Picking Dandelions

This is pretty cool.  Sarah Cunningham’s new book Picking Dandelions hit bookstores today.  And her roving blog tour stops here at Left At The Altar on March 21st.  I’ll be sharing my thoughts about the book and perhaps peppering Sarah with some questions.  If you read the book before then, shoot me some comments or questions that I can share with her and I’ll post her responses, too: leftatthealtar at gmail dot com

Feast your eyes

Bay Nature magazine is, hands down, my favorite magazine ever.  I’ve read (and kept) every issue since my brother gifted me with a subscription the year it first started publishing – a decade ago?  I follow their “tweets,” as well, and it was one of those that alerted me to this stunning video/photo compilation by Polvorosa Kline.

I think I’ve probably watched the video a dozen times already (click on that link to go to the Vimeo site and watch the video in HD).  It’s reminding me that I’ve been too cooped up with my books for the last few months.  Comprehensive exams and dissertation proposals will do that to a person, and I’ve been lucky to sneak in a few beautiful trail runs and trail races, but it’s long past time to get out with my camera and binoculars.  So thank you, Polvorosa Kline, for the inspiration (update: and for permission to embed the video)!

Why do these lines from “VII” in the new Wendell Berry collection, Leavings, spring to mind when I watch this?

Have I found too much of the Hereafter in the Here? Or the other way around? Have I found too much pleasure, too much beauty and goodness, in this our unreturning world? O Lord, please forgive any smidgen of such distinctions I may have still in my mind. I meant to leave them all behind a long time ago.

Gee, I don’t know.

Since I can’t get it out of my head, I’ll put it in yours, too

I just love this clip of Nina Simone, explaining what “freedom” means to her:

But this is the one I can’t get out of my head this weekend: Nina’s version of Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”:

Make it a meaningful MLK Day.  More blogging to come.  Really.

Too good not to share

As an erstwhile sojourner with the United Church of Christ, I find great joy in the writings of the incomparable Donna Schaper, currently pastor of Judson Memorial Church in NYC. Her latest reflection in the denomination’s daily devotional series rang so true for me; maybe for you too (who among us has not noticed that “talking about talking” seems to take precedence in many cases over actually doing something):
http://act.ucc.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=21681.0&dlv_id=24386

Graceful Notes from a CSA Farmer

 

Co-blogger abc41 and her partner are privileged to be able to subscribe to a wonderful CSA farm that provides an amazing abundance of produce throughout the year.  The farm feeds us in many ways, as the very fact of this essay (almost Wendell Berry-like in its eloquence) attests:

http://www.fullbellyfarm.com/newsletter.html

First Sunday of Advent, already?!

I’m not sure how this happened, but it’s the First Sunday of Advent already.

I always loved Advent calendars as a kid, but haven’t found a cardstock version I like for a long time.  These days, I get my kicks from some online versions:

The always-lovely Trinity Wall Street calendar

Beliefnet’s online advent calendar

The BBC’s Bach Advent calendar (have your speakers on!)

(Update 11/30: the Beliefnet link was misbehaving.  Should work now.)

“Possible Answers to Prayer”

My esteemed occasional co-blogger abc41 and I were talking today about her recent discovery of Scott Cairns‘ poetry.  I confessed that I carry around a copy of a Cairns poem I read way back in 2001 in Sojourners magazine, “Possible Answers to Prayer.”  The version that appears in Sojourners is ever-so-slightly different than the one on the Poetry Foundation site (see the last stanza), and is the one I prefer.  No accounting for taste.

Reflect.  Enjoy.

Your petitions—though they continue to bear

just the one signature—have been duly recorded.

Your anxieties—despite their constant,

relatively narrow scope, their inadvertent

entertainment value—nonetheless serve

to bring your person vividly to mind.

Your repentance—all but obscured beneath

a burgeoning, yellow fog of frankly more

conspicuous resentment—is sufficient.

Your intermittent care for the sick,

the suffering, the needy poor is sometimes

recognizable to me, if not to them.

Your angers, your zeal, your lipsmackingly

righteous indignation toward the many

whose habits and sympathies offend you—

these must burn away before you’ll apprehend

how near I am, with what fervor I adore

even these, the ones who rouse your passions.

Truly, madly, deeply grateful

I haven’t had much time to decompress since passing my oral exam on November 10.  We had company for a week, and I’ve been splitting my work time between a day job and a short-but-intense book-indexing gig for my advisor.  I wasn’t quite ready to dive back into the dissertation-related reading, but for a few minutes most days, I’ve been savoring tidbits from my collection of letters from my grandmother.  She and I had a very lively correspondence over the years, until her vision started to deteriorate and her hands grew more arthritic.  She died in October 2008, just a few weeks shy of her 90th birthday, November 19.  Since she was always one of my biggest – if not THE biggest of – cheerleaders, I’ve been wishing that I could write to her about clearing this hurdle, and tell her about the dissertation plans.

Her letters were priceless.  Some of them were written from the public library, where she’d go to pour over nature magazines or check out a book I’d recommended.  Others were written from a diner, where she liked to take herself out for a meal and a change of scenery.  Or she’d haul out her powder blue portable electric typewriter and type the letter — sometimes on full sheets of paper, sometimes on half, sometimes front and back, always single-spaced…

Now that she’s gone, I’m extra-grateful to have this collection.  I can hear her voice and her laugh on every page.  And she was a terrific writer.  Bear with me, while I share a few outtakes with you…

Here, her wry humor and willingness to get a laugh at her own expense –

This one was written from the Springfield (Ohio) Public Library, where she went to chase down a book by Sarah Hrdy, and an issue (1988?) of Smithsonian magazine I’d recommended, for a moving article by Janis Carter about reintroducing chimpanzees to a protected area in Africa.

This is one of my favorites; it captures Gram to a “t.”  I’ve redacted the name of the place where she was volunteering, and the name of the coworker she was complaining about.

This one refers to the unfortunate tendency of local squirrels to find their way into the transformer boxes on utility poles in my hometown, inevitably meeting their Maker and causing brown-outs for many blocks around.

Her love of butterflies was legend, and stayed with her all her life.  She amassed such an impressive collection of butterfly pins that we handed them out to family members to wear at her funeral last year!  This was a sweet recollection of where that obsession got started.

And this one conveys the kind of enthusiasm and spirit with which Gram approached life, ALL of her life.  “Carol” is my mother.

 

Miss ya, Gram.  *Mwah!*

Still, so much to be thankful for this year.  At crucial and difficult times, amazing friends and family came up with ideas and solutions and moral support that allowed us to plow through the rough spots and stay on track.  We are really and truly blessed.  Words fail me.   Peace and blessings to you all!

The Smithsonian issue I’d recommended was from sometime in 1988, and featured an article by Janis Carter about efforts to reintroduce chimpanzees to a protected area in Africa.

Passed!

I passed my oral defense!  Next up, dissertation proposal!  Sorry for the sudden silence again.  The day after my defense, we had a houseguest arriving to stay for the week.  Blogging seemed rude.  NaBloPoMo is a lost cause for me, now, but my friend Austen is still on a roll over at Basil and Butterflies!  Also, frequent guest-poster Cristina White has moved her blog and has a great review of the Michael Jackson movie, “This Is It,” up at her new site.

Breathing (out, in, out, in)

Big week.  Tuesday is my “oral defense” of a set of three exams I’ve written this year.  I’m terrified, and yet so tired of being anxious about it that I’d do it tomorrow if I had the option.  If I pass, I will tackle my dissertation proposal.  If I fail, I’m going to be quite bitter about the student loans I’ve taken out. :-\  In any event, I am trying – with spotty success – to visualize positive outcomes, stay calm, etc.  When I saw this image in a recent Stylus article about the calligraphy of “Ian K.,” I printed it out and posted it above my desk, where I occasionally look up and think, “oh, yeah…”

(And yes, I justed outed myself as a penophile.)