If I Could Tell You
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.
The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.
Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.
Wystan Hugh Auden
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
two by Gerard Manley Hoplins
Two poems I love by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Spring and Fall:
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
It will come to such sights colder
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Chríst -- for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Monday, February 05, 2007
metaphorically speaking
I seem to be suffering from the proverbial writer's block. Though in my case it would be more accurately described as a thinker's block. I’ve hit a really dry spell – dry, and aimless.
I said once I could endure anything if I just found the proper metaphor in which to think about it – and that is what I am searching for just now - a metaphor, or even a rubric to describe my life, to center it and animate it. I feel fragmented, no longer all of a piece.
Yesterday in church we were given the opportunity for a few quiet moments to “confess our sins of omission and commission. . . “ I felt like maybe, given enough time, I could manage to confess my sins of commission, but I felt as if my life were one big sin of omission. What could I even say about fifty years worth of omission. What are the words to even make that kind of confession? Do they exist?
A large part of my current angst revolves around my family, by which I mean my children. I have young adult children, which causes me look toward a childless future and think, who will I be when the children are gone?? (How cliche. . . just like a women's magazine article.) It is frightening, but creates a restlessness as well. I still have a lot of energy left, as well as a sense that the clock is ticking more loudly. Where should I invest this limited store?? What have I never done that I still want to do?
But then I remember I have a kindergartener and a fourth grader who still have YEARS at home; a seventh grader who needs lots of guidance and reassurance and love. . . I don’t know how to be the right sort of mother for them all - how to adequately deal with the older ones leaving and doing young adult things while still reading Beatrix Potter and Charlotte’s Web often enough. I feel I am not being a good mother to anyone these days – the thing which has always made me feel like my life was justified – no matter what other sins of commission or omission I was guilty of, at least I was a good mother. Right now I don’t feel like a good mother to any of my children. . . and I don’t know how to fix it. It’s not as simple as, “I need to focus more on . . . . ". I can’t focus on anything.
I am similarly torn between friends and loved ones in the US – how to stay close and somewhat involved in the lives of people I love and hope to not be forgotten by, since one day we will be coming back. . . . not as strangers, I hope - and the need to make friends here and become involved in a real life, not a temporary assignment in Malaysia. I feel like I am split down the middle - no, that is too clean. I feel like I am shredded in a hundred bits - each too small and ragged to be any good.
Making friends has always taken a huge amount of emotional energy for me; I am by nature a recluse, I believe, and I have to force myself outside myself to spend time with people, to make connections. I have always felt guilty about this; all my life I have been conscious that I am not a good friend. I have always known people perceive me as aloof and rude. I know my own heart, that I have kindly intentions toward nearly everyone I know; I just can’t muster the emotional energy sometimes to be with them. I wish I could love everyone from afar. . . be a good friend, a nice, caring person from the relative quiet and solitude of my own space. Which sounds pretty selfish when you think about it. I just wish I enjoyed socializing a bit more. . . some people I know would always choose company over solitude.
I think that is why the venue for most of my friendships and my “ministry” if you can call anything I have ever done in my life that, has been my own house. I am usually quite happy to invite people in – I just find it very hard to go out to meet them. I don’t mind having a houseful; I’m happy to have houseguests and extra people for dinner. Anyone can live at my house. I can (usually) deal with people stopping by for coffee, but I have consumed a hundred cups of coffee with friends in my own kitchen for every cup I have taken in someone else’s. . . and I have consumed many cups of guilt as well for being who I am and not one of my more open, friendly, sociable counterparts. How is it one can get so far in life and still feel like Woody Allen: “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. “
So I don’t have anything to write these days because I can’t figure anything out and I am wasting precious hours not doing anything well. I am swirling in a whirlpool looking for some anchor to grab hold of which can help me to stop going in circles; some way to climb out, but I have not even seen anything yet that looks stable or remotely comforting. I have to keep looking if I hope to ever feel firm ground beneath my feet again, but I’m feeling a little discouraged about the prospects just now.
I began by saying I felt dry – now I’m in over my head. If there’s anything I hate it’s a mixed metaphor. This is a measure of how lost I feel right now. What was it the Apostle Paul said in his flawless King James English: “Oh wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me from the body of this death?” I know there was an answer, but it doesn’t make sense to me at the moment. I can’t get past the question
I said once I could endure anything if I just found the proper metaphor in which to think about it – and that is what I am searching for just now - a metaphor, or even a rubric to describe my life, to center it and animate it. I feel fragmented, no longer all of a piece.
Yesterday in church we were given the opportunity for a few quiet moments to “confess our sins of omission and commission. . . “ I felt like maybe, given enough time, I could manage to confess my sins of commission, but I felt as if my life were one big sin of omission. What could I even say about fifty years worth of omission. What are the words to even make that kind of confession? Do they exist?
A large part of my current angst revolves around my family, by which I mean my children. I have young adult children, which causes me look toward a childless future and think, who will I be when the children are gone?? (How cliche. . . just like a women's magazine article.) It is frightening, but creates a restlessness as well. I still have a lot of energy left, as well as a sense that the clock is ticking more loudly. Where should I invest this limited store?? What have I never done that I still want to do?
But then I remember I have a kindergartener and a fourth grader who still have YEARS at home; a seventh grader who needs lots of guidance and reassurance and love. . . I don’t know how to be the right sort of mother for them all - how to adequately deal with the older ones leaving and doing young adult things while still reading Beatrix Potter and Charlotte’s Web often enough. I feel I am not being a good mother to anyone these days – the thing which has always made me feel like my life was justified – no matter what other sins of commission or omission I was guilty of, at least I was a good mother. Right now I don’t feel like a good mother to any of my children. . . and I don’t know how to fix it. It’s not as simple as, “I need to focus more on . . . . ". I can’t focus on anything.
I am similarly torn between friends and loved ones in the US – how to stay close and somewhat involved in the lives of people I love and hope to not be forgotten by, since one day we will be coming back. . . . not as strangers, I hope - and the need to make friends here and become involved in a real life, not a temporary assignment in Malaysia. I feel like I am split down the middle - no, that is too clean. I feel like I am shredded in a hundred bits - each too small and ragged to be any good.
Making friends has always taken a huge amount of emotional energy for me; I am by nature a recluse, I believe, and I have to force myself outside myself to spend time with people, to make connections. I have always felt guilty about this; all my life I have been conscious that I am not a good friend. I have always known people perceive me as aloof and rude. I know my own heart, that I have kindly intentions toward nearly everyone I know; I just can’t muster the emotional energy sometimes to be with them. I wish I could love everyone from afar. . . be a good friend, a nice, caring person from the relative quiet and solitude of my own space. Which sounds pretty selfish when you think about it. I just wish I enjoyed socializing a bit more. . . some people I know would always choose company over solitude.
I think that is why the venue for most of my friendships and my “ministry” if you can call anything I have ever done in my life that, has been my own house. I am usually quite happy to invite people in – I just find it very hard to go out to meet them. I don’t mind having a houseful; I’m happy to have houseguests and extra people for dinner. Anyone can live at my house. I can (usually) deal with people stopping by for coffee, but I have consumed a hundred cups of coffee with friends in my own kitchen for every cup I have taken in someone else’s. . . and I have consumed many cups of guilt as well for being who I am and not one of my more open, friendly, sociable counterparts. How is it one can get so far in life and still feel like Woody Allen: “My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. “
So I don’t have anything to write these days because I can’t figure anything out and I am wasting precious hours not doing anything well. I am swirling in a whirlpool looking for some anchor to grab hold of which can help me to stop going in circles; some way to climb out, but I have not even seen anything yet that looks stable or remotely comforting. I have to keep looking if I hope to ever feel firm ground beneath my feet again, but I’m feeling a little discouraged about the prospects just now.
I began by saying I felt dry – now I’m in over my head. If there’s anything I hate it’s a mixed metaphor. This is a measure of how lost I feel right now. What was it the Apostle Paul said in his flawless King James English: “Oh wretched man that I am. Who can deliver me from the body of this death?” I know there was an answer, but it doesn’t make sense to me at the moment. I can’t get past the question
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