Peace and the Supposed Deathbed

"Heaven Holding Earth" by R. DiCianni

Fear is a powerful force in a person's life. And, more and more, the world provides plenty to be afraid of. Or perhaps, more and more, I'm becoming aware of things I was previously ignorant of. Egyptian Christians are being beheaded for their beliefs. Terrorists are attacking in broad daylight in the middle of a city. A trusted figure in journalism is found untrustworthy. A cartoon makes statutory rape, pedophilia, and terrorist car bombings into a joke. These are mere drops in the proverbial global bucket brimming with insanity. And I don't think that what we hear in the news and see happening in the world is the worst of what humanity is capable of. How's that for cheerful optimism on this frigid Thursday? (Just wait. I promise this ends well.)

Growing up, I did a lot of singing with my grandfather who was widely known in the area as a wedding singer and gospel musician. He, my sister, and I would perform together at various events, singing a variety of songs. However, my grandfather's favorites were the ones that talked about heaven. I never understood his heaven hang-up. Why can't he just enjoy life right where he is? I would wonder.

I have a vivid memory of standing around my grandfather's bed in hospice singing hymns and songs of heaven: the place that stood one final exhaled breath away from him. And in that moment, there was such peace. Not just in him, but in all of us. In retrospect, it reminds me, strangely enough, of a letter written by a Civil War Colonel who believed he was on his own deathbed. Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain wrote to his wife, "I am lying mortally wounded the Doctors think but my mind and heart are at peace. Jesus Christ is my all-sufficient savior. I go to him . . . Oh how happy to feel yourself forgiven."

 I'm sure Chamberlain (who actually survived his injuries) felt the world was imploding and Armageddon was just around the corner. (He was the hero of Gettysburg--imagine the horrors he witnessed in that battle alone.) Yet he had peace. My grandfather, when singing his beloved heaven-songs, had peace. These men had peace because they had a Savior. And they knew that this life won't last, however awful and fear-inspiring it may be for the short time we live it.

Peace is possible. I've seen it. I've felt it. I just can't expect to find it by watching the news, huddling around my children (thinking that will actually keep them safe), and jumping at every noise I hear. Call it a crutch, blind ignorance, wishful thinking, or hope; call it whatever you want, but I am convinced that this world is not all there is. That we all are perpetually on our deathbed until we have passed from this world into real life beyond. That no suffering is ever wasted. And that there is, as Shakespeare said, "a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will." It is that Divinity alone--that knowable, loving, ever-present Savior--who makes peace possible.

All Things New

My school year has finished. Done. Fin-ee-toed. As I'm sitting at my cleared and cleaned teacher's desk, staring out at bare walls and crisply white white-boards, I'm thinking about a conversation I had with one of my students yesterday.

She is 16 years old and recently adopted. She had assumed she would never be adopted because everyone wants the young children, not the teenage ones. But, as God would have it, a beautiful family has welcomed this beautiful girl. Because of this new beginning, she also has the opportunity to change her name--not just taking on the last name of her family, but her entire name can change if she so chooses.

And she has so chosen.

So next year, when I see her again, I will greet her by her new name. Her new name will be listed on my class roster. I will hear her new name used by her friends in the hallway just outside my classroom. And I will smile.

Because with newness comes hope. Hope that past darkness doesn't doom us to future darkness. Hope that light and love and kindness still exist and surface at moments we need it most. Hope that new beginnings bring new possibilities.

Hope, though seemingly in short supply in much of the world, radiates from my stunning student. I cannot help but hope, too, because hope is contagious. And because I know that all things--all souls--can be redeemed and made new.

May you have a Hopeful Thursday.

Anna

A Louse-y Week

It's Friday. The week has been tortuous. I'm not usually one to publicly and excessively bemoan the goings-on in my world, and I recognize that some of what I'm facing is small-fries compared to other atrocities that are happening around us. But I'm not gonna lie. I'm delighted this week is over. Here's why:

#1: We discovered lice on, not one, but all 3 of my children. Lice. Bugs in my children's hair. For those that know anything about me, I don't do bugs. Blech! So we've spent the week delousing our children and our house. And, if ever you are faced with such a horror, you MUST get yourself one of these*. It is the only thing that got us lice- and nit-free. (shivers again at the thought)

#2: My daughter got the stomach bug. I'm terrible with bugs, and vomit is a close second. I'm no good with vomit--especially when I'm already preoccupied with all the lice. So I lost pretty much a whole night's sleep cleaning up vomit and holding my 6-year-old's head over a bucket/toilet/sink/trashcan/any-and-all-handy-receptacles.

#3: I and my 8-year-old caught colds, so we've been talking like Fran from The Nanny (or Janice from Friends, if you prefer) and leaving a trail of used tissues wherever we go. We lay down and we can't breathe. Unfortunately my 8-year-old is what some might call "hyperbolically dramatic". We all know how well I do with drama, don't we? Yeah.

Needless to say, I'm sleep deprived. I'm strung out. I'm grumpy. But it's Friday, I told myself this morning. Suck it up. Muscle through. And when I arrived at work, a dear co-worker Sue came into my classroom with a cup of Sheetz cappuccino (which I love) and a note that said, "Here's hoping your weekend is delightful!"

I nearly started to weep. There is still kindness in the world, folks, to counteract all the louse-y-ness. It took a cup of coffee for me to be reminded of that this morning. So thank you, Sue. Hope has bloomed anew.

And, since I'm supposed to be posting poetry for National Poetry Month, here's Scotland's beloved Rabbie Burns paying homage to those critters I've spent the week destroying.

TO A LOUSE
By: Robert Burns
*Listen to Robert Carlyle read this one with his brogue and with fabulous panache. You'll LOVE it!*

Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlan ferlie!

Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
  Owre gawze and lace;
Tho’ faith, I fear ye dine but sparely,
  On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepan, blastet wonner,
Detested, shunn’d, by saunt an’ sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her,
  Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner,
  On some poor body.

Swith, in some beggar’s haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi’ ither kindred, jumping cattle,
  In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne’er daur unsettle,
  Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye’re out o’ sight,
Below the fatt’rels, snug and tight,
Na faith ye yet! ye’ll no be right,
  Till ye’ve got on it,
The vera topmost, towrin height
  O’ Miss’s bonnet. 

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an’ gray as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
  Or fell, red smeddum,
I’d gie you sic a hearty dose o’t,
  Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpriz’d to spy
You on an auld wife’s flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
  On ’s wylecoat;
But Miss’s fine Lunardi, fye!
 How daur ye do ’t?

O Jenny dinna toss your head,
An’ set your beauties a’ abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
  The blastie’s makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
  Are notice takin!

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
  An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
  And ev’n Devotion!

*I could write an entire blog post on the best way to get rid of lice after all the research and running around I've done--and maybe I will someday. But for now, if lice are your problem, buy the comb and read all the Amazon reviews for this product - they actually have alot of helpful insight!

Hopeful Digging with a Nobel Prize Winner

A view of Oranmore, Ireland
(with Oranmore Castle in the distance)

Last summer I was in Ireland--home of Nobel Prize winner and poet Seamus Heaney. I actually heard Seamus Heaney (pronounced "Shay-mus Hay-knee") speak at the AWP conference in Boston in February 2013. What a fascinating man to listen to. He seemed like he had 2 feet on the ground at all times--though his mind and imagination knew no limits.

It was during my time in Ireland that I first read his poem "Digging" from his collection Death of a Naturalist. I love the way he handles the passage of time. How there are so many layers to all he says-- "the curt cuts of an edge/ Through living roots awaken in my head." The imagery and innuendo of this poem is striking.

Coming from a line of farmers myself and living in a rural, semi-agrarian area, Heaney's connection with the earth is familiar, as is his disconnect from the earth as well. His line "But I've no spade to follow men like them" resonates with me, as does his final decision to dig with his pen rather than his spade.

I believe hope is threaded throughout this poem. Perhaps that is what draws me to it the most.

After reading "Digging" for the first time, I had to share it with my fellow word-lovers and word-smiths. So, over a dinner of Indian food in Oranmore, Ireland, I read "Digging" to 3 of my dearest friends and watched the words of Seamus Heaney cast a spell over our quiet corner table.

Reading "Digging" over dinner in Oranmore

As you read, imagine the lush Irish landscape, savor the language, listen for the hope. (You can hear Heaney read the poem here.)

Digging
By: Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink again, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

_________________________________________

Wishing you all a happy NATIONAL POETRY MONTH and a Hopeful Tuesday!

Anna

The Simple Future

 It's April 1. A new month; a new beginning. April is important to me, not only because it is the herald of Spring, but also because it is National Poetry Month.

During my season of quiet, I've been reading lots of poetry, some of it written by a warrior poet: King David  (and a few of his compatriots).

When I read David's poetry, I think of the ending of Braveheart when William Wallace says, "They fought like warrior poets . . . and won their freedom." Poetry is freeing, is it not? This warrior poet wrote some of the most honest, most raw, most beautiful poetry I've ever encountered.

The one poem of David's (although its true author is up for debate, apparently) I've been reading in particular is Psalm 91. I love, love, love the imagery and figurative language used, but even more fascinating is the tense in which the poem is written. It is primarily written in the simple future tense--what some refer to as the indicative tense. (Although, as we all know, the future is typically anything but simple.)

In this poem there are promises made of things to come based on the present choices of an individual--the "he" under discussion. If this psalm is indeed divinely inspired, as I believe it is, then it is inspired by the only One who can actually foresee what is to come and legitimately offer the assurances and promises being made in this text.

Thus, this psalm is beautifully hopeful--so much so, it was actually routinely quoted by laboring doctors to their patients back in the days when Cholera was wiping out entire cities. 

Additionally, the point of view used is a revolving door, going from third person to second person. Then, in the final stanza, the point of view shifts to the first person point of view: God himself watching, speaking of, and indicating his intentions of rescuing His child. Simply because the child knew God's name and used it to call out to Him.

This psalm is one of the most hopeful pieces of literature I have read during this time of being still. I've listened to this psalm read aloud and there is something breath-takingly transcendent about it. So, if you're in a place where you can read this aloud (or, better yet, have it read to you), do it. Or listen to it recited on YouTube here.

May this poem infuse your day with hope the way it has mine.

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust."

For He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler

and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions

and under his wings you will find refuge;

His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler.

You will not fear the terror of the night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,

nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

You will only look with your eyes

and see the recompense of the wicked.

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place--

the Most High, who is my refuge--

no evil shall be allowed to befall you,

no plague come near your tent.

For He will command his angels concerning you

to guard you in all your ways.

On their hands they will bear you up,

lest you strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread on the lion and the adder;

the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

"Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;

I will protect him, because he knows my name.

When he calls to me, I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him

and show him my salvation."

I thank you, friends, for your patience in my absence. I hope to be around a bit more and, for the month of April, to share with you the poetry I've been reading.

Happy April!
Anna

Nothing So Broken appearance

Today I'm a guest writer--which always leaves me a bit trembly and wondering, "Will they like me? Am I good enough?" This post running today, however, is different. It is for a blog series created by a dear friend and fabulous writer Alison McLennan. Alison describes her blog series as "personal stories of brokenness on the path to redemption." So when Alison approached me about writing a post, my knee-jerk response was: NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Way too personal for me. Besides, who wants to hear about a dark moment in my life? I want to spread sunshine and cheer! I want to inspire! To run through the hills singing like Maria VonTrapp!

But I said yes.

Maybe because I'm a glutton for punishment. Maybe because I am too weak to say no to a writing opportunity. But I think, more than likely, it's because there's a message the Spirit within me wants to get out. So, in fear and trembling, I wrote about my burgeoning realization of my own failings and where that has brought me as a mother and wife, as a writer and teacher--but more importantly, as a person in search of redemption.

So, dear readers, I'd love love love to see some familiar faces over on Alison's blog today (just click on the picture above and it'll connect you). Stop in. Say hi. See how fabulous Alison is. And peer through the cracks and crannies of my writing into what is, I pray, a story of hope for us all.

Have a hope-filled Wednesday!

Anna