Retreat

I am heading up to Conyers, GA for a retreat at The Monastery of the Holy Spirit. It's quite a place. Quiet. Unplugged. Beautiful.

You can see them here: www.trappist.net

I'll be back on Thursday evening. Different.

Old Stuff

More Panic Stuff... re-read a journal entry from ten months ago:

"I went to a shrink today – been having a few panic symptoms on the edge of my life. Rather than waiting till (or to see if) it gets all huge and center I decided to go have a talk about it.

It was nice seeing him again – it’s been two years. Life is good and we chatted. With about 15 minutes to go we spoke of the anxiety. He surmised that maybe I’m ready to put myself out there – writing, painting, school, whatever – and that maybe that frightens me. Makes me quake.

So I am thinking about that. It sure seems trite. SURELY I’m not that trite. Surely not!

Hmmmm. So I will write. And dig out the book and the stories that need revision. And open the blinds in the little studio room. And get the blankets off of the easel.

At least I still have a bottle of Xanax if I need it. :)

I think I’ll use this blog for my stories and my fiction. Just to see what it looks like. And write thoughts and rants and journal entries elsewhere.

(This is what I do – organize myself out of creating anything)"

Challenging myself here.

Hobgoblins

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think today in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and poet, Self-Reliance, 1841

I love this quote. Even though I do get some small comfort from consistency myself, I find that it is a foolish comfort most of the time.

This bit from Emerson comes up for me today because there is a person on the periphery of my life who is consistently, and I mean one hundred percent, consistently negative and insulting. It’s amazing.

Hurtful at first. Then, not so much. So consistent are the insults that I can do little more than laugh now. So predictable. So shallow. So small-minded. And he thinks he’s very suave and sophisticated. He fancies himself quite the poet and storyteller and general life-guru. And yet his remarks to me could be computer generated.

I’m amazed that I could be hurt by people so easily when I was younger. When there was a need for them and their approval. It was a tough time, to be so needy, to be so vulnerable.

Life and experience and time seem to have converged to not so much protect me from people who want to hurt, but simply to give me a different plane to experience it on. Something deeper, something that moves quicker, farther, faster. I don’t wallow in or feel the sting. Oh I know there are people who can smash me. But I doubt anyone can simply throw a dart, or hurl an insult, and get the reaction they want (and need?) any more.

Doesn’t stop some from trying – which is, in itself, another story and one I may find worth exploring.

I'm Really Going To Do It

I'm going to quit wasting time.

I'm going to quit going to a particular online community that has degenerated beyond anything I would want to be associated with.

I'm going to spend my days writing my own creative stuff.

I'm going to spend my days also drawing and painting.

I'm going to fan the flames of my creativity, rather than engage in the excesses of snark that I can get sucked into as a distraction.

I'm going to continue to eat fresh salad out of my garden twice a day.

I'm going to continue eating all the sweetest radishes in the south until the row is gone.

I'm going to continue to identify the birds coming to my feeders.

I'm going to continue to clean out my attic, and go through all my old pictures albums.

I'm going to de-pile my house!

Really. I'm going to do it!

Turning The Soil

Turning The Soil

Knees pressing, back stretching, shoulders pulling, hands reaching deeply into the damp earth, she begins the garden early, early in the day. There is a lightening of the sky, but no sun yet. Birds tentatively chirp and chit and cluck as they test their tongues for the task ahead. Dawn will break soon, and the earth will move into a new day.

Turning the soil over in her hands, and watching the clumps dissolve; kneading the dirt like a luscious loaf of bread to be baked, this has become her ritual for gardening. The soil releases a smell of dank, earthy, richness that she can’t remember smelling anywhere else although she has walked this earth nearly 87 years. Only down on her knees, now-gnarled hands working the soil personally, intimately, this is how the special smell releases its aroma.

The garden gets smaller and smaller. She realized that a few years ago. It was unconscious for a long time, leaving off a row here, a section there. Stopping when she got tired, there was a little extra room for scattering sunflower seeds, or putting in a few stones, or just letting the grass reach a few new tendrils. Then around her birthday, what was it? three years? four years ago? She realized she just got tired a lot earlier, and wasn’t making the garden as big. She was shocked at first, that she could have fooled herself for so long. So proud that she was able to garden when so many of her friends were either dead or in wheelchairs.

Ah, the pride that goes before a fall. She is glad to know, now, that her garden diminishes with passing time. Her garden, her gardening, has a natural life and rhythm. She doesn’t have to think about it, or worry about it, or fret. She can simply reach down, and turn the soil. Now and then her thoughts wander and she can see the tiniest of garden patches. Maybe just a few feet. Of turned soil. Where she will rest. For eternity.

Writing Prompt

Here's my Writing Prompt for this week. I'm going to post my results here.

Planting Seeds, Tending Gardens.

These can be literal, actual seeds and gardens or metaphorical ones planed in our minds, our hearts or our souls. Spend some time thinking about these prompts. Plant them! See what grows!

* Write about being transplanted.
* Write about a seed that was planted.
* The sending down of roots.
* Turning the soil.
* Write about scattering seeds.
* Everything is green...

(taken from "The Writer's Retreat" by Judy Reeves)

Let's try something new this week. Instead of setting a timer let's write three times. It may be that we write three sentences at three different times. Or we write three paragraphs. Or we may use three different prompts on three different occasions. But sit down three separate times and use one or more prompts. Don't concern yourself with output, with length, and don't apologize!!!

These are your words, and this is your breath and your life!! There is space here - for whatever you write!!

----------------- For Further Writing ---------------

If you'd like to do something else try this (from Elizabeth Ayres' "Writing the Wave"):

Set your timer for five minutes. During that time make a list of all the words you love. No editing, no analyzing, no judging ... you can love the word for its meaning, for its sound, for its context, for any reason at all! Just make a list of as many words as you can think of that you love. You can use Names if you like.

Once you're done - choose four. And on a new sheet of paper make four columns headed by each of these words.

Now, rhyme and nonsense come into the mix! Write down ten words that rhyme with or grow out of rhyming with your words.

Here is an Example:

Zipper

clipper
nipper
nip
purr
sir
stir
flur
flurry
hurry
scurry

When you're done and you have four columns of nonsensical, but related, words ... see if a story line or idea jumps out.

Set your timer for 5 minutes and see if you can jot down a few ideas for a silly story, or a serious one. A short story, or a child's verse, or a conversation in a larger work. Something small, something contained ... something like a seed!

To Write Love On Her Arms

Today is the day to write love on your arm.

In remembrance for, and solidarity with, young people who feel so alone and so despairing that they use something sharper on their wrists.

In some small way I want someone somewhere to know that the world actually does have a place for them, so I write LOVE on both wrists, wear short sleeves and go out all day doing my life.

Hoping.

My Retreat Place

Last year I went up into Georgia to a Cistercian Monastery for a week long retreat. They were quiet, I was fairly quiet. It was an incredible week, and I've been back a few times since.

In fact, I'm going up again on November 30. When I'm up there I get to do some writing, talking and general palling around with Fr. James Behrens. He used to be a Parish Priest in New Jersey. Then about 10 years ago he decided to join the monastery. I have no idea why.

Fr. James does many things -- he works in the Bonsai garden, he is a huge part of the Christmas shipping frenzy, he works as in the Retreat House, he takes pictures, and he writes. In addition to his Monkly duties of round-the-clock prayer. He has a great affinity for Bob Dylan and we agree on almost all things political.

Here is an essay he recently wrote and it won an award from the Catholic Press Association. Not hard to see why.

Tinker And Augustine

FATHER JAMES S. BEHRENS, OCSO, Commentary

Published: November 9, 2006

There is a window in this room where I write, and it offers a generous view of the sky. Last week I was here and paused for a moment and looked at the sky. It was beautiful. The sun, which I could not see, was setting in the west, and the sky was a brilliant blaze of orange, brown and red. There were clouds that seemed like huge brushes in that they rose high, spreading colors in vast and marvelous patterns. The cross on our water tower was part of the scene.

I got up and picked up my camera and walked over to the window and took some pictures. They came out quite well, even though I did not adjust the camera to any special settings. I noticed movement in the distance, below me and near the garage. It was Augustine, taking his customary early evening stroll. He was too far away to photograph so I watched him, occasionally looking again at the sky and its beauty far above us both.

Tinky, short for Tinker Bell, is a cat whose usual night residence is the garage. Some days she gets locked out and lounges in front of the garage door. Augustine saw her and reached down and picked her up and cradled her in his right arm. He used his left hand to reach into his pocket for the key to the garage door. It looked as if he lowered his head and talked to Tinky, perhaps chiding her for being locked out again. He opened the door and let Tinky slip out of his arm, shut the door and then proceeded on his way. The scene was surely a simple one, but something about it moved me deeply and made me think about a lot of things.

Cats do not know that they are lost or locked out of a place where they are safe. I suppose that there is some sort of “cat awareness” as to their being out of place and in need of help—a few meows, though, is the best they can manage as far as a language of the lost. It is a good stroke of fortune when a passerby notices the plight of a small and lost creature and lifts it up and gently carries it to safety.

The sky was gorgeous that early evening. Many would rightfully say that such beauty is a gift from God, though others would look at the same sky and marvel at the wonders of nature, leaving God’s palate out of the picture. Either way, the sky offers its beauty to those who appreciate it.

And what about the picking up of a locked-out cat?

As a species, we humans are lost and seemingly locked out of a place that is warm and safe, a place that is secured from violence. Stranded as we are in a dark and strange place, we are prone to strike out violently in ways that seem far from any redemptive solution. Whatever progress there is toward peace seems to be far outpaced by a deeper need to ensure terror. Whatever peace might be, a reading of the activity of any day in any part of the world places peace at a very low realm in human priorities. Its promise is devoured over and over again.

It seems that we are left with taking life one step at a time, walking as we do through a small space in life. In Augustine’s case, he reached down and helped a creature that had no resources to help herself. And so he was kind.

I do not think we have the resources, either, to find that safe place.

But I believe in the kindness of God, who seemingly hides behind the beauty of late summer sky, or perhaps adorns himself in the colors of the setting sun. We will never know for sure—until he comes again and reaches down and picks us up in his arms and carries us to a better place. I believe he will come.

Meanwhile, a monk takes pity and helps one who is lost.

I do not know why the sky is so beautiful—and why it does not last forever. I have a picture, and it will fade in time. But there will always be colors and brilliance.

I like to think that the simple gesture of Augustine is as lasting and as important as the panorama of sky and color. After all, Jesus told us to keep an eye on the simple and seemingly unnoticed. Great things, he said, live as hidden in the simple and the lowly. It is all any of us have to watch for and to attend—till the time that God reaches down and helps us rise.

What or who is God? I do not know of any special settings to find and keep him.

The sky is silent in its beauty. The cross atop our water tower has never uttered a word. If God is far, perhaps his voice is close—like all the light we can ever know, or when a man bends down and picks up a Tinker who is lost.

Father James Stephen Behrens, OCSO, is a monk at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit in Conyers. He is the author of “Grace Is Everywhere: Reflections of an Aspiring Monk,” which is available at the monastery Web store at www.trappist.net.

You can read the article online at: http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/2006/11/09/augustine/

Alligator Point

Little known spot on Florida's Gulf Coast. A special hideaway where I will be spending my weekend. I'm off to sit here: