Words fail me these days. The world around me is unfamiliar,
both interiorly, and exteriorly: in physical location, family and church transitions, in political, spiritual
and global changes. For the first time in my life, I’m not voraciously reading
books or writing.
Let me clarify -I’m not reading and writing words on pages, I’m
reading and writing words in my soul. Every sunrise brings new images and
experiences, every day I sense the sudden or slow shifts in my depths. Many
paragraphs of the past have been deleted, are still being erased, words written
the day before, years before, while new words take shape in the pages of my
heart. I’m writing, but not sharing; I
own my writing, but my writing doesn’t own me. I feel no prompting or compulsion to share, no obsession to
write because of the label of ‘writer.’
Old roles, like those disappearing words, have gone. New
ones are forming. I’m aware that my identity is not in what I do, offer, say or
write; I love living this truth, at the same time such dying is painful
even as birthing the new is exhilarating. Plus, I’m half a hermit now, a beautiful fulfillment of a lifetime desire! Every coin as two sides and the flip side of this pretty penny is loneliness. Writing, contemplating, and seclusion are both lonely. Yet, I’d so rather
be here than there, be where I am interiorly than where I was.
Though it all, something Gently Mysterious moves with me,
inviting me to hold, welcome, observe life, struggle to name what is going on,
struggle in the letting go, sing, and walk the dogs.
This Mystery is
very different than what I’ve felt or noticed before. I thought I lost Presence, lost my
sensing of Being. But that too has simply dried up, died and is being reborn. It's not comfortable being in between, but it's freeing.
I remember my hunger as
a first year student at Kairos School of Spiritual Formation. There weren't enough days to learn
everything about spiritual traditions that I had never known before. Now, as religious
groups dispute-excommunicate-harden, I’m just as eager to not know anything. In
the deepest deep, I abide with Spirit and Spirit abides with me, deeper than
human rules and folly, deeper than theology even. In this place I am safely enfolded in Love, in Mystery,
in the cloud of unknowing.
When life gets non-wordy, when my response to life is too full or
too deep to sort out, I find balance noticing simple things. You'll find me out back, feeding the goats….
Feeding the Goats
those mouths, with lips more
delicate than machine,
steadily devouring offered boughs. Maple and oak
disappear into both kinds of hungry jaws;
molars grind the same, but metal wheels
and whir of mechanical leaf shredders
miss the
tickle of leafy edges
in the nostril. Nibble,
munch, crunch,
mince. Is there a sound more mesmerizing
than the grind of goat molars on twigs?
More satiating than caprine mouths engulfing
branches of leaves in sheer eating ecstasy? With
quick upward flicks
of their heads, veined greens of chestnut, walnut
are snapped free, consumed. Twig-poked eyes,
ears, nose are of no concern. Nipping, stripping,
pulling, masticating receives full attention.
After feeding the goats, I wander down
the farm lane. Stop to tend my darling
young redbud tree. Aghast, I find
the spines of an umbrella stripped of fabric, holding
up nothing but air. This favored one, now
naked of all green-with-a-touch-of-burgundy
heart-shaped leaves. How dare a deer snack on
THIS tree, with an abundance of browse
everywhere? Never mind the fawn sleeping
behind the swing so breath-takingly
innocent. Or
does bounding fences in the dewy morning mist,
all grace and beauty.
Indignation wants my full
attention. Flashback. Minutes ago, goats flicking
their heads, snapping off leaves, eating their bliss,
long lashes framing round doe eyes. Ah, the memory!
Floods my soul with pleasure. A breeze rises, a sigh escapes
as a smile settles in my belly. Nibble,
munch, crunch, mince. How the deer must
have enjoyed this delicious redbud!
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