The Contemplative Cottage

Wer seines Lebens viele Widersinne

by Rainier Maria Rilke

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads

of her life, and weaves them gratefully

into a single cloth–

it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall

and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is You.

In the softness of evening

it’s You she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,

the unspeaking center of her monologues.

With each disclosure You encompass more

and she stretches beyond what limits her,

to hold You.

“We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” TS Elliot

Moments of inspiration are powerful landmarks on the geography of life.

I write this listening to a song by Loreena McKennitt called Dante’s Prayer.  I still remember when I first heard it over 13 years ago, how the strains of Russian Orthodox chant gently drew me in, then the piano, her voice, the poetry, and I was transfixed.  I played the song again, and again, and again, lying on the living room floor with the lights out, next to the speakers. I’m sure my housemates wondered what was going on.

So many years later, Dante’s Prayer remains my very favorite song and is never off my playlist.  I was thrilled to hear it performed in concert a few years ago, 1st row seat, and meet her afterwards.  The only thing I could say in my shyness as I shook her hand was, ” Thank you for Dante’s Prayer, it has meant so much to me.”

Loreena McKennitt writes a travelogue for her CDs–where she was in the world when she wrote a song, and what she was reading.  For Dante’s Prayer, she was riding the Trans-Siberian Railway, reflecting on Dante’s Divine Comedy.  On her travels, she heard the haunting tones of Orthodox worship, incorporating “Alleluia, Behold the Bridegroom,” as bookends for the main tune.

Thirteen years ago, ordering a CD of Russian Orthodox chant at the local music store was a bit unusual (and this was just at the beginning of Amazon), but I persevered.  I also got out my dusty college copy of Dante and read it while I listened.  The wideness and depth of life, literature, history, spirituality, and travel, all things I had already loved, opened before me more deeply.  Art beckoned to be created and I painted a series of canvases on the crucifixion and resurrection for a chapel.  My bedroom had a deep walk-in closet with a little window.  I painted it to look like a forest and created a little anchorhold with candles and fountain and comfy chair, dreaming of distant lands and times. I decoupaged a large old steamer trunk as a “hope chest,” and it has now made a number of cross-country journeys.  And I read…so many books, especially on the mystics and monastics, the Celts and medieval Christianity.  It’s not surprising, looking back, that within three years, I embarked on my own train adventure to study monasticism at a Benedictine monastery.

Why now? Why does this song newly speak to me? What brings these memories back so clearly now? In Revelation, one of the churches is told, “You have forgotten your first love.”  I know in context it refers to Jesus Christ, but I keep hearing those words with a different twist:  ”Susan, you have forgotten your first love: history of other lands and peoples and distant times, prayers of the great communion of saints centuries in the mist, poetry, literature, beautiful words…beautiful lives lived, which will still speak today if given voice. And you have forgotten how I met you in this love.”

Many days I wonder what I did with my 30s and whether theological education was really worth a decade of my life.

If it was just to get a degree, the answer is no, I can think of a number of vocations I’d have preferred.  But I’m not sure they would have been loves.

To spend one’s life and have it transfigured, it must be no less than a love affair. To give one’s life to any journey or any person, and not have it end in disappointment or despair, Love can be the only reason.

This past month, now that I’m settled, I’ve been trying to (read: playing at) work on my dissertation (cue Yoda saying: “Do or do not, there is no try“).

It simply will not get done without love.

I believe the song and memories of that season so long ago are a landmark reminding me to return to the Love that began the journey.

So today, I say yes, to this life the Love has crafted.

Dante’s Prayer

by Loreena McKennitt

(listen here)

When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone

I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and fire

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me

Though we share this humble path
alone how fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars

Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We’ll rise above these earthly cares

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
Please remember me

“Words don’t mean anything.”

I found myself saying that a lot in 2009.  Words I read.  Words I wrote.  Empty.

It’s not surprising that I started mixing up my letters, using wrong words, and consistently neglected endings.

There were too many words to keep track of, to remember, to reach out and try to capture, kicking and screaming, from thought to paper, sometimes jumbled, sometimes ridiculous, rarely loved enough to reveal their beauty.

The last few years, I drank from the fire hose of academic theology (and drowned)…books and ideas coming so fast, I lost the larger text of my life in a cascade of others’ ideas and opinions. I lost my words.

And the books which once gave me so much comfort lost their life, “just words on a page.” Not flesh and blood. Incarnation stripped away and the meaning with it.

Too, so much of life became virtual words, 140 character snippets of breath-taking moments, so easily sent into the ether, so easily erased and forgotten.  What about the heart and love they expressed?

(I love hand-written letters, taken out and read tenderly over the years, testimony to a life lived, honored by safe-keeping, ribbon-bound, in a special chest.)

Losing my words, especially my prayer words, woke me up.  Now, drinking from the Word is reconnecting life and heart, text and meaning.  I see that what I lost was not simply a string of letters and punctuation, but Someone to talk to, Someone I trusted to welcome my heart and reply with His own.

“In the beginning was the Word…” John 1:1

God with us. Love spoken into the world with flesh and letters,  bound with ribbons of an Always-Presence everywhere I look.  Word-who-took-on-skin, this Love, can hear and respond, can still speak today through frail earthly language.

Human words may crack under the weight of meaning.

But You do not.

Lord, may the words I speak and write be rooted and planted in Love.

Sun Cat by Susan Forshey

Years ago, I entered a new world of desks

in straight rows, bells, and tasks like see jane

run and

m is for mr munching mouth

I loved mixing more

paints and colors with gooey glue

all over hands and

paper blue birds with beak and tongue

(Birds need tongues too)

Time was everywhere at once yet now

smaller faster

marked off by things to do

read listen repeat write

a start stop world.

When Time to Clean Up arrived

I always chose my favorite featherduster

to-ing and fro-ing far from the flurry to finish

unworried by missing mittens or colorful gluey messes made

and teacher let me be, for a moment

free

Ferry Flyer by Susan Forshey

As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain freefall,
and float into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.
–Denise Levertov

Shimmer by Susan Forshey

Lord, dear lover of my heart,
I see you in the dance of Light
The play of leaves
The healing lines of heart sacrifice
Be to me my all
Be to me my hope
In this called distance
Hold me for your life alone
Proclaim your favor
Nothing can I offer but the fears, the shadows,
The spaces aching.
Be to me the morning silence
Be to me the hugging comfort
Of the sliding sun.
And in these dark-lit days,
My path lost to mortal sight,
Mother my late-night tears
Quench my sleepy thirst.
Love me to your side,
Redemption crowned,
Song-full–my cup, laughter-brimmed–
A dancing child before you.