Painted my first self portrait yesterday and I look like a cartoon in it.
Will be working to correct that in subsequent paintings for the rest of the semester.....

Soured feelings.

My attitude is not very good today.

I think if I were to ever get a tattoo, I should have the words of Christ on my hand,

"It is finished."

Maybe both hands.

It would call out my crippling perfectionism, rebuke my stress, and slap my lack of trust in the sovereignty of God across the face.

(Suzanne Valadon,)

A book of her work is open on my desk - I haven't had time to read anything about her but I look at what she paints, and so I hear some of what she says already.

Although, aha, I should point out that this painting is not actually Valadon's. This is Maurice Utrillo, and I connected the two only because I found his piece when searching for hers....

...not very clearly laid out, there.

Today is a day of non-sequiturs, even though this does actually follow logically. I do know that Utrillo was the son of Suzanne Valadon, illegitimate and disposed to alcoholism before the age of thirteen by way of his mother's choices and his grandmothers attempts sweeping up after her. She loved him and encouraged artistry however, and even though I've read that he developed his own style, I am fascinated by the relationship to his mother's. Unique, I think, to come across mother and son painters...

Count the joys in your pocket.

Hannah asked me for a happy list; and that itself must go on it!
I am rarely happier than when collecting together the daily moments of goodness, extraordinary and not.
..and rarely more so without the presence of a kindly and honest simple-heart. She is one!

(It might look like a strange happy list, but it's what has made me feel full lately. It comes straight from my journal - in the future I will stick to legitimate lists I promise.)

A new book!
An hour in between homework and class to lie on my bed,
Reading a Psalm and wanting to reread it many times
Falling asleep with the open pages of a Sword tucked against my breast
A roomate sleeping next to me,
(our beds pushed together like little girls do)
Sunshine outside, cold with an invisible quality of Autumn,
It’s the reminder of death I think – so insistently emblazoned
but in celebratory richness.
Watching people be people,
Reminded of their fallibility but happy to see it –
because there is room and reason for You to be present, working there
even in people with higher built knowledge, more focused understanding
…or at least what seems like it.
Conversation and dinner with Mandie last night,
ouch, something kind of hurts and I know its because I am selfish.
Flipping a page of the art book on my desk,
a floral still life with fruit that is very beautiful (I usually don’t like them.)

Learning – maybe relearning –
Disheartened by my backsliding, I feel more pathetic than before
So I’ve got fistfuls of blonde
[and I wish I was brave enough to tear, to mourn and really sorrow about it.]
But then encouragement whispers through my hair:
sanctification.
This is good.

Confession with a circle of young women,
(let me be specific and honest!)
Justice and its difference from charity, Thomas Aquinas.
Why we must pray and ask for God’s eyes,
seeing where my heart for people is:
A steady smoldering of joyous heartbreak excites me –
I am studying for them,
getting up early to read for them,
struggling to be better and compassionate for them
and so that I can make Him happy.

Painting burgundy Giraffe spots,
studying a magnolia and myself;
Hearing the two women behind the library circulation desk,
one talks excitedly about how Christ is outside of time and controls it for us,
Later remembering how wonderful children are
And listening to a story written respectfully and lovingly for them.

Yesterday, we took a walk in the rain. Yesterday there were leaves being carried down the street in a stream alongside the curb, and there was beach sand there under the water. There was a big white dog with kind, regal eyes who ambled alongside us obediently even though his fur was collecting the drops and making him unhappy. There were stones and pebbles to crunch with each step, the smell of rain on the asphalt and the fallen leaves beginning their death into the sweet earth. There was an ocean, majestic in its cold, crashing life that calms you through its wisdom and fills you with dread at its ancient, wild, depth. Like palest jade and icy milk the waves would rush toward us over the rain-dimpled sand, pooling into a small lake upon the beach and then retreating hastily to fold into itself once more with an insistent attitude and kind of need. But it isn’t ignoring you; the white will foam and rush and move in a desperate communication of something, something. It wants you to understand and is frustrated that you don’t.
I tried to listen and I heard myself, my memories, my comfortable house of heart that is there in the sea. I think I heard that Someone had been there with the waters, far ago when the spirit of God was hovering over them and before they were enlivened to breathing, skipping, oratory waves by the creation of a moon. But the sea is so alive on its own now, just like bodies with the breath of life in them. What was it like before? The sand was cold and sloped in sensuous lines all down the beach, interrupted by one dark black arch of driftwood, granite rocks, a hillside of brittling trees with leaves slippery in the rain. I splashed through the water but was careful with my footsteps; I didn’t want to ruin the stoic dignity of the sand and shore.

He knows I am frightened, and says 'Do not be afraid.'

Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

Lord, I have been letting down my nets all night long. I have spent my life catching fish since I learned. Last night I took nothing. I know the waters are still the same as they were when I finally took the nets out to wash them.

I didn’t sleep much the night my painting needed to be finished, but I chose to sacrifice some rest because I felt well settled in my work, it was the right thing to toil for. Something has been growing in my mind, a conviction that I need to push hard and pursue a strong voice, a legitimate presence as an artist. I am scared to truly be one. I want to protect my vulnerable pride because I know how few people do it well and actually succeed, I want to comfortably continue in my work without the tears of frustration, the hours of sleeplessness and the many, many, many canvases I might have to discard or scrape down or leave behind because they simply are not true depictions, hard as I tried.

But at your word I will let down the nets.

I am still weary though, God – because I do not know where the future goes. Because I have already spent my energy, because I’ve seen that my present knowledge and talent is merely the dribbling infancy of good Art. Because I am learning things from three different disciplines at the same time, and I can barely grip those as tightly as I must in order to make it worthwhile. Every night I stay awake late, and rise early from mouth-wateringly blind sleep to finish a task, which was replaced by another before the first was even completed. I summon more strength, then more, then more, but the world has still not been satisfied.

‘And he said, “Go again,” seven times.’ [1 Kings 18.43]

So have mercy on me, my God who witholds no needful thing from me. My obedience feels limp but I will put out into the deep, even after I’ve fished all night.

And when they had done this, the nets were breaking and the boats were starting to sink….

"You are changed, You aren't any part a little girl anymore."

"Lately I've never felt good enough. I've always wanted to explain to him that I was not good."
"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good. Is that it?"
"I guess so. Maybe that's it."

East of Eden.

Jordan

The thing about a river is that she flows all alone, unlike trees who grow together and the earth that is one substance. Until she reaches the sea, she is companionless and aches as she moves. My painful loneliness is as bittersweet as always, and I almost venture to ask that you never take it away - you are the sea I rush towards, I will not settle for a lake or a marsh along the way simply to ease sorrow.
Thank you for my name and my love. I miss you and I am waiting to meet you.

Flags displayed for the celebration of a fisherman's wedding.

This photograph reminded me of driving through Gloucester after church last year in the fall, with two of the loveliest women you may ever meet, Hannah and Kristin. I am so excited to go back!

Why didn't I plant the mustard seed?

I don’t want my romance and idealism to be too squashed by increasing encounters with adulthood and the generally unromantic world surrounding, but I am realizing what a fairyland the past nineteen years have sort of been, especially the most recent one. At least in the face of what might be ahead now. My dreams were so rosy until the past month. Even the struggles and hardships I had forseen to accompany my ambitions were hazy around the edges with a quixotic kind of lustiness, and I was so eager to keep running ahead into future days. Something about the way this summer is passing seems to be giving me a taste of what it would be like to have my education cut off, my plans redirected and changed. Get that flavor off my tongue.

An old man knocked on the front door and startled me, but he was asking to photograph the black eyes susans underneath our window. “Thank you for this,” he said.

I thought that life seems to become less and less romantic in many ways, but perhaps at the same time, it is all a matter of what one wants to see in the world. I want to see charm around me, I will look for it and feed it and make sure maturity doesn’t live in the window box alone. I'll knock on someone's front door and ask to photograph their flowers. Thank you for that, sir.

My Gordon email address isnt working and its hitting me that not returning to Gordon might actually become a reality. I don’t want to leave the community I have there, I don’t want to stop what feels like such progress…I want to study art, to be guided in philosophy and reading and theology, I want to pray and be prayed for and walk by the pond and stay up late writing a paper because I spent too much time in the kitchen with Kaethe and Megan eating brownies. I want to hear the speakers in chapel, I want to slosh through rain and snow on cold dark winter days. I want to meet someone with a vision, but even more I want to grow in deeper friendship with the radiant young women there who I respect and love, who already see a flicker of purpose and calling in themselves. I should remember it isn’t Gordon that sets up my future and orchestrates my present, but you are. If I am not going back to Wenham, I will cry and cry more and then look around and see what other thing you have purposed for me. I once thought I wanted to attend Westmont more than anything. You gave me Gordon instead. Now I think I want to spend three more years in New England, travel to Salzburg for a summer, and talk with my friends while it snows outside more than anything. Keep next to me, and remind me what matters every second.

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

Planting

I want to have a garden that is wild, unrestrained and overflowing with indigenous flora. I want to step across a long grassy path set with large flat rocks, a basket over my arm full of stones and seeds and uprooted plants. I want a pair of garden rainboots to wear with my favorite beige dress, and I want to care for and cultivate the earth that I live on while letting it be itself.

Perhaps I might learn something about how to raise children from a garden like that. Perhaps something about cultivating my own character.

I like these words.

I Taught Myself To Live Simply, Anna Akhmatova

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

A National Geographic photographer named Steve McCurry took this. It makes me think about heaven and I can't help but realize wonderingly that this is actually a picture of earth.

Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.

Mahatma Ghandi said "Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” That is why I think I have hesitated to even journal to myself the past few weeks. I am afraid all my words would have been said without the heart of artless, virgin love that would set them fragrantly aflame, pleasing to the Lord.
I do have a heart without words right now, but my charter comes from Saint Augustine: "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you." I intended to read a lot the next few weeks; study is easy though and right prayer is hard, so I will push up my sleeves, tie up my hair and try.

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Maya Angelou


Love has left His high holy temple, and we are now the place in which He abides, if we will abide in Him.

Isn’t it strange how many days go by? How many things happen, whether or not we think that they matter, and then how soon they are completely over, untouchable because the window of ‘present’ has passed by them? How soon they are simply a journal entry, not alive anymore – just a memory. Something that happened once but has gone and can only ghost through printed lettering put together to describe it or hover in the deepest recesses of a brain. Still there, stored and filed, but in a wilderness that cannot be ventured into. A place things can only venture out from unexpectedly but cannot be retrieved because they are far, far in the distance.

Maybe somewhere I have a reflection image of that hospital room, and the man who sat in a chair waiting for his somebeody to come back out to him. Maybe I have the taste of the July 24th dinner I ate when I was three, maybe I have the sound of the way Shannon’s dog barked from behind our fence. I had pet the fur of a cat, I pushed through playground gravel looking for a lost birthstone, I put my nose in the carpet to catalogue a different smell, I picked a scab off of somewhere my skin had been cut. Blood rushed to my head through these same veins I have now and pounded against my temples when I hung up-side-down, I stepped on a rainpuddled sidewalk in a single space at a particular moment, I tasted my own blood when I hadn’t before known the rusty metal-salt of it, I heard my name come from someone’s tongue. For eighteen years, eight months, two weeks, eleven days and 42 minutes with one, two, three more seconds I have been breathing from outside of my mother’s body and taking more, more, more into the wilderness of my conscious at each flare of ‘present’.

Then I can't help but look at someone elses skull. Something I cannot penetrate and will never look through. But they have seen and touched and felt and remembered years worth of the present, and it is all there – somewhere – in their head but it seems so small for so many years, too small.

That’s why it is so fascinating to talk with people, to watch them as a memory emerges from their mouth. Do you know the sound of someone’s footsteps? Recognize the feel of their hands, though blindfolded? Have you copied some of their described memories, painted with your own fill-in-the-blank colors, and re-stored them in the fortress of your own brain?

I am caught up in the things that will be 'forgotten' so easily and fast; minutia - the sting of bleach in my lungs this morning, the hair color of the woman I walked past a few hours ago, the shape of a single dying tulip that I noticed for a slice of a second. It will fade away soon, maybe even tonight. I have already forgotten half of the things I touched, saw, felt with my hands from the moment I woke up. So I wonder about it all.

A Conversation with a Lady

Have you ever really listened to someone's voice and wondered why it is they choose to change tone, pitch, volume when they do? Maybe they don't realize they are doing it, perhaps we don't realize we do it, but I think it is because everyone has a music.

By the way, did you all know I admire Abigail Adam's very sincerely? I do. She was a woman to emulate, and she makes me laugh. "Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since."
Oh, silly daughters. Perhaps that is not funny, but it struck me that way and I laughed. However,
"If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women."
Yes, I am realizing that it is not radically feminist or Amazonian to affirm that we have worth, wisdom and leadership to give the world.
"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence."
Ardor and diligence can be so much to take though, Mrs. Adams. I want to float down a stream and nap on a river bank and read in a tree. I don't want to do things all the time. There is a season for everything and sabbath is a blessing.
Yes, true but do not let that obscure the fact that "Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues."

There are great necessities in the world, so I will keep working.

Managing time, trying out decisions...

Seek first the Kingdom of God,
and then everything else will....


"I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.” John 14.30-31

So that the world may know that I love the Father.

Rise, let us go from here.

Grandmother’s handwriting on the white paper

‘

modern garden

grass

liatris spicata

siberian iris

blazing star

papyrus

baby tears

interesting

clean

,

Strawberry stains on the white plate

rectangles of sunlight

neat, clean, ordered study

my books on the rug – in my lap – on the chair

pages assigned to myself

going unread

lie still

and my heartbeat moves my whole body

a pendulum clock

full veins, heart prone to wander

rays of sun

warming skin

quiet

sounds soothe and make for real stillness

I wont write what I love

because I love it,

the dance on the bricks

the chime in the tree

the metallic, the rust, the green living friend for the breeze

I noticed her age

but I don’t want to know -

timeless, forever, she’s always.

avocados, sea salt

blueberries

a glass of clear water.

Sometimes it doesn't seem like it,

but:

Forbidden fruit a flavor has
That lawful orchards mocks;
How luscious lies the pea within
The pod that duty locks!

~ Emily Dickinson

 

Since I can remember I've had a secret affection and desire for the bad boy, for forbidden fruit. It wasn't until I read Redeeming Love that I really truly wanted a man of God. Because until then, I had never seen such a good, 'luscious' as Miss Dickinson said, portrait of one. By the way, yes, this book is a Christian romance novel, but it is so much more. It has touched every person I know who has read it in remarkable ways (and it is certainly not just women.)