50 Line Items

Today is my 60th birthday. Hang on a second, I need a drink of water. Gulp. It's ok, really, friends older than myself (I've always been drawn to those a bit older than I am), have said the most loving and gracious things, like, "oh you ain't seen nothin' yet", or, "just you wait." Yea. Eternal wisdom right there, truth-tellers they are.

My body feels older and achier, slower and creakier, but in my mind, I am thirty, forty-something. Get me laughing too hard at something mildly inappropriate, and I revert to a 9-year old on the spot. 60? Really? Jeepers.

In sorting through some files a few weeks ago, I came across a document I created on January 1, 2012. I'd selected a Celtic cross design on a gold background to frame the layout (a shout-out to my Scottish/Irish heritage) and in bold, green, 'Papyrus' font, no less, I titled the document 'In My 50th Year'. Melodramatic much? Maybe just a skosh. On the page, I painstakingly noted 50 separate line-items that I would attempt to do the following with in my 50th year: arrange, nurture, manage and complete. I can only assume my intention was to create a similar, yet incrementally more demanding document each subsequent year.

I gently held this file-rumpled, faded document in my hands, read it through slowly and said to myself, out loud: "oh, sweetie".

Several years ago on her sitcom, Ellen Degeneres said this line: "I don't know nothin' about nothin". I swiped that line from her and have used it often. Looking at the 50 demands I placed on myself, it is clear to me today that I didn't know nothin' about nothin. My lack of knowledge, my lack of understanding, my lack of grace for myself is glaring. The hoped for results were not committed to paper, but I can tell you what they were as if I had written the list earlier today rather than 10 years ago. It is all so implicitly transactional: if I do this, then this will happen. If I change my life in this way, this will be the outcome. If I commit to this endeavor, this specific path will open. If I behave, adhere, submit, I will somehow find the elusive thing(s) that prompted me to write such an edict in the first place. 

Reading this document ten years later, the poignant reality is that I have no idea where some of the people are that I pledged to connect or reconnect with, I can't remember if I went to that training I considered essential, I don't recall spending all those promised rigorous hours in the art studio or in the garden or at the piano. And my achy knees seem to tell me I did not, after all, keep up with that rigid exercise program I'd carved out for myself. I have clearly lived into the line from the Confession, where I admit that so much has been left undone.

Today, I consider the meandering path that's taken me from there to here, and I can see that despite a to-do-list that would shame the most energetic of go-getters, there's been some love, there's been some rebuilding, there's been some music, there's been some becoming. And here I am, finding myself still a hopeful girl, having been carried, held, whispered to and beckoned by God. 

I see more clearly now at 60 what my 50 year-old eyes were blind to: transformation of the heart and soul is not something I create, it is something I create a space for. The work of transformation, is God's. 

This morning, I read these words from a favorite poet, Jan Richardson: "Look how far we've come. Look how near we are." The words struck me as rich and plentiful, nourishing and enough. I will gladly trade 50 line items for these few words of gentle invitation, of sweet mystery, of tender trust that the story that God is telling, the story that inexplicably includes my life, is still being told, is still unfolding, and while it may be precious to try to skooch that along with Papyrus-font to-do lists, God is at work, in the seen and unseen, bringing about God's dream for us all.

Be My Hope ~ A Collection of Sung Prayers

When I was a teenager, maybe 14 or 15, my brother got his hands on a guitar. It had only 5 strings, but hey, it was free, and I got my hands on it whenever I could.

I discovered a guitar chord chart in the back of the worn and dog-eared songbook I'd stolen from my youth group. I wore dents deep into my fingertips learning the D, G, C, Em and A chords, while leaving Bb, Eb and F major to finer players.

Once I had a few chords in my pocket, I spent endless hours leafing through songbooks, learning to move from one chord to the next without too much awkward lag time. Between this and playing piano for school and church choirs, so many of my youthful musical pinings were satisfied.

I discovered around this time a draw toward songwriting as well. I remember scribbling lyrics on notepads, church bulletins, the back side of math assignments. When I was 15, my mom gave me a blank book titled 'Harmonious Melodies' for my birthday. I immediately filled the pages with overwrought songs dripping with spirit, syrup and angst.

I read through these 40-year-old songs from time to time, and feel a hint of embarrassment, but also see in them, the first steps on the path toward some of the deepest gladness I know:  I get to express myself, my heart for God, through music. Sitting at my piano, noodling around on a simple melody, this is where I have always felt most at home, most my true self. I believe that God knows this about me, planted this desire in me. And in that place where what I long for meets with what God longs for, I find hope and peace and a way to be in the world.

This has been my way to be in the world for most of my life. Saying to God, saying to my own heart, through a simple song, what I cannot always say with my speaking voice. Lament and praise, hope and despair, longing and gratitude. I've come to see them as sung prayers. I've always been a little distracted verbally... those who know me well understand that my tendency is to start any story with a bit of focus, see something shiny, trail off, and then derail. But that doesn't happen when I sing one of the prayers I've written. My head is not so busy, my spirit is calm.

I've been so fortunate since I first started scribbling in that blank book to find myself in faith communities that offered a safe cocoon for my songwriter's heart. Brian Gerards and Gary Hotchkiss at Wood Village Baptist Church took me under their wings and let me know that what I had to offer was enough. Jack and Judy Bevilacqua, who led the young adult group (the YAGS!) that I was part of for my 20s and 30s, nurtured things in me that are still bringing life and hope and transformation. I showed up on Sundays at the church, on Thursday nights at their house with my guitar and often, a new song I'd written.. I was invited to be courageous, to share what I'd written, to invite my friends in community to sing these prayers with me. During a season of my life where I was without a church home, I remember Gary Hotchkiss saying to me. 'Kathy, what you need is a small little church where people can love and know you, and where you can offer them your music'. God got me to that little church 8 years ago when I walked through the red doors at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Gresham. Rev. Jennifer Creswell invited me to sing, to play, to write, to be fully who I am both behind the piano and away from it. I have written more songs and prayers since coming to St. Luke's than in all the years before.

Often, after sharing something I'd written in a worship setting, people would ask 'do you have a recording of that song?'  Over and again, I'd have to say 'no'. After awhile, I grew tired of this response and all my excuses behind it, and recently, decided to do something brave, something my introverted self had to dig deep to make way for.

I asked my friend Jim Dalgleish to help me record some of my songs. I asked my friend Jack Bevilacqua to play his guitar on the recording. I asked around to see if anyone might want to help with the financial piece of getting it done. The answers to my questions were 'yes', 'yes', and 'yes'. There is an assumption I've lived with for most of my life as an accompanist, as a person who sits up front and sings and plays: that I am comfortable with being up front, that I have an extroverted side that makes this possible. That is just not true for me. I am only comfortable because I am tucked safely behind the shelter of a piano, speaking the language that comes most naturally to me. To consider recording, and to ask for help took all kinds of courage. The heartening response fills me with gratitude.

Recording in my living room/dining room with Jim and Jack has been an adventure, a kick in the pants, an experience that has invited me to hear from God, again, that it is enough... it is enough to take what I've been given and offer it back. It is enough to express myself the best way I know how. That I am enough. I've learned so much through this DIY homemade recording process. I learned that it is best to tune Nana's upright piano before recording. I've learned that WD-40 can work in a pinch to take the squeak out of a wonky string, but you've gotta aim that little red nozzle precisely. I've learned that the dogs are fine in their crates in the van for a few hours while the session is ongoing. I've learned that Jack and I have developed an unspoken language through years and years of playing together that we can rely on even in the anxious setting of recording. I've learned that in the mixing, there is no button or dial to make my voice sound like Adele (smile). I've learned that notes we flubbed, vocal pitches that went sharp or flat, ambient noises like the refrigerator motor, the clock I forgot to take off the wall or the furnace kicking on are just part of the funky, imperfect charm.

When I quiet myself and talk to God about this recording, it does not take long at all for the tears to pool in my eyes. Tears of gladness, tears of recognizing again what I have always known... that God knows my heart, that God knows the vulnerability, the risk that comes with sharing my songs. And, maybe the deepest truth, is that through these songs, I am not just expressing myself to God... God is expressing God's self... to me.

Be My Hope ~ A Collection of Sung Prayers, is the CD Jack and Jim and I put together, and I am glad to finally be able to say, 'yes, I have a recording of that song'. The picture on the CD is one I took in 2007 when I was in Scotland. We visited Urquhart Castle, and in strolling the castle ruins, I was struck by the sight of a fresh and vibrant bunch of yellow blooms showing off halfway up the castle wall. I was captured then by the image of hope in the ruins. With God, there is always hope in the ruins. Years later I would write a song based on Psalm 71, with this refrain: 'Be my stronghold, my castle keep, my fortress, my hope, be my hope.'

Be my hope. God is my hope. You are invited to sing these prayers with me. May God be your hope as well.

The 'Fountain Fullness' Feast of St. Francis

I’ve been saying ‘hi’ to the moon for half my life. This isn’t something that started when I was a child, it began after I crossed into that stage of adulthood when clerks at the grocery store started calling me ‘ma’am’.  At some point, I discovered in the moon’s enveloping presence… in both the morning and the night sky… a reminder of God’s enveloping presence, and as I saw the moon I imagined her seeing me, and this reminded me too of being seen, being known by God. And so, it became my spiritual practice. On my morning walks to the bus stop, or looking out my window at the night sky til sleep takes over, I see her and, sometimes with a whisper, sometimes with full voice, I say, I pray,  “hi moon.”  

For this I thank St. Francis.

 

I met one of the great loves of my life 5.5 years ago when I rescued my terrier-mix-mutt Maggie from the animal shelter. I had wanted a dog for so long, but wrestled with the guilt of leaving a dog alone all day, since as a single working girl with a boss who wouldn’t make my desk area ‘pet-friendly’, I knew any dog I adopted would be home alone for several hours. Then a handful of friends explained to me exactly what it is dogs do all day when they are left alone, and I gave myself permission. When I described the features I wanted in a longed for dog, my friend, hearing my detailed explanation said, ‘Kathy, you don’t want a dog, you want a pillow’. Well, I got my pillow. I saw her first online, and when I went to the shelter to meet her, the young volunteer explained to me, in hushed tones so as if to not let Maggie hear, that this gray haired mutt was a little sensitive, sometimes behaved nervously in social situations, and could stand to lose a few pounds. I knew right then that she was my girl.

For this I thank St. Francis.

 

Side-note: Maggie’s not here today to receive a blessing, because the first time I brought her, she took a tiny chunk of skin out of Rev. Jennifer’s hand. Because, you know, ‘she behaves nervously in social situations.’

 

A few months ago Maggie and I were walking in the park, just ambling along the sawdust path carved among the forest of pine trees. Kiddos played on the swings nearby while their grown-ups sipped coffee and kept an eye on them from faded wooden benches.  As Maggie and I wandered, I noticed two little girls climbing a small tree along the path. They were, 7, 8.  One of them had wriggled herself halfway out onto a long, thin branch, and she was swaying and bouncing like a trapeze artist from Cirque Du Soleil. And even though she was small, the thin branch was bending under the strain of her weight and motion. And I don’t want to be this adult around children, but as I witnessed this, the ‘you damn kids’ voice in me rose up and tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it and I said “you’re not trying to break that branch are you?!”   The little trapeze artist looked at me with big eyes and said, “nu-uh, we climb this tree all the time.” And then her friend chimed in and said, “yea, we climb it all the time and the branches are really strong.”  I nodded nervously, and said “okay”… but I just couldn’t leave it alone, the spirit of Assisi burst from within me and I finished off my mini lecture by saying, “well just be careful because you know that tree is a living thing.” They gave me that blank stare you get from 8 year olds when you’ve said too much. I slunk way. And it occurred to me as I did that I had not expressed concern for their safety, only the well-being of the tree.  For this I thank/I blame St. Francis.

 

Last fall, I began a two-year training program in the art of Spiritual Direction at the Franciscan Spiritual Center in Milwaukie. The program offers training, experience, community and the space and time to discern a call to spiritual direction, all wrapped in Franciscan theology.  The training weekends have been rich and deeply meaningful, and have included instruction and reading, but also music, dance, poetry and prayer, meditation, art, labyrinths, shared meals, laughter, communion, and the setting of an altar each time we meet. Deep connection with God. Deep connection with creation. Deep connection with one another.

 

Spiritual Direction, as I am coming to understand, is simply the art of listening with others for the movement of God in their lives. I’ve been drawn to this for a long time, because even before I had a name for it, I’d been on the receiving end of spiritual direction for most of my adult life. Sitting across from my beloved friend and mentor Judy Bevilacqua, telling her my stories, hearing hers.  I began to experience the invitation into hope and transformation that comes from having someone listen deeply with another for God. I entered into formal Spiritual Direction with Debbie Kohler a few years ago, and both of these relationships kindled a spark in me that’s been there all along, just waiting for the season and the spirit to breathe it to life. We all have a story that God is telling through our lives… an unfolding, messy, glorious, mundane, heartbreaking, Divine-infused story that we’re living into. Where is God in all of that? Where is God in your story? Where is God in mine?

 

I knew just a couple of things about St. Francis when I began my training… that as a lover of creation his likeness often appears in bird baths, that he advocated for the poor and for peace, that he wore a loose-fitting, scratchy brown garment tied with a rope around his waist. That’s about all I had.

 

I know that many of you are lovers, students of St. Francis. I am not going to try to share the biography and geography of his life and ministry, there are volumes upon volumes written to provide that. Rather, I’d like to share with you a few of the things that have been most meaningful to me so far… ways that Francis saw God, responded to God, and moved through the world not only doing, but being, all the while looking for, finding, and leaving traces of God … ways that I now find myself wanting to nurture in my own life and call. And as I share these things, it’s not so much a report, as it is an invitation… an invitation for you to hear and consider for yourself some of what I’ve been hearing and considering, and discover where the Spirit might be kindling new life in you as well.

 

I’m learning from St. Francis, who loved the Gospel, to see the love of God expressed in and through all of God’s creation, to open myself to the goodness and wonder that pulses at the heart of all we’ve been given by the Creator. Francis expressed this beautifully in his exquisite ‘Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon’, where he sings his praises to God, as God appears through the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, the air, the fire, the earth, and where Francis sings out: “O God, you cherish all that you have made”.

 

I’m learning from St. Francis, who loved the Gospel, that God’s love for us simply cannot be contained, it is an extravagant, lavish, overwhelming love. A love described as ‘fountain fullness’, overflowing, washing through and over, in and all around us with torrents of mercy, grace and delight. And this love is expressed most graphically, most poignantly through the incarnation, Jesus, coming to reveal, to embody God’s deep desire for communion. Communion with me, communion with you, communion with all God has made. This love is both transcendent and imminent. A love beyond comprehension, steeped in mystery. A love as present as our own skin, our own heartbeat.

 

I’m learning from St. Francis, who loved the Gospel,  that loving the Gospel can be costly. It can cost me what I would want most to hold onto: my false illusions of security, my precious reputation, my desire to be untouched by what, on the surface, might seem unlovely, threatening, or just way too much trouble…something or someone to keep my distance from.  St. Francis invites me to make myself at home among the outcast, the wounded, the poor, and in doing so, to make myself at home with God.

 

This past June, my Franciscan community went on retreat, and while we were there, each of us was asked to share our Rule of Life. St. Francis had a Rule of Life, a rule that began with his expressed devotion to the Gospel and from there iterated how he desired to be in the world.  We’d spent quite some time piecing our Rules together prior to this retreat, hoping to capture, as Francis had, how we hope to be in the world. I’d like to share mine with you now. ….

 

Living into the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I am called to:

See and cherish others as I am seen and cherished by God.

Open my entire being to Spirit’s transformation

Believe that I am beloved, that I am enough

Walk through the world with delight in God’s goodness

Set my prayers to music and share them generously

Cultivate gentleness, resilience, openness and compassion

 

Reading this again, it sounds so serene, so contemplative, so St. Francis-y. So now would be a good time to tell you that the very week I was prayerfully gathering my thoughts and committing my rule to paper, I got into a ferocious argument with someone close to me. And by ‘got into’ I mean ‘started’. Before it was over, there was a fair amount of screaming. Mostly mine. Now, I would not have felt so ashamed of this unfortunate behavior if I’d included ‘get into ferocious screaming arguments’ in my Rule of Life.

 

This regrettable episode showed me that my rule, like my faith, like my life … is evolving, something I am working out, taking tiny steps to find my footing, and living into.  This rule is simply inviting me to remember who I am, who I am becoming, how I am seen and known and loved by God, and how I might be present to God and to others as I respond to the love that’s been shown me. God’s imminent, transcendent, overflowing love. Do you know, that you also are being invited, to remember who you are, who you are becoming, to trust that you are seen and known and loved by God, with an imminent, transcendent and overflowing love? 

 

Sister Mary Jo at the Franciscan Center offered us this prayer card a few weeks ago, and she told us that while these words can’t be attributed to St. Francis with certainty, they do capture the essence of his life and mission: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

 

St. Francis reminds us that God comes to us disguised as our ordinary lives. What we see, what we hear, what we taste, what we touch, what we feel. God is there. That our presence, responding to the love we’ve been shown, is the deepest treasure we have to share. That we are mirrors, you and I, mirrors to reflect the image, the likeness and the love of God back to the world around us.  A world and a humanity that is at the same time beautiful, broken and beloved.  Through our lives, our unfolding, messy, glorious, mundane, heartbreaking, Divine-infused lives, we make the love of God visible in a unique way.

 

For this I thank St. Francis. For this I thank God.

 

St. Francis’ life, his being, his presence, was a passionate response to the love he’d been shown by God. In this, his Prayer of Self-Giving, we hear his passion for his beloved:

 

I beg you Lord, let the fiery,

gentle power of your love take possession of my soul,

and snatch it away from everything under heaven,

that I may die

for love of your love

as you saw fit to die

for love of mine

 

For this I thank St. Francis. And for St. Francis, I thank God. AMEN

Beethoven, The Beatles, and Trusting Your Creative Gut ~

A few months ago, the community at St. Luke's, the little Episcopal parish I call home, spent a weekend immersed in Celtic spirituality. Stefan Waligur, our guide, walked us through this experience through story and song, silence and prayer. And all the while, creation was on his mind. Throughout the weekend, he asked us to sit with these questions:

“Do I believe that I am a co-creator because my very being reflects the Creator’s image?
“What is it that’s being created in me at this time in my life?”
“What might I be called to create, to bring into being, at this time in my life?”
“What is my experience of deep satisfaction in my own creative work?”

Stefan’s questions, and recent communal wondering at St. Luke's about the life-giving thread that weaves creativity and spirituality together, brought to mind a box that is tucked under my bed.

I don’t think of myself as a packrat. I perhaps have a few too many bird figurines laying about, but for the most part, I’ve been able to let go of things that have become clutter. Under my bed I do have a small wicker chest that contains a few treasures from my childhood that I’ve just not been able to part with: my signature book from high school, filled with faded scribbles from the choir geeks and journalism nerds that were my friends back then. Ribbons and certificates from a few seasons on the track team (my build made me a thrower, not a runner). The purple stuffed hippo named Hurky that I got for my 6th birthday. And, a small, cheap, tarnished trophy I won for taking 3rd place in the grade school talent show when I was 10 years old.

I was not the kind of kid to sign up for talent shows. I was dorky and shy and mostly wanted the company of my family, my stuffed hippo and one or two close friends. But when the sign-up sheet for this talent show was posted in the hallway at my grade-school, a rogue wave of courage washed over me, I grabbed the pencil hanging from the string on the clipboard and scrawled: “NAME: Kathy D. – TALENT: piano.”

My grandma Mary began teaching me to play the piano when I was six years old. It was a family outing, every Saturday morning, we’d drive to grandma’s house where my 2 sisters and I would each spend 30 minutes at her spinet. Grandma was a tough nut piano teacher. She was firm and strict and not afraid at all to take her sharpened red pencil and circle all the notes and fingerings I had fumbled. Her expectations were high, and I had to work hard to earn the giant check-mark she’d place in the upper right hand corner of any piece, once she felt I played it well.

She started me off with the standard piano teaching fare of the day: Thompson, Schaum, the dreaded Fingerpower. To keep me motivated beyond the theory worksheets and the arpeggio exercises, she’d also provide a special song to work on, a song we would spend months practicing in preparation for the yearly recital. When I was 10 years old, the recital piece she had me practicing was Beethoven’s, ‘Fur Elise’.  Lah-dum-dah-dah-dee-dum-dah-dee-dah, dum-dah-dee-dah, dum-dah-dee-dah (repeat). I fell in love with the melody, the phrasing, the story the song seemed to be telling measure by measure, and while my 10 year old self couldn’t grasp all that it meant, I did understand that something special happened inside me when I played it.

So I had my Talent Show plan. Coming fresh off my recital, with Beethoven as perfected as my chubby fingers could manage, I would play ‘Fur Elise’ for my classmates, their parents and the teachers.

That was my plan. Until a few days before the show, when I got a look at the list of performers and talents. And between the dancers and the gymnasts and the magicians and comics, I choked. I decided that playing my beloved ‘Fur Elise’ when compared with what the others were doing, just wasn't good enough. Even though I loved the song and could play it pretty well, it probably wouldn't be what people wanted. It wouldn’t be popular enough or dazzling enough. I scrambled around for something “popular”, something crowd-pleasing to play. At the bottom of a pile of sheet music in my piano bench, I found a Beatles song that had been getting lots of top-40 air-play and at the last minute I decided to play that instead. But here’s the thing: the piano part on a Beatles song is just one chord after another. The vocals and the guitars, at least on this particular song, had all the nuance and melody. The piano part was just “chomp-chomp-chomp”. Because I was too scared to play what I loved, too afraid that it wouldn’t measure up to what others were doing, I chose to chomp instead. I wished that night, from the first chord to the last, that I had trusted my gut.  Third place was gracious, to say the least.

All these years later, when I am looking through under-the-bed boxes for something I’ve stored away, I open that wicker basket, I see that tarnished little trophy and feel a twinge. A twinge because I did not trust my creative gut. A twinge because I did not do what I loved. A twinge because I let what other people might think of my music, my art, matter more to me than my simple love of playing.

I believe I am most God’s creation when I am daring to be creative, that we are most God’s creation when we are daring to be creative, that is, living into who we were made to be, who we are becoming: co-creators with our Creator.

In the last several years, I’ve been taught to knit, I’ve taken a mosaic class. I spent six weeks and a whole lot of money learning to work with stained glass. A friend and I spent two months of Tuesday evenings at PCC working with a pottery wheel. And here’s a truth I am willing to tell: I’m sort of lousy at all of these things. You know, it’s probably too soon to quit my day job. My knit scarves are full of holes. My mosaic and glass projects are uneven and chunky. And after crushing yet another ‘vase-in-the making’ on the pottery wheel, the kind-hearted instructor looked at me and said, “well, Kathy, at least you’re enthusiastic.”

And yet, there’s something about having my hands in the clay and the glass and the yarn that is a dose of gladness for me, I find my spirit calm and hopeful. Noodling around on the piano to work out a song, keeping my butt on the chair to get some writing done, digging around in a tiny corner of the yard to see if I can beautify it a bit, this is all so life-giving. Creative. Co-creating. It is messy and flawed and unfinished and I am never quite sure of what I am doing. And I am never happier.

That twinge I feel when I see that little trophy is also a twinge of grace. Because I recognize that somewhere between 10 years old and now, God has let me grow into following my heart and my gut, even when I recognize that what I create may not be the best, or gosh, it may be even a tiny bit lousy, in another person’s eyes, in my eyes. But the grace is that the ‘reviews’ are not the point. The creating is.

Somewhere between “don’t quit my day job” and “my personal gallery opening”, there is an expansive space. And that space is where I can scatter a table at home with paint and glass and paper and glue and beads. It’s a space where I can scribble out the notes to a new melody running through my head. It’s a space where I can buy another ball of yarn to see if the next scarf might have a few less holes. It’s a space where I trust my creative gut, where I put John and Paul and George and Ringo back in the piano bench, and play a little Beethoven.

The Shadow, The Shelter

I had the opportunity to give the sermon at St. Luke's this morning, the little episcopal parish that has become home to me.  Here's what I shared...

From our Psalm this morning: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High abides in the shadow of  the Almighty… I will say of the Lord, You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God, in whom I put my trust.… He will cover you with his feathers and you shall find refuge under his wings.”

I have 57 birds at home.  They aren’t alive. I mean, they’re not dead. They’re made of, oh, clay and cloth and copper and wood and glass. They’re painted bright colors and subdued colors, they’ve been fired in a kiln or woven and held together with thread and wire and glue. They greet me as I head up the creaky stairs into my little place on SE 98th Ave, and you’ll find them in nearly every room of my house. I’d like to think it’s not the first thing you’d notice if you come to visit me, but with 57 of them so far, I might be mistaken about that. Birds on the piano, on little shelves and sills, on my bedside table, dangling in doorways, on every bookcase, on the little cedar chest in my spare room that I’ve made into a little altar space where I keep some things that invite me into stillness, where I steal away for some intentional quiet. They’re everywhere. Except in the bathroom. That’s just  tacky.

Did you ever start a little collection? You know,  just a little something, a memento, a trinket. And pretty soon word gets out and friends and family give you that same little something for every occasion! Well, that’s sorta my story. Except, in my story,  I am both the receiver AND the giver. I’ve always got my eye out for a sweet, fat, funny little bird to bring home. Saturday Market, little hipster boutiques in NE Portland, gift shoppes at museums, funky Art Festivals, tiny tucked-away places in other towns.  Kmart.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High abides in the shadow of the Almighty…”

I didn’t mean to become the fake bird lady of SE 98th Ave. It’s been happening for a long time, it’s happening still.

About 10 years ago, I bought my little yellow house with the purple door.  A sweet little place in a slightly frumpy neighborhood. The house I could afford. It’s near the base of Kelly Butte in SE Portland. Now, if you aren’t familiar with Kelly Butte, I’m not surprised. She’s the Cinderella of the ‘local’ buttes: Cinderella before she met the fairy god-mother. Cinderella before she was whisked away in an enchanted pumpkin coach. Cinderella before she danced in a beautiful gown with Prince Charming at the ball. Kelly Butte is the scruffy, disheveled and ignored Cinderella, doing all the scrubbing and sweeping and getting no appreciation at all. She’s no Mt. Tabor, Powell Butte or Mt. Scott.

But when I moved into my little place near the base of Kelly Butte, I loved that every morning I woke up in her shelter and shadow, I loved the way that God showed off in the autumn with the kaleidoscope of changing leaves, and I loved meeting the neighbors who  make Kelly Butte their refuge. Birds. Everywhere. Birds. Swallows, hawks, jays, hummingbirds, swifts and wrens and finches. Crazy, strong, sweet, funny, fragile, scrappy birds. A morning walk with my dog Maggie is like listening in on choir practice: the warm-ups, the cantor and response, the grand cantata.

“I will say of the Lord, You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God, in whom I put my trust...”

When I was 9 years old, my dad, who I love, embroiled my mom, my two older sisters and my little brother in the worst kind of clichéd ‘TV-movie of week’ melodrama. He left us for a waitress in a diner.

Beyond the shock of that abandonment, and the fact that I can count on a couple of fingers the times he came to visit after he left us, he died of cancer within 3 years at the age of  38. We’re all shaped by the losses we suffer, the arrows that are flung, the terrors that stalk. What my ‘9-year old heart when he left us’ and my  ‘12-year old heart when he died’ decided, was that I was not securely held.  That what I thought was safe, wasn’t safe at all.  That I was leave-able.

So maybe now you are thinking, um, yea, can we go back to that funny part about the birds?

Enter Selma. How can I say this with love? Selma was a piece of work. She was a 40-ish something single lady with a perfectly manicured yard and a cat named John. She was a Sunday School teacher at a little church not far from here that swooped my family up into its arms and embraced us as this thing that was not supposed to be happening to a nice church-going family was, indeed, happening. She sang in the choir and had a ferocious vibrato. She wore bright red lipstick and woolen jackets with gaudy broaches and a different bad wig every Sunday. She had a red one, a blonde one, and two shades of brown. I was in Selma’s class when things around us were crumbling after dad left us, when we were feeling our way out of that wreckage.  Selma, besides tending carefully to her lawn, her cat and her wigs, was a drill sergeant about one thing when it came to her students: Bible Verse Memorization.  KING JAMES Bible Verse Memorization. So a long time ago, when my little girl heart and spirit were breaking under the strain of scrambling around for security and a safe-hold, Selma had us memorizing Psalm 91.

I can still quote much of it today. And so, when I would walk up the street to school, or lay in my bed with my menagerie of stuffed animals, or when I would noodle around on the piano, or sit on the couch by my mom and rest my head against her shoulder, I had these words to keep me good company: “You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High abide in the shadow of the Almighty… I will say of the Lord, You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God, in whom I put my trust.… He will cover you with his feathers and you shall find refuge under his wings. You shall not be afraid of any terror by night,  nor of the arrow that flies by day. Because you are bound to me in love, I will deliver you. I will protect you because you know my name. You shall call upon me and I will answer you, I will be with you in trouble. With long life will I satisfy you and show you my salvation.”

The arrows, they fly and we are pierced by them. The terrors, they stalk and find us vulnerable.  We leave one another in a thousand ways.What did you decide when you were nine? What did you decide when you were twelve? What did you decide when you  were left? What did you decide half a lifetime ago? What did you decide this morning?

This community gathered here today, and all the communities we’re part of outside these walls, and the communities that ripple out from there to the ends of the earth: we are strong and fragile, we are sweet and scrappy. We all wear this skin, this breakable, vulnerable, leave-able skin. We all have hearts longing to be known, and if we lean into one another only, the truth is, none of us are safe, none of us are securely held, and all of us are leave-able, I mean, look around.

I have 57 birds at home.  They remind me that God is no stranger to my losses,  that God knows how and where I break, where I am pierced, where I am afraid. They remind me that God was present a long time ago in a little church not far from here, where a crazy Sunday School teacher in a bad wig made me memorize Psalm 91, Psalm 91, where I found this truth to live into – this truth that is taking me a lifetime to live into, and maybe like you, that ‘living into’ sometimes feels like believing, sometimes like wrestling. Sometimes it feels like despairing, and sometimes it feels like stillness. That truth is this:  there is a place to find safety, there is a place to be held, there is a place where we won’t be left. And that place is the sheltering refuge of God’s love and mercy.

I was raised in the Baptist church, and there is a hymn from Psalm 91 that was in our hymnal, we sang it often. My dad, like Selma, was a singer, and I am pretty sure that in different times and different churches, both my dad and Selma sang this song over and again. The lyrics are these:

Under his wings I am safely abiding, 
Though the night deepens and tempests are wild
Still I can trust him, I know he will keep me
He has redeemed me and I am his child
Under his wings, under his wings,
Who from his love can sever?
Under his wings, my soul shall abide
Safely abide forever

“He will cover us with his feathers and we shall find refuge under his wings.”

What is being covered, what is being offered refuge? The soul, the spirit, the heart that longs to be known, inside this breakable, vulnerable, leave-able skin.

I lean into the mystery and wonder of God, and let myself imagine that under God’s wings, there is an imprint that is shaped like you, that is shaped like me, that is shaped like all the world, where we are being held. In this refuge, in this shelter, in this stronghold, we are being shown our salvation.

It’s been happening for a long time. It’s happening still.    Amen.

Choir Geeks ~

Ah, look at those cheeks! So young, so fresh, soft as a baby's bottom. I look pretty good too.

The past few Wednesday evenings, my little brother Steve (tall guy above), my niece Sarah and I, got our 'choir geek' on.

It has been an awfully long time since we donned our polyester gold choir robes with the maroon sashes from Columbia High School in Troutdale (home of the Chargers).

I spent some of the best hours of my life in the choir room at Columbia. It opened the year I became a sophomore, and was built to handle the growing population of teenagers in the Reynolds District. It was exciting to go to a brand new school, everything was so shiny, so open to possibility. Those were the days when students were offered a generous menu of options for the basics as well as the classes that would enhance their lives: art and music, earth sciences, gymnastics and poetry.

Those were also the days when the standards for earning a diploma were a little, um, relaxed. See, in a new school of 300-some students, there were just 2 of us who played piano. Marilee Axling, the extraordinary young choirmaster, recruited Mike and myself to be her accompanists. A choir or vocal ensemble of some sort was offered six out of seven class periods per day (unimaginable now), so Mike and I were allowed to part-time attend some classes, self-study some classes, and even skip some classes, to be available for the choirs. In hindsight, I am not sure this was the best idea. I could have used a little more time in gym class, science is not my strong suit and I am a grown woman who had to ask a kid the other day how to figure the diameter of a circle. And yet, I got to play and sing for hours and hours every week.

I sang and played a bit more during a year away at a private Christian college, where I also took a choral conducting class. I was so excited to purchase my white-tipped conducting baton, but never learned to wield it well. I figure it's the same reason I cannot drive a stick shift or play the organ. I like to think of myself as a muli-tasker, but I prefer a looser sense of timing on most everything, so my ability to press the clutch, strike the keyboard and the foot pedals at the same time, or bring the sopranos in on cue just never jelled. But I still found ways to sing, mostly in church choirs and ensembles. And then, a handful of years back, that opportunity took a few turns away from me, and while I am so fortunate to be part of a tiny and beloved band of singers and players at my Episcopal parish, being part of a choir now seems like something I did a lifetime ago.

So, when I got an email from the Portland Symphonic Choir, announcing their "Summer Sings" series, a yearly opportunity for vocal pros and regular joes like me to meet up and sing delicious, challenging, and transformative classical vocal arrangements, I gave myself 3 seconds, maybe 4, to respond, "sign me up!"

I invited my brother and my niece to come along. The PSC website invited singers into evenings spent with the works of Bach, Faure and Handel, held in the care of highly skilled conductors who would walk us through the arrangements with grace and good humor. Each conductor was different, extending to us something from deep inside themselves and drawing out of us the music that simply begged to respond to their passionate direction. My impression from the email was that we'd spend some time each Wednesday rehearsing, and then, if there was time, sing a bit. I was wrong. From the first evening, we were given our pitch and dove right in, a sight-singing boot camp. For an out of practice alto like me it was exhausting. For an out of practice alto like me, it was exhilarating.

When we sang the Bach 'Magnificat', the tempo was so fast I looked around for a seat belt to tighten, I am sure I hit only a few notes per measure, and at one point, my niece and I looked wide-eyed at one another, shrugged and laughed. There was a moment in Faure's 'Requiem', when the basses blew the roof off the joint with their rich and deep 'Hosanna in excelsis!", and I wanted to stand and pump my fist like a groupie at a rock concert. Handel's 'Israel in Egypt', an oratorio with lyrics taken primarily from passages in the book of Exodus, allowed us the opportunity to harmonize about the plagues. I just don't get to sing enough about lice and boils.

I am used to singing alone, or with a small group of other voices. The evening we sang Bach's 'Mass in Bb Minor', the conductor asked the tenors to sit behind the altos. A few bars into the piece, and I had to resist the urge to turn around and ask the nice fellas to "please tone it down a bit, I am trying to sing." And in that moment, I remembered, oh yea, this is how it is meant to be. I'm not meant to sing alone, I need to hear their voices, so I can find my part. And, as it is with community, even though I'm a little rusty, they need to hear my voice, so they can find their part.

I loved looking around the auditorium on these evenings to see who it is in Portland that sings. As you can imagine, every kind of person sat in those chairs: sweet older women in funky scarves and sensible shoes, tattooed hipsters, business-types, pot-bellies and gym-rats. Lots of gray hair and bifocals, lots of students fresh off high school graduation. Soccer moms and single dads. Believers and seekers, the lost and the found and the unsure of anything. Community. Choir geeks. I love being with people who love music. These are some of my people, and I have missed them. I am not part of an official choir at this place in my life, but someday, I hope to be again. And this time, as a singer, rather than an accompanist.  I want to stand and sing with my alto section and hear the tenors, the sopranos, the baritones and basses in my ear. A community of choir geeks.

It is recorded in the Gospel of St. Luke, that when Jesus was making his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the crowds were shouting, singing out their words of praise and adoration to God. Some Pharisees, crabby at the unruly melee, asked Jesus if he could possibly, you know, get them to shut up. Jesus looked at them and simply said, that if the people didn't lift up their voices in praise to God, the rocks and stones themselves would cry out.

I am pretty sure, that for the last few Wednesday evenings, near a 200-seat auditorium off Albina in North Portland, the rocks and stones were speechless.

Sweet Clarity ~

I nearly came unhinged in contemplative spirituality last week.

There I was at the Central library, tucked away in Religion, searching for a book on daily meditative practices. I’d listened to an interview with the author and was captivated by the short snippets she read from a few chapters, little hints on inviting a greater experience of stillness and peace into daily life. I hunched myself over in the stacks, ran my finger across the dusty spines, and tried to read the ISBN stickers sideways with my tri-focals in bad lighting. I could not find the book, despite the e-librarian telling me it was available. Knowing that I, on occasion, have put a book back on the shelf where it did not belong, I scanned a few shelves to the right and the left, above and below, just in case. Nothing. Waste of time. Stupid library. Where for the love of all that's holy was that book about inner peace?!

I felt my jaw clench, my heart rate intensify, my lips curl into a pout. And I don’t know, something about the scene just seemed a little, well, off. 

Reminding myself that misbehaving characters are sometimes escorted from library grounds, I pulled it together. I stepped away from my inner-tantrum for a second, formed a little cartoon bubble above my head and scribbled in this caption: “is it possible that you might have a little something else on your mind?” 

I visited a friend over the weekend. She’s older, I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate that adjective, let’s just say she’s had her AARP membership card tucked into her wallet for around, oh, twenty years. I mention her age because this is a woman who has been through some trying experiences, survived her share of ordeals. She can be a tough cookie. We were getting ready to go outside for a bit to enjoy the springtime evening. She was buttoning up the house, when she accidentally caught her finger in the sliding glass door. I didn’t see it happen, I just heard the yelp. She held out her hand, told me she’d smashed her finger and burst into tears. I grabbed an ice-pack from her freezer (trying at the same time to remember from high school first-aid if crushed fingers want ice or heat). I handed her the ice-pack as she sat on her couch, now sobbing inconsolably. Her finger was hurt, to be sure. I offered what sympathy I could. But these tears seemed way out of proportion to the injury. And I wondered if maybe she’d been storing up these tears for a much-needed cry and, thanks to the quick action of the door runners, she finally had her opportunity. I wanted to ask, “is it possible that you might have a little something else on your mind?” 

There are moments when we long for clarity, to know what’s really going on underneath the tantrums, the tears, the guardedness, the aches. We suspect that clarity is in there somewhere, we’re just buried beneath heaps of anxiety and fret and rigidity like a hoarder trapped among the piles of old newspapers, empty pizza boxes, chipped trinkets and unsorted laundry. The path between head and heart is so strewn with every concern we’ve collected and clung to, it’s hard to see clearly.

I wish it was like Oil Can Henry’s. It’s an oil change and a movie at the same time. While I’m getting filters changed and transmission fluid drained, I’m also watching the fellas underneath the car on the Henry-Cam poke around and check for leaks, for weaknesses, for bare spots, for any signs of trouble.

When my heart feels weak and troubled, I’d love to know what’s going on underneath.

When my youngest niece was in the 3rd grade, maybe 4th, I was visiting for the weekend when she got the news that her best friend would be attending a different school. She ran from the room and buried her head in a pillow, and cried the way only a little girl can cry. I left her alone for a few minutes, and then went to sit by her. I asked her if she wanted to tell me about it. She looked up from her pillow and with hot tears streaming down her red cheeks she wailed, “now who am I gonna eat lunch with?”

Ah, sweet clarity. To know what the trouble is, to say what the trouble is.

A few weeks back, my priest asked us to tell the Easter story in six words or less. She’d gotten this idea from a radio broadcast, and asked us to pare the story down to its core, to what was essential about it for us individually. Many people offered their six-word sermons and it was beautiful to hear what each person claimed as their meaningful truth.

The story of the risen Jesus encountering Mary Magdalene in the garden has always been a favorite scene for me. It reads very genteel, but in my head I hear Jesus quietly asking, “Mary, Mary, why are you crying?”, and Mary, a frantic, blubbering mess, all sobs and rage and fear, catches her breath and cries out: “they took my Lord and I don’t know where to find him!” Sweet clarity.

My six word sermon: “Kathy, Kathy, why are you crying?” “Kathy, Kathy, why are you having a melt-down in contemplative spirituality?” “Because, because, well, um, because...”

There’s a TV show from years back that I loved watching, a show about a single mom living with her mother while raising a child of her own. The little girl was precocious, inquisitive, perhaps a little bossy, and never at a loss for words. In one episode, after telling her mom and her grandma exactly what was on her 8 year-old mind, the grandmother turned to her and said “you know Lauren, you don’t need to actually speak every single thought that comes into your head”. The little girl seemed crushed, like someone had just sold her puppy.

But maybe speaking every thought that comes into our heads is just what we need to do once in a while (time and place of course, avoiding the Central Library religion section).
“I'm not gonna make it if I don't get some help"
“I feel really sad all the time” 
“Who am I gonna eat lunch with?” 
“They’ve taken my Lord and I don’t know where to find him” 

To know what the trouble is, to say what the trouble is.

After Mary Magdalene bared her soul to the man she mistook for the gardener, Jesus looked at her and simply said, “Mary.” In that moment, she was led through the clutter of her fear, her confusion, her deep sorrow. We speak our truth to the one who loves us best, we see a little more clearly, and we find ourselves named and known. Sweet clarity.