christmas music with my tiny high school choir, get them ready to hear their "Awake, awake" anthem amplified by the resonance of the sanctuary.
And we'll see what comes next. Two candles in the front window are still on. Watchful even in the daylight.
Or maybe they just don't know when to let go.
Sunday, December 01, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Trick or treat
It's Halloween and the weather app on my phone says rain--rain all day. One hundred percent chance of rain all morning. Eighty percent during trick-or-treat hours this afternoon.
It's going to be a tough day to be a kid, or a parent. The hordes will still be out tonight, trekking down sidewalks, schlepping up stairs to gather candy. But there will be a lot of waiting for the rain to stop and a lot of let's go now, I don't care if I get wet.
Halloween comes but once a year, and even with parties at school and parties last weekend and costumes and decorations on display for weeks beforehand, none of that is quite like the day itself.
My youngest child went trick-or-treating for the first time when he was two. Dressed in a hand-me-down Batman cape, with me urging him on, he trotted up the first neighbor's sidewalk, climbed the stairs, and made the amazing discovery that if you rang the bell and waited, people would come out and give you candy. Not just once--at house after house.
His older sister, almost four, was with us, but she a) hated walking and b) didn't like sweets. Halloween was one more thing Mom was trying to get her to do that she didn't understand. She grumped and pouted and rode in the LIttle Tikes plastic wagon.
On most Halloween nights I get a two hundred or more trick-or-treaters at my door. Maybe two hundred. I buy big bags of cheap candy and figure on 300 pieces. How far it goes depends on me--one piece a bag, or two? How long do I want to do this? When the candy is gone I can turn out the porch light and retreat to the kitchen, where I can't hear the door bell.
The children, teens and young adults who descend on my neighborhood on Halloween night come from Chicago's west side. The border between city and suburbs is only a block from my house. My town is integrated, educated, prosperous, with good schools. Citizens' voices are raised and powerful at village board meetings. The city neighborhood to my east is almost entirely African-American. There are some grand old homes and plenty of what was once middle-class city housing. White flight and resegregation came in the 1960s. Property values are nowhere near what they are in my suburb. Schools, family structures, opportunities--all very different, though only a few blocks away.
My own children, as they got older, trick or treated with friends in the more upscale neighborhoods a mile west of our home, or even two miles to the west. where people in big homes and broad lawns give out full-size Snickers bars or dollar bills on Halloween night.
That would be a steep treat for me to finance--Snickers bars times two or three hundred. How much difference does one or another configuration of sugar and flavoring make? But I'll open my door this afternoon, with handfuls of Jawbreakers and Smarties. Because, amazingly, this is what happens on Halloween.
It's going to be a tough day to be a kid, or a parent. The hordes will still be out tonight, trekking down sidewalks, schlepping up stairs to gather candy. But there will be a lot of waiting for the rain to stop and a lot of let's go now, I don't care if I get wet.
Halloween comes but once a year, and even with parties at school and parties last weekend and costumes and decorations on display for weeks beforehand, none of that is quite like the day itself.
My youngest child went trick-or-treating for the first time when he was two. Dressed in a hand-me-down Batman cape, with me urging him on, he trotted up the first neighbor's sidewalk, climbed the stairs, and made the amazing discovery that if you rang the bell and waited, people would come out and give you candy. Not just once--at house after house.
His older sister, almost four, was with us, but she a) hated walking and b) didn't like sweets. Halloween was one more thing Mom was trying to get her to do that she didn't understand. She grumped and pouted and rode in the LIttle Tikes plastic wagon.
On most Halloween nights I get a two hundred or more trick-or-treaters at my door. Maybe two hundred. I buy big bags of cheap candy and figure on 300 pieces. How far it goes depends on me--one piece a bag, or two? How long do I want to do this? When the candy is gone I can turn out the porch light and retreat to the kitchen, where I can't hear the door bell.
The children, teens and young adults who descend on my neighborhood on Halloween night come from Chicago's west side. The border between city and suburbs is only a block from my house. My town is integrated, educated, prosperous, with good schools. Citizens' voices are raised and powerful at village board meetings. The city neighborhood to my east is almost entirely African-American. There are some grand old homes and plenty of what was once middle-class city housing. White flight and resegregation came in the 1960s. Property values are nowhere near what they are in my suburb. Schools, family structures, opportunities--all very different, though only a few blocks away.
My own children, as they got older, trick or treated with friends in the more upscale neighborhoods a mile west of our home, or even two miles to the west. where people in big homes and broad lawns give out full-size Snickers bars or dollar bills on Halloween night.
That would be a steep treat for me to finance--Snickers bars times two or three hundred. How much difference does one or another configuration of sugar and flavoring make? But I'll open my door this afternoon, with handfuls of Jawbreakers and Smarties. Because, amazingly, this is what happens on Halloween.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Not sleeping
Middle of the night. Not sleeping. Twisting in bed.
Checking the watch. Not-asleep time is piling up fast.
Should I get up?
Warm bed, cold house.The light will hurt my eyes.
And maybe sleep will come soon.
Or it won't. Likely it won't.
(Oh, the bed is warm and the house is not.)
Lavender lotion rubbed into my feet once put me to sleep.
Cheerios. Cocoa. Toast. Jam.
Should I get up?
Checking the watch. Not-asleep time is piling up fast.
Should I get up?
Warm bed, cold house.The light will hurt my eyes.
And maybe sleep will come soon.
Or it won't. Likely it won't.
(Oh, the bed is warm and the house is not.)
Lavender lotion rubbed into my feet once put me to sleep.
Cheerios. Cocoa. Toast. Jam.
Should I get up?
Regret
Regret, I read recently, is a sign that something is wrong, not in the past, but now. Because, I guess, if you're basically content, or at least functioning in the present, you must be okay with the past, you've made your peace, voila! no regrets.
Regret is sticking hard to me. It's the big round decade-ending birthday looming ahead. I look back on all the things that never happened in my life, and aren't going to. I must be responsible, because it is my life.
Time bends backward twenty years, thirty years, and then springs forward and tears a big aching hole in the fabric of the present. Regret.
Thin fabric.
Regret is sticking hard to me. It's the big round decade-ending birthday looming ahead. I look back on all the things that never happened in my life, and aren't going to. I must be responsible, because it is my life.
Time bends backward twenty years, thirty years, and then springs forward and tears a big aching hole in the fabric of the present. Regret.
Thin fabric.
Monday, October 21, 2013
In the moment
Sometimes, said the preacher tonight, sometimes a word in a hymn you're singing catches you, or you catch it, and it's the word you need to hear, the promise you need from God in that moment.
The occasion was a festival of hymn concertatos by Walter Pelz, part of Concordia University Chicago's Lectures in Church Music. Remarkably, the preacher, or the speaker of the Meditations between hymns, was Dean Lueking, Pastor Emeritus of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest. If you're acquainted with the history of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod you'll understand the "remarkably." If not, let it go. "Remarkably" is not the word for the night.
In fact, I do not have a word, or a phrase, a hymn stanza, or even a melodic figure that captured me or spoke to me or mattered any more than the rest of the words spoken or sung this evening. It was a night for paying careful attention to mechanics: the conductor's beat, the notes on the page, the next entrance, the vocal technique. My own vocal technique is undergoing repair and restoration, and tonight's many descants, many trips above the staff, were a test of sorts. My voice was not in tatters at the end of the evening, so I'm giving myself a passing grade. A shot of Scotch or bourbon would be welcome at this point, however. I don't have any on hand. I'd make myself some tea, but once you've visualized the whiskey, what's the point of herbal tea?
Sometimes, said the preacher tonight, sometimes a word in a hymn you're singing catches you, or you catch it, and it's the word you need to hear, the promise you need from God in that moment.
Perhaps the word to take with tonight was "sing." Pastor Lueking used it frequently and delivered the infinitive "to sing" into the acoustics of the sanctuary as someone who knows how to make those walls sing back. He sang a phrase from a hymn from the pulpit, and talked of thousands of Christian voices singing around the world. Even though there were trumpets, trombones, horns and timpani, and lots of flashy notes from the organ, singing was the focus. We sing together as Christians, and especially as Lutherans, and while four-part unaccompanied singing is lovely, there is nothing so thrilling as a big solid unison on one of the great hymns of the church. The organ introduction sets things up. Then the organist lifts his hands from the keys, so that the instrument breathes with the congregation, and we all come back in together, loudly certain of when to begin.
There is no Lutheran modesty when we all sing together.
Sometimes, said the preacher tonight, sometimes a word in a hymn you're singing catches you, or you catch it, and it's the word you need to hear, the promise you need from God in that moment.
Sometimes the promise is in the sound and in the making of that sound. No words needed in that moment.
The occasion was a festival of hymn concertatos by Walter Pelz, part of Concordia University Chicago's Lectures in Church Music. Remarkably, the preacher, or the speaker of the Meditations between hymns, was Dean Lueking, Pastor Emeritus of Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest. If you're acquainted with the history of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod you'll understand the "remarkably." If not, let it go. "Remarkably" is not the word for the night.
In fact, I do not have a word, or a phrase, a hymn stanza, or even a melodic figure that captured me or spoke to me or mattered any more than the rest of the words spoken or sung this evening. It was a night for paying careful attention to mechanics: the conductor's beat, the notes on the page, the next entrance, the vocal technique. My own vocal technique is undergoing repair and restoration, and tonight's many descants, many trips above the staff, were a test of sorts. My voice was not in tatters at the end of the evening, so I'm giving myself a passing grade. A shot of Scotch or bourbon would be welcome at this point, however. I don't have any on hand. I'd make myself some tea, but once you've visualized the whiskey, what's the point of herbal tea?
Sometimes, said the preacher tonight, sometimes a word in a hymn you're singing catches you, or you catch it, and it's the word you need to hear, the promise you need from God in that moment.
Perhaps the word to take with tonight was "sing." Pastor Lueking used it frequently and delivered the infinitive "to sing" into the acoustics of the sanctuary as someone who knows how to make those walls sing back. He sang a phrase from a hymn from the pulpit, and talked of thousands of Christian voices singing around the world. Even though there were trumpets, trombones, horns and timpani, and lots of flashy notes from the organ, singing was the focus. We sing together as Christians, and especially as Lutherans, and while four-part unaccompanied singing is lovely, there is nothing so thrilling as a big solid unison on one of the great hymns of the church. The organ introduction sets things up. Then the organist lifts his hands from the keys, so that the instrument breathes with the congregation, and we all come back in together, loudly certain of when to begin.
There is no Lutheran modesty when we all sing together.
Sometimes, said the preacher tonight, sometimes a word in a hymn you're singing catches you, or you catch it, and it's the word you need to hear, the promise you need from God in that moment.
Sometimes the promise is in the sound and in the making of that sound. No words needed in that moment.
Friday, September 13, 2013
"Bless the Lord, O my soul."
My Joyful Voices singers are working on this anthem by Ruth Watson Henderson. Here's a performance by the Northfield, Minnesota, Youth Choir, Anima.
My girls--well, if I could clone the four of them several times over, they might sound something like this. They're good singers and they're growing up as artists and musicians.
The text is Psalm 103:
To not always be chiding--that is indeed compassionate and wise. Constant scolding is tough on people, whether it's the "you did this wrong" variety or the "you still haven't done this, this, and this" variation. One's focused on the past, the other stresses over the future. Listen to that stuff all the time and it's pretty hard to bless the Lord in the present. There are studies that demonstrate this.
Of course the chiding that is going on in my head a lot lately is speaking in my own voice. The message is often attributed to others, but mostly the criticism is me on me. "Why don't you?" "Why can't you?""Why are you?"
There's a homemade wicker-weave basket sitting on the stack of books next to me on the table. This was only my second attempt at making this type of basket. The sides are woven in three-rod wale: three weavers, each in its turn going over two spokes and under one. Even if you don't understand what that means, your eyes would still see the regularity of the pattern. They would also notice the mistakes in my basket--places where the weavers went over three spokes, or just one. The glitches are all on one side--I was struggling to understand the "step-up," which is how you move from one row to the next without a break in the pattern. Breaks in the pattern stand out--like dissonance or syncopation in music. But these breaks in my basket were not planned--they stand out because I goofed.
The bottom of the basket has problems, too. The center is an eight-pointed star, with sides of the octagon made of four-piece bundles of reed. As the base gets bigger these groups of four swirl around, and weave over and under. Eventually they divide into groups of two which continue to weave and swirl. At some point, in the middle of a round, I lost track of which pairs had actually been woven into place and which ones had sprung into position--the wrong positions--on their own. After forty-five minutes of struggling to make sense of it all I decided to call it a learning experience and let it be--off-center and imperfect. I curved the spokes upward, wove the sides, and finished off the top.
Enough chiding for one basket. It's imperfect, and yet I keep it around. It's light and strong and the top border is pleasing. It can hold balls of yarn. I like to look at it. Even imperfectly, it blesses its maker.
Compassion and mercy--not just for baskets, thank God.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
My girls--well, if I could clone the four of them several times over, they might sound something like this. They're good singers and they're growing up as artists and musicians.
The text is Psalm 103:
Bless the Lord, O my soul. All that is within me bless his holy name. The Lord is full of compassion and gracious. Long-suffering and of great goodness. He will not always be chiding, be chiding. . .
To not always be chiding--that is indeed compassionate and wise. Constant scolding is tough on people, whether it's the "you did this wrong" variety or the "you still haven't done this, this, and this" variation. One's focused on the past, the other stresses over the future. Listen to that stuff all the time and it's pretty hard to bless the Lord in the present. There are studies that demonstrate this.
Of course the chiding that is going on in my head a lot lately is speaking in my own voice. The message is often attributed to others, but mostly the criticism is me on me. "Why don't you?" "Why can't you?""Why are you?"
There's a homemade wicker-weave basket sitting on the stack of books next to me on the table. This was only my second attempt at making this type of basket. The sides are woven in three-rod wale: three weavers, each in its turn going over two spokes and under one. Even if you don't understand what that means, your eyes would still see the regularity of the pattern. They would also notice the mistakes in my basket--places where the weavers went over three spokes, or just one. The glitches are all on one side--I was struggling to understand the "step-up," which is how you move from one row to the next without a break in the pattern. Breaks in the pattern stand out--like dissonance or syncopation in music. But these breaks in my basket were not planned--they stand out because I goofed.
The bottom of the basket has problems, too. The center is an eight-pointed star, with sides of the octagon made of four-piece bundles of reed. As the base gets bigger these groups of four swirl around, and weave over and under. Eventually they divide into groups of two which continue to weave and swirl. At some point, in the middle of a round, I lost track of which pairs had actually been woven into place and which ones had sprung into position--the wrong positions--on their own. After forty-five minutes of struggling to make sense of it all I decided to call it a learning experience and let it be--off-center and imperfect. I curved the spokes upward, wove the sides, and finished off the top.
Enough chiding for one basket. It's imperfect, and yet I keep it around. It's light and strong and the top border is pleasing. It can hold balls of yarn. I like to look at it. Even imperfectly, it blesses its maker.
Compassion and mercy--not just for baskets, thank God.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Monday, September 02, 2013
Faces
Sitting in the back yard, drinking beer. It's Island Wheat, in a blue can that says Capital Brewery and displays a golden map of the waters around Washington Island, Wisconsin.
I am not ready for summer to be over. I have to finish painting the garage. And I am not yet full up with the peace and quiet that comes from yard-sitting in the morning, in the evening, in the heat or in an early September chill.
Who am I? Who else could I be?
I looked last night at hundreds of pictures from my son and daughter-in-law's wedding. I'm in many of these, wearing as fancy a dress as I've had in decades, hair straight and smooth, make-up and bright lipstick sharpening my features. I know that's me. It was a very happy night. But outside-in looks different from how inside-to-out feels.
This afternoon I've been writing Bible stories for a project at my church. I am very conscious that the words I choose affect how people will understand these stories. One rewrites the words of the Bible with caution, but also with the awareness that the gospel writers themselves were interpreters of an oral tradition, that they, like me, tried to imagine what it was like to follow Jesus in Galilee and Jerusalem. Even if they were working with sources or oral traditions that originated with Jesus disciples, people who were there, they still wrote from a specific theological point of view, to meet the needs of specific readers.
You write a face onto a story--the words on the page. If you're telling the story out loud, you add gestures, emotion, tempo, according to the reactions of your listeners. If you're writing it, you guess at these things. You use your skill to prepare for the big moments, for the surprises, for the touching of hearts. But others will read from outside in, what it is you put in from inside out.
Soon the maple over my head will turn gold. And then its leaves will fall and crumble and blow up against the fence. The tree will be faceless through the winter. What will it be thinking?
I am not ready for summer to be over. I have to finish painting the garage. And I am not yet full up with the peace and quiet that comes from yard-sitting in the morning, in the evening, in the heat or in an early September chill.
Who am I? Who else could I be?
I looked last night at hundreds of pictures from my son and daughter-in-law's wedding. I'm in many of these, wearing as fancy a dress as I've had in decades, hair straight and smooth, make-up and bright lipstick sharpening my features. I know that's me. It was a very happy night. But outside-in looks different from how inside-to-out feels.
This afternoon I've been writing Bible stories for a project at my church. I am very conscious that the words I choose affect how people will understand these stories. One rewrites the words of the Bible with caution, but also with the awareness that the gospel writers themselves were interpreters of an oral tradition, that they, like me, tried to imagine what it was like to follow Jesus in Galilee and Jerusalem. Even if they were working with sources or oral traditions that originated with Jesus disciples, people who were there, they still wrote from a specific theological point of view, to meet the needs of specific readers.
You write a face onto a story--the words on the page. If you're telling the story out loud, you add gestures, emotion, tempo, according to the reactions of your listeners. If you're writing it, you guess at these things. You use your skill to prepare for the big moments, for the surprises, for the touching of hearts. But others will read from outside in, what it is you put in from inside out.
Soon the maple over my head will turn gold. And then its leaves will fall and crumble and blow up against the fence. The tree will be faceless through the winter. What will it be thinking?
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