Monday, December 29, 2003

Psalms of Ascent



Can I come inside...? finger to lips and....
your parents won’t mind
or if they do you’re grown now and the whole house is asleep now.

Stumbled in through the front door. She wants to laugh,
but he puts a finger to his lips as if to say, Don’t you dare
Like its his house instead of hers he takes her by the hand
through the living room, down the hall to her bedroom.

He is so short. Actually a little shorter than her, much shorter when she is in heels
He brings her face down and the straps of her dress down
and takes just enough time to inhale the musk between her breasts before helping her undo
the bra.

“We’ve never.... Not here...” she begins.

He can’t say anything-- his mouth is on her belly
now between her breasts
on arms, on face now he murmurs now...
“Now,”

They wrestle their way to the bed.
On her back on her bed labor day she labors helping him lift up his shirt.
Exult! Lift every voice and sing!
(He never wears tee shirts. It seems like it would be too hot for these work shirts now
They work with the buttons awhile, give up, give in, together just lift the damn shirt up.

Face to face lay smiling
writhing as they pull each others jeans off,
pull all things off except skin
cup caress, cup caress,
arms and legs and mouths to make love for that long time on the precipice before the entry.

Holy words, angel sentries, swords of flame that thrust the gate to paradise
“You... Hardness. You... love you. Oh, hard... harder...”
Words give ways to groans. Don’t hold back.

“Don’t...” quicker, quicker, sliding in and out like a shuttle, trying not to shout out--

“Don’t hold back!”
“They’ll hear.”
“No one’ll hear.”

Thrust thrust,
Ride with me.
No one’ll hear
Don’t worry.
Be free.
Ride with me.
No one’ll hear!
Behold I come!
Coming, coming!
-- Oh, sweet God! this is what salvation was for --
I’m here!

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

It’s not a mistake that the Yuletide is at this time of the year. Many people are worn out with the exhaustion of enforced good cheer and believe that they don’t feel… whatever they are supposed to be feeling at this point of year.
We have passed through the longest night of the year. The sun returned the other day, the days have begun to grow longer, but this is barely perceptible. And in this world where we have artificial lights and live on our own schedules, our bodies feel the same depressions, the same anxiety that our ancestors felt. Only we no longer know why.
We are afraid of the dark. The sky is dark and often gloomy. The world is cold. The first part of winter the world rests, and at one point in time we would have rested as well. We are afraid to rest. Long ago, and in many cultures even now this was the time for storytelling, especially telling tales of wonder. But we don’t have time to wonder any more. Adulthood is measured by how busy we are, how unwilling we are to believe in any reality save the limited one we set down for ourselves.
So at the darkest time of the year, we make our own light. We take responsibility for bringing light back into the world and this truly religious know that. True religion? What is that anyway? True connection. A Catholic has it. A Protestant has it. So does a Pagan, an agnostic, someone who calls himself an atheists because he can’t believe in the religion that has been handed him, in the stories she has been told. But all of us are able to feel the connection that manifests itself in a sort of personal responsibility for bringing in the light when there is no light to be seen. And we are not alone. That is part of the connection. We are not wholly left to our singularly and all too quickly exhausted devices. Prometheus shows up with the torch of fire from heaven. God permits the oil to burn in the candelabra just enough days for more oil to arrive at the Temple. In every culture, in the bleak midwinter, the Holy Child is born, something out of nothing, a small spark in the bitter cold.

When peaceful stillness compassed everything,
and the night in its swift course was half spent,
Your all powerful Word from heaven’s royal throne
Leapt down into the doomed land…



Riding home on the bus from the last of the Christmas shopping: the inbound pulls into the parking lot of the Target and I hear a woman calling, “Tell him to wait for me! Don’t let him leave.”
When she gets on the bus she asks me where the SSI building is, and I tell her. She begins to tell me how she has none of her records accept for, I think, a grocery store food card. Then she burst into tears on the bus and begins to tell me how the day after Thanksgiving, her husband picked up a cigarette, lit it and dropped dead of a massive heart attack. Now she had nothing and was living with her sister-in-law.
“I’m so mad at him!” she was crying. “It’s not his fault, but I’m mad at him… And I mad at Him upstairs too… But I’m trying not to be.” She was I thought, literally mad with grief, in both senses of the word mad, and all I could do is sit and listen and try not to say anything stupid. Help how I could. That would be my Christmas present. The sky was so grey it was almost black and the precipitation went from snow to rain and back again. She had already walked around dazed in the rain, wanting to die, trying to make herself sick.
“I loved him. I miss him so much. And now he’s gone… How am I going to do Christmas this year? The only thing holding me together is my church…”
When she had said it a few times, I had the feeling she wanted to tell me about her church. So I asked what it was.
“First Missionary Baptists on Ironwood.”
I knew that part of being a good evangelical is plugging your church or your religion even when you are at your absolute worse, so I knew she had to get that in.
“It is the only thing…” she repeated. “I don’t know if I can make it.”
“You will make it,” it was the only definite thing I said the whole conversation. Well, I also told her that she could definitely expect to be frustrated at the Social Services bureau and that she might as well not even try to get to the DMV. But telling her she would make it was my last gift. It was not a wish or me talking out of head or any other part of my body. It was my will. She will make it. Losing a spouse is more than hell, but there are all sorts of hell and my personal miracle was being happy when I remember being her, so dazed that nothing meant anything, my life tipped over and tossed upside down. Wanting to die. I will light a candle for that woman tonight, Christmas Eve, and remember one of the greatest miracles there is: the miracle of all things, even the worst, passing…

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty winds made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow
In bleak midwinter
Long, long ago


write the witch: Dancing_House@hotmail.com

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

December 19

O ROOT OF JESSE, that stands for an ensign of the people, before whom the kings keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: COME, to deliver us, and tarry not. Amen. "O Radix Jesse..."

December 20

O KEY OF DAVID, and Sceptre of the House of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: COME, and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death. Amen. "O Clavis David..."December 21

O DAWN OF THE EAST, brightness of light eternal, and Sun of Justice: COME, and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Amen. "O Oriens..."



I love this time of year. These little verses at the beginning of the Magnificat really need no commentary. Yet I feel myself wanting to give one anyway. So many holidays right now, each of them making us feel and think things we usually don't. I'm having conversations I don't always have. I just want to say: I am not sure what faith is, but as I define it, faith is about relationship. Faith is not certainty. It is not being sure that you are right, that your religion is right. Faith is agnostic because relationship is agnostic. That's right. The longer you abide with someone the more you realize that there is so much more of them to know and that you never knew them half as well as you did. But this is where love comes in. Love trust the little that you do know and walks on. Love stands in place of the roadmap. Love is all we have. Love is all that lies in manger. Well, hay also lies in the manger, but... love is in the hay as well.
Antiphons...

O WISDOM, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: COME, and teach us the way of prudence. Amen. "O Sapientia..."



For those of you who have forgotten or for those of you who never knew, the O Antiphons are the prefaces to the Magnificat-- the prayer recited at the end of the monastic day-- that are sung for the seven days before Christmas Eve. Yesterday's 'O Antiphon' is at the top of the page. Even if you never say the Magnificat, the antiphons are great verses to reflect upon as we draw closer to the mystery of the manger.

December 18

O LORD AND RULER of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: COME, and redeem us with outstretched arms. Amen. "O Adonai..."




The antiphons are powerful in Latin, but I haven't found a Latin translation of them. With a good English translation they are still profound. But to me the most wonderful part of this verse is the stretched out arms of the Lord. Stretched out not only from the cross, but stretched out here in the innocence of a child, an infant in the cradle. Let all who are drawn to this image come. Amen.




WHAT I WROTE ON THE FRONT AND BACK OF AN ENVELOPE TELLING ME I HAD BEEN APPROVED FOR A NEW VISA CARD


I had been told about them
With a capital THEM—
With a hem and a polite haw
Or a guffaw and the toss of an apple
From Eden
“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steven!”
And since I was taught (let’s not get caught up in liberal holier
Than thous) now’s the time to admit it’s how I believed

Stereotypes with antennas and knobs—winks and rude nods
--twinks—
and other names

Until THEY came

Until them is a you and a you and a you
And a you is a friend in my life
Flesh, blood and bone
To atone for caricatures made by hatchers of names

knowing is different
and seeing is seeing—being awake is being unable to take being
a maker of false insults

I heard you louder than a brook,
Queerer than…
Flying to your points direct
Straighter than any arrow
Or any other fellow no matter what they call you
And
With twice the courage of any man I’d ever known
Fire burned from your bones and if that’s what they mean when they say flame—well then, embrace
That name
Brothers,
Brothers in your grace you do move light on your feet
So light on your feet when I saw you like fairies you almost flew
And then I knew

Well, it is officially a new year. Can’t you feel it? I certainly don’t mean: isn’t it grand that everything is finished and perfect and just the way we expected it to be? Aren’t our lives filled with total successes? I REALLY don’t mean: aren’t you glad, that like the end of a season on a television show, all the action is wrapped up, packaged and we can finally start something new? The truth is that Advent and the turning of the year do not wait for things to be wrapped up or perfected. The gift of newness and beginning is that it comes all the time regardless if we are ready for it or not. If renewal waited for us to be ready, or happened the way we thought it should, it would never come. But the great news is that in the midst of your split up with the girlfriend, your seemingly fruitless job search, your inability to make a relationship work or your life work…. The Holy Child is born.
The blessed news pops up in all the Christmas carols. A virgin birth in Bethlehem. Funny, isn’t it, how that one impossible thing is the thing everyone can pretty much believe in about Christmas? No matter how skeptical one is about all of religion, most of us get pretty sentimental about this story. It has nothing to do with how we believe in our heads and everything to do with the knowledge in our hearts. Why? Because our whole lives are a Bethlehem. Because this whole world is a Bethlehem that is waiting. Because the miracle of grace is that God is always waiting to be born, to renew all things. In us. This day. No matter what?
All that matters is that we be ready and willing.

This is the irrational season
When loves blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.


-- Madeleine L’Engle
Sunday is still in my head. Winter Sundays, especially those around Yuletide are really a gospel of smells and senses. That makes enough sense, doesn’t it? This is the day of the week when more than anywhere else God is in the grape, in the bread and in the wine.
The smells of Sunday: sappy evergreen from the branches broken for wreaths, cocoa with the buttered rum, the scent of the lilac and the peppermint and the cinnamon candles burning at the altar and then the smell of Sunday dinner. The senses of Sunday: letting go, doing little, above all, the comfort of warm beds surpasses even the sound of the choir at High Mass. Another smell of Sunday: the incense during the procession up to the altar at the opening hymn.
Last night I hear a program and think I’ve heard it before. It comes on NPR and I once had that episode on tape. I had it for years. It contained two of my favorite musical pieces. But then the tape was destroyed by accident and I lost that music and for a long time I was very sad about that. I know I can get up and scavenge for a tape to capture what I’ve lost, but something speaks to me and says, “Just listen.” So I climb into bed and do just that, letting the music roll over me and go inside of me, note by note, not being able to capture, not knowing when I will hear again the notes that shock my heart and sting my tear ducts.
So what is the purpose of this catalogue of beauty? Just that. It was beautiful, wasn’t it? Hearing this? Our lives are filled with so much beauty, aren’t they? When our hearts have taken a beating, so does hope. This is largely what Christmas is about. A holy Child is being born in a cave, in a forgotten place. A child of wonder is about to start his journey in innocence and power. The miracle of incarnation is that the child about to be born to Mary… is you.
Do not let small mindedness, lack of hope, weariness and dullness of vision intrude on the holy gift of innocence, of birth that the Spirit would give….





Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old?
Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
Kingdom of God…. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it wishes,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh, and whiter it goeth; so is everyone
that is born of the spirit...