*
When you retreat into a garden, don't you lose the ability -- or the right -- to interact with the people who are outside? Isn't this the price for your meditation, your aspiration?
Unless at the center of the garden God is found. Where God is found, the rest of the world quickly follows and nothing can really be locked.
*
Friday, February 25, 2005
Interlude: at the edge of the garden
*
About the church's garden there had been so many discussons.
Do we lock it or leave it unlocked, gang?
Now the governance committee, such as it was, strongly favored locking everything, since, for one thing, this was property and property existed to be protected, existed in some awkward sense as though for itself alone.
You remember the terrible sinking feeling, the feeling of having been raped, when you returned to your car, say, and found the back window broken and your coat and your keepsake album taken. The coat you could replace. But the keepsake album? It was filled with mementoes of your dead ones, irreplaceable items of no value to anyone but yourself. And the thief, perhaps an addict, had probably just thrown all those things into the trash.
Property then was whatever thing whose removal left you feeling violated and punctured.
So was the church's garden like a coat, ready to be shared with anyone without question?
Or was it like that keepsake album? Was it filled with a treasure that you couldn't spare and that another couldn't use?
Or was it balanced just between the two?
*
Now the suburban churches, they weighed in with their opinions, just like everyone else, but their opinions were thrown away like an outdated album. Because by retreating into the suburbs they had already locked their gates and decided the question in advance.
*
About the church's garden there had been so many discussons.
Do we lock it or leave it unlocked, gang?
Now the governance committee, such as it was, strongly favored locking everything, since, for one thing, this was property and property existed to be protected, existed in some awkward sense as though for itself alone.
You remember the terrible sinking feeling, the feeling of having been raped, when you returned to your car, say, and found the back window broken and your coat and your keepsake album taken. The coat you could replace. But the keepsake album? It was filled with mementoes of your dead ones, irreplaceable items of no value to anyone but yourself. And the thief, perhaps an addict, had probably just thrown all those things into the trash.
Property then was whatever thing whose removal left you feeling violated and punctured.
So was the church's garden like a coat, ready to be shared with anyone without question?
Or was it like that keepsake album? Was it filled with a treasure that you couldn't spare and that another couldn't use?
Or was it balanced just between the two?
*
Now the suburban churches, they weighed in with their opinions, just like everyone else, but their opinions were thrown away like an outdated album. Because by retreating into the suburbs they had already locked their gates and decided the question in advance.
*
Thursday, February 24, 2005
The Threshhold
*
Elf's dreams finally pushed her to a decision. In her dream there was always her mother -- the devil's wife? the devil herself? -- sitting in a comfy armchair reading the paper. How cozy we all are in our affluent house! 2 or more dogs were curled at Duessa's feet. One of them always had the face of her beloved, her Dave. The other dog wore the frozen howl of some other man. It was a Kurd or a Turk who had wandered too close.
Out the window, the neighborhood church was always outside the window, just outside, normalcy, peace. Elf the athlete climbed out the window to get closer to it, I want to be close to you, but then the backdrop wrinkled and really that's all it was. Scenery. A dream.
We don't really need those places anymore, her mother said.
Church just gets in the way of shopping and soccer.
The 2nd dream was of the Garden of Orthodoxy. Another place she was not allowed to enter for real. When she probed her foot into the ground beneath the last lorn bush there was a demoralizing squish, a gray swoosh. Her mother was a worm who travelled rapidly through the bushes eating everything she touched. Other little beasts lay cuddled in tight Darwinian balls, copulating with and then consuming each other. The outer branches shook with dismay. If she only get past these thorny outer places, if she could get herself into the Garden, she would be okay. Finally okay. But the creatures, shimmering with their DNA ("just like you and that's all you are!") would not let her take the smallest step or even think herself through to where it was safe.
I want to *be* where it's safe, Elf said.
I am nothing but a helpless little girl.
Then -- she simply did it. Stepped through the branches bodily and came to a stop in the midst of the garden where indeed even doubt was able to stand still and take a breath of calm, standing so very near one's Lord. The dogs circled the fountain, playing and frisking, freed at last from the burden of having human faces. The indecisions and pain that existed here (and everywhere) could finally be shared with God, absorbed in God's wider power, so that there was a lessening of tension in the garden. And he walked with me. And he talked with me.
She thought wistfully about this safety that was more than simply hugging a base and not being "it".
What if safety were a substance as deep as salvation? And what if it were something that covered her too?
The next morning, gaunt and quite nauseated, was a Sunday, one slim seventh of the week. She said to herself, Today I'm going to risk it, I don't care.
She pulled the heavy door toward her. She went inside the darkish building. Suddenly she was there. She was in church, she was somehow inside and her friend Elise was hugging her. She had crossed the threshhold.
*
Elf's dreams finally pushed her to a decision. In her dream there was always her mother -- the devil's wife? the devil herself? -- sitting in a comfy armchair reading the paper. How cozy we all are in our affluent house! 2 or more dogs were curled at Duessa's feet. One of them always had the face of her beloved, her Dave. The other dog wore the frozen howl of some other man. It was a Kurd or a Turk who had wandered too close.
Out the window, the neighborhood church was always outside the window, just outside, normalcy, peace. Elf the athlete climbed out the window to get closer to it, I want to be close to you, but then the backdrop wrinkled and really that's all it was. Scenery. A dream.
We don't really need those places anymore, her mother said.
Church just gets in the way of shopping and soccer.
The 2nd dream was of the Garden of Orthodoxy. Another place she was not allowed to enter for real. When she probed her foot into the ground beneath the last lorn bush there was a demoralizing squish, a gray swoosh. Her mother was a worm who travelled rapidly through the bushes eating everything she touched. Other little beasts lay cuddled in tight Darwinian balls, copulating with and then consuming each other. The outer branches shook with dismay. If she only get past these thorny outer places, if she could get herself into the Garden, she would be okay. Finally okay. But the creatures, shimmering with their DNA ("just like you and that's all you are!") would not let her take the smallest step or even think herself through to where it was safe.
I want to *be* where it's safe, Elf said.
I am nothing but a helpless little girl.
Then -- she simply did it. Stepped through the branches bodily and came to a stop in the midst of the garden where indeed even doubt was able to stand still and take a breath of calm, standing so very near one's Lord. The dogs circled the fountain, playing and frisking, freed at last from the burden of having human faces. The indecisions and pain that existed here (and everywhere) could finally be shared with God, absorbed in God's wider power, so that there was a lessening of tension in the garden. And he walked with me. And he talked with me.
She thought wistfully about this safety that was more than simply hugging a base and not being "it".
What if safety were a substance as deep as salvation? And what if it were something that covered her too?
The next morning, gaunt and quite nauseated, was a Sunday, one slim seventh of the week. She said to herself, Today I'm going to risk it, I don't care.
She pulled the heavy door toward her. She went inside the darkish building. Suddenly she was there. She was in church, she was somehow inside and her friend Elise was hugging her. She had crossed the threshhold.
*
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Elf (Part 6): At the gym
*
The studio where Elf worked. One two three one two three. The 4th beat an indrawn breath. Then the sound of calisthenic crooning. Aerobic music, musclebound, buff. And all the gleaming dames in their teal sweats, middle-aged, brittle, beautiful, forgetting to breathe. One two. One two.
Now do a repeater here, then over the top, remember to straighten your spine. Grapevine, skate, dig that ditch, knees up and now peel yourself gracefully off the wall. Lovely, very ladylike. But when the class moves clockwise, counter is not the thing.
Heart rate, now drink of water, stretch, cool down, give thanks to God ("all blessings"), and now sink the chi. Slowly. Is this a pagan ritual, ma'am? By no means, not at all. Think of this. If God is with you at all times, he is with you in these Chinese exercises too. He is with the Chinese. Unless someone pushes him away. But we are pushing him close. That is what we are most doing.
Words of wisdom. Please remember to perform all your four basic exercises in some way every day: cardiovascular, muscle toning, flexibility, and then deepest prayer. And by the way that last form of exercise enfolds the others, enfolds them all.
Not to be skipped for any reason.
*
The studio where Elf worked. One two three one two three. The 4th beat an indrawn breath. Then the sound of calisthenic crooning. Aerobic music, musclebound, buff. And all the gleaming dames in their teal sweats, middle-aged, brittle, beautiful, forgetting to breathe. One two. One two.
Now do a repeater here, then over the top, remember to straighten your spine. Grapevine, skate, dig that ditch, knees up and now peel yourself gracefully off the wall. Lovely, very ladylike. But when the class moves clockwise, counter is not the thing.
Heart rate, now drink of water, stretch, cool down, give thanks to God ("all blessings"), and now sink the chi. Slowly. Is this a pagan ritual, ma'am? By no means, not at all. Think of this. If God is with you at all times, he is with you in these Chinese exercises too. He is with the Chinese. Unless someone pushes him away. But we are pushing him close. That is what we are most doing.
Words of wisdom. Please remember to perform all your four basic exercises in some way every day: cardiovascular, muscle toning, flexibility, and then deepest prayer. And by the way that last form of exercise enfolds the others, enfolds them all.
Not to be skipped for any reason.
*
Monday, February 07, 2005
Nothing so unhappy
*
So now that the phone might be Father Sam calling, Elf answered it without so much fear.
*
At the end of his visit, the father washed her feet, an ancient ritual that made her feel squeamish and was supposed to. Then he went home by his long distance bus, good bye good bye, the sound of it pulling away so final she thought she'd never see him again. Never once had he come close to, well, insulting her person, even making a rude gesture, in other words touching her besides the feet. He was actually, of all things, chaste and self-controlled. She found herself mourning his departure. Yet also feeling buoyant because some of his atmosphere remained. She walked home in a muse from the gym where she worked. Every step buoyant like her thoughts. Touch toe to the ground. Winter sun was wrapping everything in a blue gas. The park the park the park. God is good. My secret love. One "daffy dill" already, well, not exactly open, true, but it was there. The yellow bud was there. The future was yellow.
Perhaps then I am a Christian, Elf thought. No I'm not a Christian, but maybe a wannabe. Is it impossible to be a wannabe? Impossible to stay there long. Backward or forward. You have to move, have to travel.
Across the way young ladies were jogging. Flat chests like mine. Then she saw a dog and the dog was abandoned. She first saw its abandonment then felt it. It ran through the park, it ran away from her so she couldn't check the collar, if there was one, then it ran in the path of a car but missed the car. Blue gas everywhere.
The thought of that creature in free fall. A very little dog, as though size had anything to do with this. The pain that gripped her heart was so sudden and ill founded that she didn't think she could bear it. She couldn't bear it. Definitely. Yet the evidence was that she could bear it because she in fact was. No alternative. There was nothing in the world so unhappy as happiness.
On the way to her room she passed that church again, the neighborhood church. She scouted it. Leaned her hand on the bush guarding the garden of orthodoxy, which she so much stood outside. Bent the bush an inch or 2. Looked in. Well, the place was closed. So she couldn't go in, didn't go in. Wasn't her fault, it was locked. As if not really wanting her.
It was locked, it was locked. Nothing so unhappy as happiness!
*
So now that the phone might be Father Sam calling, Elf answered it without so much fear.
*
At the end of his visit, the father washed her feet, an ancient ritual that made her feel squeamish and was supposed to. Then he went home by his long distance bus, good bye good bye, the sound of it pulling away so final she thought she'd never see him again. Never once had he come close to, well, insulting her person, even making a rude gesture, in other words touching her besides the feet. He was actually, of all things, chaste and self-controlled. She found herself mourning his departure. Yet also feeling buoyant because some of his atmosphere remained. She walked home in a muse from the gym where she worked. Every step buoyant like her thoughts. Touch toe to the ground. Winter sun was wrapping everything in a blue gas. The park the park the park. God is good. My secret love. One "daffy dill" already, well, not exactly open, true, but it was there. The yellow bud was there. The future was yellow.
Perhaps then I am a Christian, Elf thought. No I'm not a Christian, but maybe a wannabe. Is it impossible to be a wannabe? Impossible to stay there long. Backward or forward. You have to move, have to travel.
Across the way young ladies were jogging. Flat chests like mine. Then she saw a dog and the dog was abandoned. She first saw its abandonment then felt it. It ran through the park, it ran away from her so she couldn't check the collar, if there was one, then it ran in the path of a car but missed the car. Blue gas everywhere.
The thought of that creature in free fall. A very little dog, as though size had anything to do with this. The pain that gripped her heart was so sudden and ill founded that she didn't think she could bear it. She couldn't bear it. Definitely. Yet the evidence was that she could bear it because she in fact was. No alternative. There was nothing in the world so unhappy as happiness.
On the way to her room she passed that church again, the neighborhood church. She scouted it. Leaned her hand on the bush guarding the garden of orthodoxy, which she so much stood outside. Bent the bush an inch or 2. Looked in. Well, the place was closed. So she couldn't go in, didn't go in. Wasn't her fault, it was locked. As if not really wanting her.
It was locked, it was locked. Nothing so unhappy as happiness!
*
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