Que Sera, Sera

I'm mounting a new exhibit next week at a local country club -- a venue I've not been in before -- and they've pretty much given me carte blanche; I can show whatever I like.

It's a bit like putting a microphone in front of someone's face and asking them to "say something funny;" there's a sort of freeze that happens...

But I've decided -- given that I've grown inexplicably tired with all the experimenting I've done over the past couple of years -- to go with what makes me feel good; the shots I've done which bring a softening and peaceful feeling; images like this one -- simple, still, gentle, full of light.

I'm also thinking it might be fun to see if I can create paintings that go with them, though, given that my family will be arriving back from their road trip today, I have no idea whether I'll be able to find time to paint over the next week or so. Things might be a little crazy around here. 

As Doris Day said -- Que sera, sera; whatever will be, will be!

The stern critic

Something in me feels best when I am accomplishing things; I suspect it's tied to the fact that my mother's highest accolades for anyone were "efficient" and "competent." So however strong the urge may be to just BE, and be contemplative, the pull to DO is always stronger.

So even though I have three days to myself while my husband and daughter bring her car across the country -- which means I could be spending my time meditating and painting -- some imp in me is keeping me busy accomplishing things; cleaning out closets and drawers; taking things to the cleaners, the thrift shop, and the dump; cleaning and refilling the hot tub; running errands and generally staying busy.  Yesterday I never even meditated -- which might explain why yesterday's post was both late and pretty pointless.

But in the middle of all my busy-ness yesterday I came home to find, not one, but TWO eagles on our roof (the other one flew away while I was going into the house for my camera).  And as I look at that grave face, I realize that for all my determined awareness of the feminine and supportive aspects of the divine, some part of me still thinks God is more like this: stern, critical, looking down on me from some lofty perspective and not particularly pleased with what he sees.

Perhaps it's just that I am reading (for the third time) Paul Wilkes' Temptations, a mystery set in a monastery in Vermont and featuring as its protagonist a playboy journalist who is wrestling with a call to monastic life, aided and abetted by a powerful monk whose demeanor is rather like that of this eagle; a monk who may or may not be driving his novices to madness and self-destruction (I have a gift for forgetting endings, so the mystery is as fresh and unsolved today as it was the first time I read the book).

I'm about two thirds of the way through, and have just come across this line: "One of the adages that I'm sure has been around since the first two hermits decided to cook their humble broth in a single pot was to me the ultimate leveler: Only the weak come to monasteries.  If a man was strong enough, he could live in the world."

It seems to me to be a corollary to something an older woman once said to me when we were remarking upon the fact that neither her daughter nor my husband had any inclination to attend church: "I think it's because they are naturally good.  It's only those of us who struggle so with wickedness who need to go to church."

-- which might explain why church, and the behavior of its leaders, is disappointing to so many.  Perhaps it's not, as we always assumed, a place where true believers can share their faith and support one another on their journeys, but rather a place where people who struggle with the huge gap between their high expectations of their own morality and their actual behavior go in hopes it will motivate them to do better.  I'd like to believe the churches I've served in over the years fall into the former category, but for some reason the churches in the latter category seem to have a lot more visibility.  No wonder our young people are staying away...

When language stinks

This is the edge of a table, seen against a low corrugated wall in a restaurant called Stink, in Tacoma.  The name is a delightful play on words -- Tacoma is known for its paper mills, but also the restaurant serves as a deli, specializing in unusual cheeses.  I'm sure any food critic would love to be able to say the restaurant stinks, but in fact the food is fabulous.

It's another reminder of the power words have to confuse and mislead us; something I've been thinking about off and on lately -- primarily in connection with Pentecost; that moment in time when everyone, however briefly, could understand one another despite the language differences.  Because much of the time it seems that language, though supposedly a way for us to communicate with and understand one another, serves more effectively as a barrier than as a bridge.

But since I'm still a little jet-lagged, I think I'll just leave it at that, and not try to explain or explore.  Perhaps tomorrow my thoughts will have more of the clarity of this photo...

On The Limits to Growth

We are just back from our daughter's graduation, and as I was wandering through the pictures, posting them to Facebook (at her request; she's still on the road, driving her car back across the country with her father and an Australian friend) I found this one, taken across the pond at the beginning of our time together.

This building houses the Center for the Advancement of Public Action, an expensive and very green new addition to the college. I'm posting it here because one of the students I met over the course of the weekend complained that he was very unimpressed with the current president, who has been praised for getting this conference center built. As a result of her expansion efforts and this building in particular, apparently tuition (already high) has risen significantly.  "Why do we always have to keep growing?" he asked; "why can't we use our money to keep tuition down and maintain the buildings we already have?"

I don't know the actual story behind this, but it does make me think of a conversation I had this morning about the expectations we tend to have in this country around growth and attachment: (1) that there should always be more, and (2) that I should be able to keep what I already have.  The problem comes, I think, when one person or organization's need to grow impinges on another person or organization's need to grow -- or at least to keep what they have; in this case, the college's need to grow impinges on the ability of its students to continue to afford an education. 

There's probably some theorem about this, but it's easy to see that where those two things intersect is would generate a certain amount of greed and fear (greed for more, fear of losing what you have) and thus create difficulties.  We know this holds true at the international level (wars tend to ensue when one entity wants what another entity has).  But I'm thinking it creates difficulties at the personal level as well: if A, for example, wants to spend more time with B, then B must in turn give up some time previously spent on other stuff.  Unless there's a conscious negotiation about this, assumptions made could easily trigger some significant battles.

In the 1972 classic, The Limits to Growth, by Donella and Dennis Meadows et al., the authors explored the interaction between exponential growth and finite resources and concluded that without some significant changes we could predict economic and societal collapse by the mid- to late- 21st century.  Their work has been challenged by a number of critics as doomsday material, but it seems important to note that they did arrive at one possible scenario which could actually stabilize growth and NOT result in collapse.

Given that my husband and I have somehow managed to stay together for close to 30 years, I can't help but believe that stabilization is also possible in relationships. So I find myself feeling a little curious about the Meadows' stable scenario, and I'm wondering if and how it might translate into a more personal context.  Hmmm.

... just something  to wonder about on a cold and cloudy Monday...

Like rusty mirrors

When I see your face,
the stones start spinning.
You appear.  All studying wanders.
I lose my place.

Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down
and does not consume.

In your presence
I do not want
what I thought I wanted,
those three little hanging lamps.

Inside your face
the ancient manuscripts
seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe,
and new shapes appear.

The music of a desire
as widespread as spring
begins to move like a great wagon.

Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside are lame.

Rumi, from Coleman Barks' A Year With Rumi.

Inside a country dialect

A human being 
is like the rod Moses held
or the words that Jesus said.

The outer is just a piece of wood,
or mouth-sounds
of a country dialect,
whose inner parts 
can divide the green ocean
and make the dead
sit up and smile.

You see the far-off tents
of an encampment.
You go closer.

There is a dust-shape,
someone walking near.
Inside that, a man,
bright eyes 
and the strength of his presence.

When Moses returns from the wilderness
where he has gone alone,
Mount Sinai begins to dance.

Rumi, from Coleman Barks' A Year with Rumi

The flower's eye

Find me near the flower's eye

that takes in provocation

and begins to grow.

Love is a baby

that struggles and fights,

stops nursing,

then runs out through the door,

escaping as a fire

jumping to the next burn.

Rumi, from Coleman Barks' A Year with Rumi