I’m in love with this man’s writing and his interviews. He is a devout Christian from a small town in Texas and the also editor of Poetry magazine. Which, not to be a dick, but: would you have thought those two things would go together?
He says beautiful things! Things like: “Omnipotent, eternal, omniscient—what in the world do these rotten words really mean?”
and
“Faith is a movement towards the world.”
You can find and read (and you should! You really should!) his poem, “Every Riven Thing” here.
And his interview with Krista Tippet here.
Attn: My very very very good friend and business partner and nonromantic lifemate and I are planning an official, awesome Celebration of Platonic Love (It’s in June! You should come!), and so I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship (philia, agape), and how it relates to spirituality/practice.
Please expect a much longer post re: that in the very near future. In the meantime, this song! It’s great.
Dear Unknowable -
Please help me to remember that there are reasons for being alone
at night, and:
they are just as good as their opposites.
If nothing else, let me remember how I love having the space to invite you,
the guest,
to join me in the morning.
Click above for a link to the UU Bible, the Sunday NY Times.
Do I believe this? Not completely, especially the bit about Democrats holding protection of the vulnerable as their central sacred value. Because: really? Really though?
I do (of course) love the reinforcement that all good campaigns are run on narrative. As anyone who knows me could confirm, I am 100% an advocate for narrative/emotional truth above empirical truth, in any situation. Shut up already with your “facts” and “data.”
Every morning when I am feeling good and I wake up in time, I do a meditation on the people who I love in this world, which: of course there are many! Mostly I focus on my family and close friends, though.
This morning, as I sat on my heels thinking of my dad, a photo popped into my mind (above), and forced me to hunt for an accompanying Thoreau:
“Beware of any enterprise which requires new clothes.”
If you can’t tell from the picture (it’s a little grainy, I know) that is my dad trying on a brand new pair of hand sewn mukluks. He ordered the hide online, punctured the skins with his own little awl in his basement workshop, sewed the pattern that he had designed together with sinew and dental floss and leather strips.
This is sort of the point of a morning practice for me, because how can you feel lazy about going to work in front of a COMPUTER when you personally know people who just spent 12 hours puncturing deer hide with a hand held awl? This is not even considering the months that he spent in our basement steam-bending wood he “harvested” from trees lining the Mississippi so that he could build himself a Greenland style kayak….
You GUYS. Sometimes when I think of “spiritual music” I think of terrible things like Enya, and that is why I am so so so happy to have recently discovered Arvo Pärt. Thank you New York Times!
