Gifts of Poetry

Posted on January 4, 2014 by harasprice

I have been playing “poetry tag” today on Facebook. I have resisted other “tag” games, even those for other genres I like a lot (such as artists…that one was tempting). But, I cannot pass on the chance to immerse myself in poetry, so this game was the perfect excuse for indulging in verse on a chilly winter day. As a result, today has been resonant with poems, which has made this ordinary Saturday so much richer, so much more emotional, filled to overflowing with spirit. So, here are a few poems that have crossed my path today that I thought I would share here on my blog, too:

First, I was assigned Jean Valentine and found myself drawn in to the imagery of her poem, The Rose:

a labyrinth,
as if at its center,
god would be there—
but at the center, only rose,
where rose came from,
where rose grows—
& us, inside of the lips & lips:
the likenesses, the eyes, & the hair,
we are born of,
fed by, & marry with,
only flesh itself, only its passage
—out of where? to where?

Then god the mother said to Jim, in a dream,
Never mind you, Jim,
come rest again on the country porch of my knees.

Then, I tagged a friend with Adrienne Rich, and she posted this amazing lyric from her poem, “Song”

You’re wondering if I’m lonely:
OK then, yes, I’m lonely
as a plane rides lonely and level
on its radio beam, aiming
across the Rockies
for the blue-strung aisles
of an airfield on the ocean.
You want to ask, am I lonely?
Well, of course, lonely
as a woman driving across country
day after day, leaving behind
mile after mile
little towns she might have stopped
and lived and died in, lonely
If I’m lonely
it must be the loneliness
of waking first, of breathing
dawns’ first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house wrapped in sleep
If I’m lonely
it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in the last red light of the year
that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with a gift for burning

There were also lovely posts of poetry from W. B. Yeats. How can any day not be extraordinary when one can be transported to “Innisfree”:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

Finally, Facebook noticed I was posting poems and apparently saw fit to place a friend’s “share” of yesterday’s writer’s almanac into my news feed. Yes, every once in a while, Facebook gets it spot on. Or perhaps, the divine works in mysterious ways, even through well placed technological gifts. In this poem, featured on yesterday’s writer’s almanac, Mary Oliver perfectly captures the intensity of the ordinary, summing up for me how these ordinary, daily small points of light I encounter add so much depth and dimension to my daily life:

Mindful
by Mary Oliver

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
“Mindful” by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early. © Beacon Press, 2005.

I am grateful for these words, these poems, this inspiration that found me so unexpectedly today.

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Untangled

Posted on January 2, 2014 by harasprice

I was reclining on the love seat in my living room last night, with a pit of dread in my stomach and my mind racing with all the things that awaited me back at the office. I couldn’t seem to focus on anything: writing, reading, definitely not meditating although I attempted several times. I also wasn’t motivated to do anything on the mental do-list scrolling through my mind, attempting to savor a sense of leisure in the last lingering hours of my winter break. I realized, ironically, that this state was probably as stressful (or more stressful) than just doing something.

I decided to pray, for other people.

I began thinking about people in 2014 who could really benefit from a reminder of divine presence. Then, I realized, that was all of us. As I was mid-way through a spiritual exercise of surrounding each one with divine love and presence in my mind’s eye, my daughter bounded down the stairs.

I sat up quickly, only then realizing I had been in a very deep contemplative state. My daughter thrust at me a handful of tightly knotted necklaces, their chains and cords fuse together in a huge knot. She was exasperated: “Mom, can you please help…I can’t get them untangled.”

I wasn’t sure how they could have possibly gotten so tangled in the first place, but decided to forego that lecture. “Have you been trying to get them apart?” I asked instead. “Yes” she said, “but I’m making it worse.”

I debated just putting them aside until morning. My monkey-brain had returned and I just couldn’t bear one more thing adding to my to-do list, though. So, I turned on the big overhead light and started working on the necklace knot.

I attempted to see if there was one that could break loose and in doing so, set the others on their way to freedom. That proved to be futile. I tried unhooking them to see if any part could slip free. Again, that proved unsuccessful. They were so firmly wrapped together, I could even tell one from another except for minor variations in the color of the metals. I wondered if they would have to be discarded or cut, but having seen the tearful expression on my daughter’s face, I decided that was not a solution either.

I spent about an hour slowly and deliberately loosening the knots, gently separating the tightest places while not extracting anything. I spread them out before me and the tangle grew larger and larger, filled with places where links overlapped each other and rolled over and over on themselves. Each chain’s own tangles occasionally took in another chain’s chain, fusing the ball even tighter. My wild, racing thoughts stopped swirling and I found myself working through the ins and outs of the tangles. Suddenly, the “peace” charm of a necklace fell out on its chain. Then, a tree of life pendant. The cords of several others began to unfurl and each lovely tween-age accessory found its own space returning.

Her face lit up when I brought them to her room, where she herself was ruminating over school and friends and homework and hormones. We hung them on her jewelry tree and I gave her a hug. She hugged me back and we talked about our favorite parts of the holiday break and what we were looking forward to in the coming weeks and months. She and I both set our alarms for morning, ready to greet the new day for whatever it offered.

Like the chains, we had been freed from our state of fused inertia. We were untangled from things that we thought had bound us, which mostly turned out to be just ourselves.

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Auld Lang Syne

Posted on December 31, 2013 by harasprice

In 2002, the coming of the New Year was brimmed to overflowing with the prospect of new beginnings, mixed in with a healthy dose of queasiness and anticipation. The night was clear and cold, and the downtown First Night celebration in St. Louis was active, but not yet in full swing. We walked, Michael and I, in and out of families of all shapes and sizes. The old were sipping coffee to keep warm and awake. The young had not yet descended into the space since it was still several hours until midnight. We sought shelter first in a theatre venue watching some amazing short excerpts of plays performed by member of the Black Rep Theatre. I enjoyed sitting, and a break from the cold wind. I may have been a Buffalo girl, but I couldn’t seem to keep warm in those early winter days where hormonal shifts in my body threw my temperature out of control. When the performance ended, we tried to be outside for a while but I started shivering to my bones and wanted to find another indoor event. We found refuge from the cold in an old stone church, listening to haunting Celtic flute music drift and resonate. I hadn’t been in a church for several years at that point, but this space drew me in deeply. The draw for me was not anything religious (at least, as I defined it at that time), but for the almost aching, longing I had for the melody to find its way into the recesses of my heart. Auld lang Syne. The melody begged me to remember, to never forget, to hope again, to trust again, to step into something larger than myself. So beautiful. So frightening.

But the music eventually ended, and we returned to the cold and clear night air. We must have talked, but I remember being…or at least feeling…very quiet.

I was very, very tired and we decided to leave the chilly First Night festivities before the ball dropped. First, we moved by a huge wall, with a table filled with stars begging to have wishes and predictions written on them and to be placed somewhere on that First Night tableau. I picked up a star, and we conferred about the message which we eventually wrote, in true loving yet geek-like fashion: 2 in 2002 = 3 in 2003.

I was so nervous to write that. It was like tempting fate. I was so afraid to jinx it, to find this hopeful expectation would turn into another loss. But, I rode the shirt-tails of Michael’s optimism in spite of myself. Turns out that prediction was true, as our daughter was born healthy and happy later that summer.

I think about that particular Year’s Eve, recently married and newly pregnant as I was, as an archetype of all the emotion that this particular date holds: festivity, celebration, family, longing, weariness, worry, hope, expectation, new beginnings. New Years Eve is a precipice, with one foot planted in the outgoing year and the other poised to spring forward. We are firm in our resolutions (until they too become the “same old, same old”) and we visit the paths of memory as we chant our “out with the old, in with the new” mantra. But, the path of life is often more circuitous and rambling than we often want to think about, and many new beginnings spring forth in their own time and not necessarily when the ball drops and we sip our toasts of champagne. Truthfully, many new beginnings spring forth from endings and transitions we never wanted or anticipated in the first place.

Maybe that is what makes this date so haunting: we realize that while we can reflect on what was, we can’t fully know what is yet to come. There is a mystery in that which draws us to psychics and seers, or that tests out our hopes in the stars or even in our prayers. We are trying to spring forth into a controlled newness, a hopefulness of what will emerge. But, that is not what happens when we leap. We have to acknowledge the trust fall into the unknown, and risk adventure and loss in the process. There may be tears, there may be joy and in both, we may grow more fully into who we are.

This New Year’s Eve, I think back on 2013 and realize I had so very little idea at all of what was unfolding in ways great and small this past year. In retrospect, it has been both glorious and sometimes maddeningly frustrating. Like many years, I have walked through illnesses, grief, transitions as well as joy, wonder, and so much gratitude for renewed faith, new opportunities, and deepening of identity, meaning, and divine presence. I couldn’t have written this chapter last year. I didn’t even have a blog in which I could write (and would have scoffed at the idea, frankly). But, here I am at the close of the year filled to overflowing with grace and gratitude. My heart has courage, and my soul is learning where and when to seek shelter. A vast tableau lies before me…before all of us…and we ponder what we will predict and what to write on our stars of wonder.

For 2014, I am simply planning to savor the journey and celebrate the small points of light I encounter along the way.

On my star: gratitude and grace.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give me a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

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Roots

Posted on December 27, 2013 by harasprice

Sometimes, when I close the day by being still, I realize there has been a persistent theme defining the day.

Roots

Today has been about roots. I have talked about roots (literally and symbolically), I have consumed roots, I have tugged at roots, I have reflected and commented on my professional roots. I have spoken with friends who are rooted to my soul, I have meditated with the image of roots permeating my mind, reaching down deep into my soul. I have been given the gift of having root-taking described to me, provided to me as a spiritual symbol of the self-nurturing that I recognize is essential to my journey at this juncture. Yes, it has been the day of the root. As I sat tonight, drinking up the day into my soul, I had to smirk as I realized the only thing I didn’t do was trip over a root (which it would be quite typical of me to do). Maybe that was my little gift from the Universe: making the theme so obvious that my often over-thinking, lost-in-thought self could be spared the familiar stubbed toe or bruised knee. Today, I got the point without the scar.

So, I thought I would take a moment to recognize some of the roots that I will be spending some time with this winter:

The roots of my childhood wonder, re-experiencing the core moments of discovering that I was made with divine intention exactly as I am, just as wonderful as the other divine souls and works of nature that surround me.

The roots of my close, abiding friendships with amazing people, reconnecting and celebrating how we continue to sustain each other.

The historical roots of social work, the profession I have practiced and taught for 20 years, through re-reading the original writings of Jane Addams and Mary Richmond.

The roots of my family tree, as I pray with renewed intention for those whose lives are closely linked with mine, whether or not they are known to me or close to me (suffice it for the sake of my blog to say, this particular root is as deeply complex as it is beautifully simple).

The roots of my faith journey, as I continue to reflect on the moments of light and growth along the path.

Roots I will consume: my favorite root vegetables of parsnips, carrots, turnips, rutabaga which I will toss with my garden herbs to make wonderful, savory winter meals; also, a shout out to ginger root (for eating, and also in admiration of my now seven year old Chinese ginger plant that I noticed today has spread its roots and sprouted lovely waxy, variegated leaves poking through the soil across my shade garden).

The roots of my geography: sketching from photos recently captured on a liminal winter solstice morning in my little upstate New York home town (pictured below), and reflecting on how my core work-life philosophy has been shaped by proximity to the Roycrofters and the arts and crafts movement.

These roots will be my winter companions, sustaining and nourishing me as I prepare for wherever the journey leads me next.

Yes, I am grateful tonight for roots.

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Silent Night

Posted on December 25, 2013 by harasprice

I have welcomed Christmas Eve by singing with full voice and full heart for as long as I can remember. In recent years, I have been part of a choir and/or singing at church service, and even in the interim years where church was not a part of my life, there was always an opportunity to sing carols in a neighborhood or senior center, or at very least belt them out at the top of my lungs in my car. Singing allows my emotion and spirit to take flight, the way one hopes to feel on a night filled with joy and wonder. This is the way I anticipated celebrating the culmination of this particular advent journey last night, on Christmas Eve.

I was feeling weary and a little sniffly when I flew back from visiting my family late on the night before the night before Christmas. I crashed in exhaustion when I finally reached home, looking forward to Christmas Eve at home and singing with my choir. I awoke later than usual, feeling like I had been dragged by the jet plane and with a cough that sounded like a cannon ball going off. And no voice.

I spent the day sipping tea, dosing myself with cough medicine, and hoping my voice would miraculously reappear. I avoided telling my choir director until mid-afternoon when I sent an email after it was evident that nothing was coming out of my vocal chords other than a hoarse whisper. I was feeling OK, except for my voice, when we all went to the early pageant service. I was still optimistic, so I told my choir director I would try to warm up on some hymns during that early service in anticipation of singing our 7:30 choral service. But, I couldn’t even croak out a verse of The First Noel an octave lower than written, so I just sat next to my spouse and enjoyed watching our Tween Angel (wearing a robe, halo…and bow-tie she added for effect) in the wild and sweet yearly Christmas pageant. Reluctantly, I had to admit defeat. It was going to be a Silent Night.

We went home, and I tried one more shot of cough medicine and sipped some lemon zinger tea. I was scheduled as Eucharistic Minister at the later service as well and decided that even if choir wasn’t an option I was going to keep that role, regardless. We were in the delightful situation of having our Bishop Suffragan as celebrant for that service, along with her spouse and our interim rector. But, lay servers were in short supply for that service and both my sense of responsibility and my sincere desire to serve pushed me forward. I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work, voiceless as I was. But, my spirit told me to go and be in that space whether my voice was present or not.

So, I went back out to the later service by myself. The night was crisp and silent, Christmas lights dotting the streets. Church was still lit up with people lingering and mingling between services. I poked my head into the choir room to wave to my colleagues and give them a thumbs up before the service. Then, I robed for alter service and put a few cough drops in my pocket. We gathered and prayed. I didn’t ask for my voice back. I just prayed, as we all did, to be ministers of word and sacrament. I processed, silently mouthing the words, while my choir friends and other servers sang around me. And suddenly, it was as if I were in the midst of the heavenly host. I realized in my silence that I have always been so busy, happily singing that I never had the chance to just listen. Suddenly, I was hearing everything with new ears.

Throughout my own silence and stillness, I was able to take all that was surrounding me deeply into my soul. I could be fully immersed in the beauty of the liturgy and music around me and as part of me, in full motion but within my own stillness. I saw the expressions of those singing around me. I took in the words of a powerfully beautiful sermon and pondered them in my heart. I had a different vantage point, looking both inside and outside as we celebrated the incarnation of the divine into the world, and into our lives. It came time for communion, and I moved behind Bishop Susan, who was dispensing the Body of Christ. I held the chalice for each person kneeling at the alter. Aware of how quiet my voice was, I was closer than usual to each person as I whispered the words, “The Blood of Christ, the Cup of our Salvation.” The beauty of this closeness was not lost on me, and I was aware of Spirit moving through me, my motions, my quiet voice. I savored those moments with each person I served, completely immersed in the experience. What voice I had remained with me through the last of the service, then slipped away again.

Silent Night. Holy Night.

May the blessings of Christmas surround you, and may your eyes and hearts always be open to seeing the light that surrounds us, the spirit that fills us, the love that embraces us.

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Advent 4: Love (nativity, revisited)

Posted on December 22, 2013 by harasprice

As we wind the last part of the advent journey, rounding the corner to Christmas, we come to focus on love. This is always the place where the nativity story…the way we traditionally tell it…gets on my nerves. I realize it might sound like total sacrilege to say that as we pull together toward the grand celebration. But, stick with me here as I take this journey of thought.

We have a certain western view on love….some Cupid with an arrow, smitten with bliss, walking on clouds and rainbows kind of love. We depict the Holy Family in this loving bliss. As I write, the lovely porcelain bisque crèche in my parents’ house speaks of this love. Mary has perfect hands, an idyllic expression of bliss, and garments that fall in perfect soft folds against soft, sweet smelling hay. Joseph stands, looking down with loving expression on mother and child. The quiet, docile animals keep loving guard over the family while a gentle Shepard carries a lamb and a sweet singing angel looks on. The bisque nativity, while beautiful, depicts the kind of love that makes me queezy and spiritually nauseaous, as one might feel after indulging on too many sugary holiday sweets.

Here is how I see the actual scene unfolding:

Mary, like most first-time pregnant women, had been having stress dreams about how all this birthing was going to actually come together. I mean, it took angelic intervention and a lot of deep breathing to adjust to the reality of this pregnancy in the first place. Mercifully, her cousin Elizabeth also had her back and kept her joy abounding, undoubtedly passing the womanly wisdom of childbearing secrets in the months between their due dates. All that would be stressful enough, but Joseph’s support had come just in time to learn they needed to make a trek to Bethlehem. Who wants to travel so far from home when birth is near? If anyone had reason to stress, it was Mary. Not only do I wonder if she worried, I know she did. I know she was charged with nervous energy, because the most natural thing in the world as pregnancy draws to its culmination is to want to nest: to get all the details ready and perfectly situated for a new little life about to enter this world. That is prenatal love, filled with the desire to set the stage in readiness for the new arrival. Every Mom I know…rich, poor, working, on bed rest, those who worked hard to get pregnant, those who fell into it seemly effortlessly, and even those for whom many facets of who, when, why and how about the pregnancy remain a mystery: we reach a point where we want to nest. We must nest. It is nature’s way of transforming our bodies from hosting to caregiving. While trekking to Bethlehem, without a doubt in my mind, Mary was nesting. She was making every plan, for every contingency. She probably found and made the swaddling clothes and considered all the alternatives she might employ when that moment would come, as she knew it would, when it stopped being within her control. She had said yes to this divine role a long time ago, it seemed. And now, she was doing her part and readying as best she could for what was to come. And that act of nesting and preparing for the ultimate letting go of life developing in one’s body to emerge as a new being into this world…well, that act is pure love. Love incarnate.

I picture this maternal love spilling over into some worried moments where place after place had no where for the young couple to sleep. Describing Mary as “Great with Child” in the language I grew up hearing also reveals something about this state of their anticipatory worry and impending delivery anxiety in the holy family. That “great with child” phrase was like saying she was “big as a house” or “ready to pop” which is likely to be greeted by any pregnant woman with a scowl on a good day. So, while Joseph looked for housing describing her condition, Mary remained calm. She did not go ballistic even if she may have inwardly been groaning. She was nesting, and she knew they needed a space to safely deliver. Her womanly wisdom told her that her time was near, and she could put up with whatever was necessary to get a space. That tolerance is pure love. Divine love. Love unconditional.

Then, there is the whole stable thing. Really, that was probably not Mary’s Plan A or B or C. Or D. No woman pictures delivery in a barn, especially when she was told she was blessed among women. Blessed women would have a comfortable place to birth. Holy, pure women would have clean surroundings, with space to labor both walking and in all the positions that help the pregnancy proceed smoothly. Right? Not for Mary. Stone. Straw. Olive wood. Sand. Animals. Manure. Feed. Love in messy, painful, imperfect form. Love reaching out, making room for grace. Love that, if delivered there, can be received anywhere.

My own time with childbearing women tells me how important the birth story is. Women….including me…can tell every detail of their birth story. I wish, truly, that I could hear Mary’s birth story of Jesus in her own voice, her own words. That has been lost with time, but it was undoubtedly real. I imagine her encounters with the divine during the labor and delivery of Jesus solidified all that she had come to faithfully come to know and believe. I don’t know how long she labored, who helped her, who held her hand, to whom and for whom she cried out for, whether Joseph was allowed at the scene, or what she did to move through the sometimes endless times of transition that are needed to allow the birth to progress. But, we do hear that Mary treasured all she observed…the signs, the wonders, and (in my version), the birth story, too. She treasured these things and pondered them in her heart. That phrase is immaculate, selfless, divine maternal love. All of the pregnancy, the preparation, the messiness and pain…all for the loving act of bringing life into being. Love abiding with us, dwelling incarnate within us.

This is the scene of love into which I walk these final days of advent.

Divine, incarnate love.

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Joy, part 2 (right now)

Posted on December 20, 2013 by harasprice

As I write today’s blog, I am waiting with joy for several things, right here and right now.

First, I am waiting with joy to spend some holiday time with my family. We are en route, my daughter and I, to the little town in which I was born and raised. There will be snow (or, at least…there may still be snow since I now am reading that it rained all day). There will be all the usual moments that come with families, of course. My daughter and I will sleep in the fold out couch bed in the living room, and fight over bedtimes and blanket sharing. But, there will also be the baking of Christmas cookies, the making of cards, the visiting of family, the hugging and pajama-wearing-until-noon and general slower and relaxed pace. There will be the smell of country air, and the train whistle I grew up hearing around the clock. These are the moments I will be intentional in seeking, finding, and savoring. For these irreplaceable moments that I will treasure, I am waiting with joy.

I am waiting with joy for our plane to arrive. I am assured that this will be happening, and that the four extra hours this trip is going to take us will result in a safe landing. I know they’re serious…they even put out snacks to keep us happy. I find it funny that this makes a serious impression on me. It may only be pretzels, peanuts, and sodas but it means something. Snacks are what you serve people you want to spend time with. They are hospitality. Even if they are branded with airline logos, I feel respected. I was not asked for identification to prove I was a waiting passenger. I was simply invited to partake. That familiar welcome, radical hospitality, mercy…well, it is a feeling that resonates to my core. I partook of pretzels and ginger ale as I was waiting with joy that first hour.

Now, I am waiting with joy for cappuccino and cannoli. These will be delivered in a few minutes to my iPad furnished space here in the middle of JFK airport. My daughter is waiting with gleeful joy for this. When else can I say, “Go ahead, sweetheart, order dessert while you play games on the iPad…and would you like extra whipped cream in your cocoa?” while I indulge in my own blog-writing. These four hours of time are not a painful wait. We have done some Christmas shopping, eaten two huge slices of New York pizza, and now we await dessert. We are about to savor chocolate chip cannoli and then we will find a corner and watch Elf which Google Play just gave me to download on my android device. Joy. We are waiting in indulgent joy found in our current surroundings.

It occurs to me that I could be bitter, or frankly, pissed. I am, after all, in the midst of a flight delay. I am doing this with my tween as travel companion. A couple years ago, there is no doubt that I would have been firing off strongly worded choice phrases and pacing. But, life is short. Losing people we love will teach us that. Raising a rapidly growing young person will instill those lessons. Intentionally starting and ending one’s day in communion with the Spirit that surrounds us will convince us…and has convinced me…that the sacrament of the present moment really is the most amazing part of living life. The present moment holds grace and gratitude that cannot, and should not, be missed.

My cannoli and cappuccino have arrived, and my flight will board in an hour. My daughter just proclaimed that the strawberries on the side are the Best. Ever. The rental car will be there when we land. My mother will be waiting in her pajamas for her granddaughter to run in the front door and hug her. The gift of the present moment is already here, and joyfully awaiting with the next step, too.

I am waiting with joy. Right here. Right now.

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Joy, part 1 (new mother)

Posted on December 17, 2013 by harasprice

I don’t talk about my research much on my blog because I am keenly aware of all the human subjects protections that surround what my research participants share with me in the confidence of our interviews. But, there are some moments that stick with me not because of the research itself, but because of my own response to the situations I encounter. This is one of those stories, although the details have been altered to insure confidentiality.

I choose to conduct research in the homes of people who agree to participate. I wasn’t really trained that way; in fact, I was encouraged to collect data in an academic space, or what I was told was “neutral space.” But, there is nothing neutral about making people take a bus (or busses) to a space far from their own communities, and to walk into an unfamiliar building filled with unfamiliar faces, and then reveal details of their personal lives and emotional experiences in an academic conference room. When I put myself in their shoes, I wonder why anyone would agree to participate under those circumstances. So, I have gravitated to conducting interviews in homes, and I partner with community service providers who share a similar ethic.

I am always appreciative whenever someone answers the door and allows me to come into their space. I have respect (and verbally acknowledge) the gratitude I have to be in their personal space. I have no shortage of memories of spaces that have surprised me, or awed me, or saddened me. But this particular day I recall, I really wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. I had called before the visit and the young woman said she was waiting for our visit. She lived in a low rent part of town with older homes that, while sometimes run down, had a good amount of space.

My notes from my partner agency said that I was seeing someone in her third trimester of her first pregnancy. She had been receiving community supports and had self-referred to participate in this interview with me. I rang her doorbell, and waited. I waited for several minutes and rang again. I heard movement and the inside door bolt slid open. The door opened slightly to check my identity, then I was allowed in.

There was a spacious but empty room with an old sofa, and an empty car seat. There was a young woman barely 80 pounds and who looked to be about 12 (although she was over 18). She wore sweat pants and a t-shirt and carried a small blanket wrapped bundle. She asked me in and quietly whispered, “this is Anthony…we just came home yesterday. You’re his first visitor!”

I barely knew this young woman, but she moved close to introduce me to this tiny, perfect baby. Tiny fingers, long eyelashes. He yawned and cried and she held him close, her adolescence melting into maternal instinct. He was a beautiful baby, and I told her so. She beamed. I told her to sit, and found a place next to her. I had to regroup, because she was not supposed to have delivered yet. She had no record on file with the community organization of having gone into labor, nor of having delivered. And yet, here we were. Life had moved her forward and brought us into each other’s midst. I quickly switched gears, and told her I was happy to stay and visit, but that we could wait and do the research another day. “No, it’s fine” she said, “I wanted you to come.” We proceeded through the interview. My questions were interspersed with her rising, and diaper checking, and nursing her baby. She was all new to this, quiet and nervous but rising to the occasion. In between questionnaires, she spoke to me about her son, about her life, and about how joyful she was for what she had: space, diapers, food in her cupboard, her mother coming to visit after work that day, her beautiful, healthy son. She sat, in that room that seemed so empty, filled with joy.

I didn’t leave until she was connected with resources, and having finished the interview I was able to offer her a gift card for completion as well. I knew this could have been what motivated her participation, but there was something more, too. Like so many women I work with, she knew her story was heard. She had been seen and heard and acknowledged. This life was hers, and it was real, and she could choose to let me in or keep me out.

She let me in.

I saw her joy. I saw her need as well. But her joy resounded through the emptiness of her surroundings. It was an incarnate joy, emerging from the depth of life itself.

I have been doing a lot of reading this advent, and have found myself drawn to St. John of the Cross. Not coincidentally, we did a brief meditation on a short poem by St. John of the Cross last night at my vestry meeting:

Pregnant with the holy
Word will come the Virgin
Walking down the road
If you will take her in.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that young woman, and how her joy had been so palpable in the midst of the most meager surroundings. Over time, I have come to hold in deep reverence the many women I have encountered in my daily life as a social worker and now as a researcher. Women pregnant with expectation, carrying joy along with their struggles. Women who give birth to love, and to loss, and sometimes to both. Their stories are as natural as life, and as divine as the holy stories of a homeless young mother and her betrothed seeking shelter in a barn and using a feeding trough for a crib. You just never know what will emerge with expectation, and it usually is multi-faceted: fear mixed with confidence, worry intertwining with relief, isolation melting into moments of deep connection.

I think of these things tonight as we move through advent, approaching Christmas with the young couple making their way to Bethlehem. We are not sure where we will find shelter or company. We don’t know which moments will provoke fear, and which will embody joy. We make our way because the time is near, and life will carry us onward. Our confidence may wax and wane. But we are carried forward with the plodding predictability of a donkey through the dry land and a light guiding our path from above, and within. In this space also resides the promise of joy incarnate, about to bring forth in us qualities we never knew we had. Yet there they are: intuitive response, deep love, gratitude for plenty in the moment.

I have been changed by these holy encounters, too. This is my own incarnate joy on this segment of my journey.

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Advent 3: Joy

Posted on December 15, 2013 by harasprice

There was a song in my heart that morning, driving into the city in the back of my parent’s little blue Datsun, immediately after church. I had spent several Saturdays boarding a bus and practicing, and now it was time to perform for the Erie County Chorus, where I was in my first year with the elementary group. I was in the sixth grade, and I was folder number 1. Folders were listed in height order. Strange to consider now, since I am notoriously short. But, since I did all my growing before I turned 12, I lumbered above many of the other young singers. This was the first and last time that ever happened, so I am guessing that is why it left such an impression.

This was one of many firsts: the first time I sang in a large choral group, the first time I ever went to Kleinhan’s Music Hall, the first time I had been conducted by anyone other than my school music teacher. It was also the first time I sang anything from Vivaldi’s Gloria. At that concert, we sang just the opening movement, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” which had been written to be performed by the young voices for which Vivaldi so often directed and composed. I remember learning to say, “Egg-shell-seas” in perfect, timed unison before we were allowed to sing to words. I remember how amazing it was to be in a whole sea of voices, standing on risers in a concert hall with wonderful acoustics. Concerts in the gymnasium at school would never be the same. We also sang, “Tree Song” (“I saw a tree by the riverside, one day as I walked along…”), as well as a medley of African-American spirituals, and some Hungarian folk songs. There were probably other songs, too, but those three have stuck with me over time. I remember being filled with a sense of joyous wonder the whole day, feeling like I was immersed in an entirely different world. This love of classical music has remained with me throughout the years. I am sure this was a hope of those who organized these choral activities, and they should be pleased to know that it took. I am still filled with joy when I sing or hear these classical masterpieces…the Music of the Spheres.

I was filled with joy on this particular morning, too. I woke thinking about that long-ago All County chorus, even as I was humming the Domine Deus, Agnus Dei from the Vivaldi Gloria as I readied for church. My daughter was helping with the younger kids, telling them the story of Mr. Vivaldi and his work teaching orphan girls to sing. I was in my choir robe, surrounded by friends, accompanied by rich cello, strings, and oboe. I sang, both in my chorus and in my solo, and my heart was overflowing with joy. I had joy overflowing as I caught glimpses on the faces of those in the congregation who were taking in this offering of song, this gift of music in the midst of a season of hope. It was a glorious morning as we sang, and joy continued to fill my spirit as I slipped from my choir robe into a Eucharistic Minister robe so that I could assist at communion. This has also become my deep joy, to be in a role of offering the gifts of communion to my friends and community in faith. I experience deep joy and connection participating in this service, joy that is unexpected and intense at some moments. This is joy at a soul level. Like that young child on a stage, immersion into that joy feels like a welcome into a world of new experience and hopeful possibility.

There is deep meaning in these moments of joy which rests with me on this third Sunday of advent. I retain the joy of this music I first sang as a child, and today allowed that joy to take shape in the music that flowed from me. I also experienced deep, soul-filled joy today, sharing the sustenance of communion, the blessing, breaking, and sharing of divine love in community where all are welcome. This joy all flows from me on a day that marks one year from the time when I sat in the same exact seat, with tears flowing uncontrollably. My tears one year ago were in response to both the collective sorrow for the young lives ended tragically too soon at Sandy Hook Elementary School, but also in response to a moving in my spirit that overtook me and shook me from my status quo of how it seemed my life would be. On that day, one year ago, I first began to recognize and pay attention to this voice that had been with me throughout my journey, speaking to me and guiding my steps. I am still listening, responding, discerning.

And at the core of all this, as I wait and prepare, there is deep and lasting joy.

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Peace, part 3 (co-creation)

Posted on December 13, 2013 by harasprice

Today’s piece of art on the online advent calendar for my faith community is a co-created work that began in my solitude and was completed in community with the members of St. Thomas who gathered that day as I told the story of my journey. Even though I put together this calendar, I forgot which day of the calendar each piece landed on. When I logged on today to see what image and reading would greet my day, there was this image of Myth and Mystery together with the he lectionary passage that had reached out to me to join with it:

Myth and Mystery
Myth and Mystery

When I was asked to share my spiritual journey for my faith community last spring at a “coffee and conversation” between services, I wondered about how I could convey a bit of how much I had been changed and shaped by the people I have come to know as friends and colleagues on my journey of faith. My faith journey has meandered, and many years have been spent on more of a solitary journey. Solitude and stillness continue to be important parts of my spiritual life, but being immersed in a community that I have learned to trust has been equally powerful in its impact. So, I decided to mirror these experiences.

I had some solo time at a conference, and I used it to create some watercolors that reflected my experience of the divine. The three images I ended up with were music; social justice; and myth and mystery. The “myth and mystery” piece on its own was a somewhat abstract piece with the Celtic triquetra knot in the forefront. That image conveys so much to me: it is the trinity, it is the three faces of the feminine divine, it is the mind, body, spirit connection and it is the past, present, future intertwined into eternity. This image I carry with me always…it is literally tattooed on me. I brought all three of these pictures, as well as a set of multicolored markers, to my talk. I told my journey that day (you can read it here on my blog, too) and I passed around my paintings and supplies and told my friends to add to and embellish them as they saw fit. At first, people were nervous about that, but after some insistence, they began to add to it with words and doodles and phrases. I felt, as I sometimes do, the presence of spirit in that place as we expressed and experienced the divine in our midst.

The finished picture of “Myth and Mystery” is probably one of the most meaningful images I have ever seen. It speaks to me far, far more than the original image I created. I catch a glimpse of something different every time I look at it. And, I look at it often. I keep it very close to me, hanging in my office behind my desk. I center myself by looking at this co-creation of faith through art, and I realize how much more I have come to know about the experience of the divine by letting go of my own solo impressions and allowing others to make their additions, to modify and embellish from my original expressions. It becomes a rich, life-giving experience of continual insight and understanding, rather than a static set of beliefs or a self-selected view. To me, this is the true peace that comes from being in community, living out my faith by allowing others to co-create meaning with me. We embellish and give life to the works of art that are our respective journeys of faith.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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