I don't recommend getting hit in the head but it worked for me.
Seriously. That's how the light got in.
Don't bother looking up Clary, Colorado. I invented it, but not its view: a sweep of Rocky Mountains from Long's Peak to Pikes Peak, a good hundred miles. It's that long view, the big sky, and a hot winter sun that keeps me rooted.
I'm writing about Chaos, in Theory. It is about getting hit in the head and having your perfect offering broken in bits and then, crack, that's how the light gets in. (Thank you Leonard Cohen!)
I hope you find here some crackpot notions that stimulate your own thinking and your gracious, creative response to the world's chaos. Chaos is great, in theory. Living with it, not so much. Let's talk about how to be creative, gracious and constructive humans. Old-timers will see how this blog has morphed. Even as that funky palm tree in Poland still makes me smile, there is more weird and significant stuff to talk about. More places to embrace the chaos and let it teach us. So. Welcome to the even more new and cracked open Palm Tree in Poland.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Butterflies and kittens:Lost in Bubbles
Lost in bubbles.
Don't try this at home. Not unless you happen to have a bath tub that is completely surrounded on three sides up to a height of about six feet.
Pour in a bottle of one of Victoria's Secret bubble bath. The entire bottle. And an ample supply of bath water. It's more fun if you are already in the tub as the cocoon develops. Allow bubbles to billow up as high and as full as possible.
You will become lost in bubbles. And it is pure delight. Lean back on a pillow and soak. And stay.
Lost in bubbles.
Of course, you can get lost in other bubbles.
Less worthy, not the least bit honorable. But even more tempting.
I torture myself periodically by reading the news from my old church. For the longest time they hadn't managed to join the modern era and have an actual web site with actual information on it. But now they do. And oh, my goodness, what a bubble.
I'm telling you, they are pooping butterflies and, like Dairy Queen, they not only blow bubbles, they blow bubbles with kittens inside (I actually find that rather creepy). It is peaches and marmalade. They are burping bunnies and farting feathers. What a place! Everything is wonderful!
Now. It might be viewed as churlish on my part to be disdainful of their delightfulness. It might be viewed as mean and short-sighted of me to not rejoice in their good works. A wet blanket. To be sure, it is wonderful whenever, and for whatever reason, people care for the poor and the refugees and the homeless and the sick and those in prison. It is impressive and blessed work. So of course, it's great to see all of these important ministries.
They write to each other about how wonderful and kind and caring they are, in thank you notes, for example. 'We are amazing, we are remarkable.'
And, one could add, "we are living in a bubble."
Judith Herman, whose book, Trauma and Recovery, is the seminal book about the topic, writes that all perpetrators require of the rest of us is silence. Silence.
As long as there is a tacit or explicit promise to say nothing about abuse and wrong, the bubble is sustained, billows up and grows.
One parish living in a bubble. A minority among them who felt a decade ago that they still depended upon silence, hated and attacked me because I made no such promise. I made no declaration to 'out' their secrets and blab either. But lacking a promise of silence, they put a target on my back. And shot.
Churchhill is famously known for exulting that "there is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at. And missed." (He wasn't the first to say it and I suspect he borrowed it from someone who was not actually shot at, either.) Because it is not exhilarating to be shot at. It is devastating. It is terrible.
It is traumatic. And, as I was reminded again today, again, again: trauma changes your brain.
The same people who are blasting rainbows out their ears today tried to kill me nine years ago. Because they were afraid. Of truth. Of a word. Of the unknown.
Jesus said, "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."
Agreed. Just watch your back if you're the one called upon to announce it.
Don't try this at home. Not unless you happen to have a bath tub that is completely surrounded on three sides up to a height of about six feet.
Pour in a bottle of one of Victoria's Secret bubble bath. The entire bottle. And an ample supply of bath water. It's more fun if you are already in the tub as the cocoon develops. Allow bubbles to billow up as high and as full as possible.
You will become lost in bubbles. And it is pure delight. Lean back on a pillow and soak. And stay.
Lost in bubbles.
Of course, you can get lost in other bubbles.
Less worthy, not the least bit honorable. But even more tempting.
I torture myself periodically by reading the news from my old church. For the longest time they hadn't managed to join the modern era and have an actual web site with actual information on it. But now they do. And oh, my goodness, what a bubble.
I'm telling you, they are pooping butterflies and, like Dairy Queen, they not only blow bubbles, they blow bubbles with kittens inside (I actually find that rather creepy). It is peaches and marmalade. They are burping bunnies and farting feathers. What a place! Everything is wonderful!
Now. It might be viewed as churlish on my part to be disdainful of their delightfulness. It might be viewed as mean and short-sighted of me to not rejoice in their good works. A wet blanket. To be sure, it is wonderful whenever, and for whatever reason, people care for the poor and the refugees and the homeless and the sick and those in prison. It is impressive and blessed work. So of course, it's great to see all of these important ministries.
They write to each other about how wonderful and kind and caring they are, in thank you notes, for example. 'We are amazing, we are remarkable.'
And, one could add, "we are living in a bubble."
Judith Herman, whose book, Trauma and Recovery, is the seminal book about the topic, writes that all perpetrators require of the rest of us is silence. Silence.
As long as there is a tacit or explicit promise to say nothing about abuse and wrong, the bubble is sustained, billows up and grows.
One parish living in a bubble. A minority among them who felt a decade ago that they still depended upon silence, hated and attacked me because I made no such promise. I made no declaration to 'out' their secrets and blab either. But lacking a promise of silence, they put a target on my back. And shot.
Churchhill is famously known for exulting that "there is nothing more exhilarating than being shot at. And missed." (He wasn't the first to say it and I suspect he borrowed it from someone who was not actually shot at, either.) Because it is not exhilarating to be shot at. It is devastating. It is terrible.
It is traumatic. And, as I was reminded again today, again, again: trauma changes your brain.
The same people who are blasting rainbows out their ears today tried to kill me nine years ago. Because they were afraid. Of truth. Of a word. Of the unknown.
Jesus said, "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."
Agreed. Just watch your back if you're the one called upon to announce it.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
"Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away"
Sail away, sail away, sail away...
And so ended the memorial service for Ty. I cherished the vision of him sailing on his way to a place free from suffering, wasting away, being drawn away from us on a quiet tide. Sail away, sail away, sail away. I hear it now in my heart and my head and it brings tears, as the song always does.
Thirty years ago this week five men were identified as "patient zero's" -- two of them had already died -- men suffering with a mysterious kind of pneumonia and others with an unusual cancer, origin unknown.
Thirty years. 1981. Young men were dying. Thirty years of grief and loss. I'm not even going to write about numbers of deaths, there are too too many. Young wonderful vital creative and loving men who were dentists and chefs and neuro-scientists and musicians and playwrights and football players and salesmen and physicians and engineers. They were sons and brothers and lovers and fathers and uncles and husbands.
And nothing they did made them deserve the excruciating deaths. Or their sickness.
Because of where I lived at the time and with whom I hung out, the nature of the church congregation I served, our location in the midst of the epidemic, and our choice to host support groups and information sessions my primary association with AIDS and HIV was with gay men.
Too many hospital visits - but they were better than the home visits only because by the time my friends were at home they were in a basically hospice, palliative mode, near death. It was a terrible death. Terrible.
And they are gone. Gone.
But we remember. We remember. We remember Ty, and Dan, and so many more.
And we remember their loving families. Frank and Elise and Mary and Colleen epitomize the extravagance of love that was given to brothers, uncles, sons as they died. They enacted the story of the woman who lavished her love, her perfume oil on Jesus as she washed his feet. I remember being there as Frank cared for his brother and feeling I was as near to the presence of God as I'd ever been. This was the heart of God.
So, blessedly washed, oiled, and dearly loved, Ty and too many of his peers sailed away from us to a far shore where, one so wants to believe, their bodies are free from sores and scars and lungs filled with fluid and painful, ugly lesions, from disease and hurt and isolating existential loneliness.
May they all be one, gathered together at feasts of abundance (think of the food!) and spectacular music and excellent wine, and at peace.
And may all who live with grief know how much they mattered, how they too are remembered for their lavish gifts of love upon their loved ones.
We live with loss. But we can remember. And be grateful for the time we had. The lives we shared.
And so ended the memorial service for Ty. I cherished the vision of him sailing on his way to a place free from suffering, wasting away, being drawn away from us on a quiet tide. Sail away, sail away, sail away. I hear it now in my heart and my head and it brings tears, as the song always does.
Thirty years ago this week five men were identified as "patient zero's" -- two of them had already died -- men suffering with a mysterious kind of pneumonia and others with an unusual cancer, origin unknown.
Thirty years. 1981. Young men were dying. Thirty years of grief and loss. I'm not even going to write about numbers of deaths, there are too too many. Young wonderful vital creative and loving men who were dentists and chefs and neuro-scientists and musicians and playwrights and football players and salesmen and physicians and engineers. They were sons and brothers and lovers and fathers and uncles and husbands.
And nothing they did made them deserve the excruciating deaths. Or their sickness.
Because of where I lived at the time and with whom I hung out, the nature of the church congregation I served, our location in the midst of the epidemic, and our choice to host support groups and information sessions my primary association with AIDS and HIV was with gay men.
Too many hospital visits - but they were better than the home visits only because by the time my friends were at home they were in a basically hospice, palliative mode, near death. It was a terrible death. Terrible.
And they are gone. Gone.
But we remember. We remember. We remember Ty, and Dan, and so many more.
And we remember their loving families. Frank and Elise and Mary and Colleen epitomize the extravagance of love that was given to brothers, uncles, sons as they died. They enacted the story of the woman who lavished her love, her perfume oil on Jesus as she washed his feet. I remember being there as Frank cared for his brother and feeling I was as near to the presence of God as I'd ever been. This was the heart of God.
So, blessedly washed, oiled, and dearly loved, Ty and too many of his peers sailed away from us to a far shore where, one so wants to believe, their bodies are free from sores and scars and lungs filled with fluid and painful, ugly lesions, from disease and hurt and isolating existential loneliness.
May they all be one, gathered together at feasts of abundance (think of the food!) and spectacular music and excellent wine, and at peace.
And may all who live with grief know how much they mattered, how they too are remembered for their lavish gifts of love upon their loved ones.
We live with loss. But we can remember. And be grateful for the time we had. The lives we shared.
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