so.

Long day yesterday, and I found myself meditating on this story from Anne Lamott speaking about Easter on NPR (for the full article, click here):

"When I was 38, my best friend, Pammy, died, and we went shopping about two weeks before she died, and she was in a wig and a wheelchair.

I was buying a dress for this boyfriend I was trying to impress, and I bought a tighter, shorter dress than I was used to. And I said to her, 'Do you think this makes my hips look big?' and she said to me, so calmly, 'Anne, you don't have that kind of time.'

And I think Easter has been about the resonance of that simple statement; and that when I stop, when I go into contemplation and meditation, when I breathe again and do the sacred action of plopping and hanging my head and being done with my own agenda, I hear that, 'You don't have that kind of time,' you have time only to cultivate presence and authenticity and service, praying against all odds to get your sense of humor back."

"That's how it has changed for me," Lamott continues. "That was the day my life changed, when she said that to me."

You don't have that kind of time.

...

So, tell someone you love them and then say it again.

Close the laptop and go soak up some sun.

Pick up the phone.
Let it go, whatever "it" is.

Put down the flat-iron & love your crazy-haired self.

Dance to the rhythms of grace.

Say "thank You" as often as you breathe, all the while praying "oh lord have mercy".

Forgive yourself.

Care for your body, God's temporary temple.

Be present without speaking a word.

...

'Cause all those moments, those tiny miracles and those mundane, easily forgotten details, each one is precious. Something to cherish and savor like a delicious meal, like a loved one's touch, like the feel of soaring through a wave in the ocean.

-b.

sit and eat and drink and feast

Love after Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott Collected Poems 1948-1984

stole this from one of my dear-hearts julia's facebook. if this isn't the story of my life (especially the past year), i don't know what is.

may you sit and eat and drink and feast the fullness that is your very own beauty.

-b

ARTifact: The Beginning

So, that title is a little misleading. This project began in my mind a couple years ago. It began as a voiced idea 18 months ago. It began as a project (officially) in October of 2010.

And so now what we are calling ARTifact is now just a skeevy church basement & a vision.

We are hoping to establish a creative re-use center that re-purposes materials to resource everyone(!) but especially artists, educators, students, etc. In addition we are hoping to build an urban spiritual renewal center, where folks from all faith backgrounds can come, take a deep breath, and explore their spirituality through the experiential arts.

This blog entry has some photos of the progress so far. Eventually ARTifact will have its own website & blog, but for now, this entry is for...my mom. my seminary colleagues scattered near and far. folks who might not know that this is the other half of my job @ BSM. my friends who haven't had a chance to stop by yet. and for someone who I haven't met yet, some kindred spirit who stumbles across this entry somehow and says "I've got to talk to that girl!"

I'd deeply appreciate your prayers: for sustained energy and for myself & my colleagues to stay open to the stirrings of the Spirit. I've never been more excited or grateful to do the work that I do, to live into what I truly feel called to do, and your support means so much to me.

love&love,

b

so...progress:

middle-schoolers painting the stairwell:

one wall (pre-chipped):

another wall (post-chipped):

coat # 1, woo hoo! :

some re-painted kiddie chairs:

(for more info about ARTifact, email me at becca@broadstreetministry.org)

the round world

damn everything but the circus

damn everything that is grim,

dull

motionless, unrisking,

inward turning,

damn everything that won't get into the circle,

that won't enjoy,

that won't throw its heart into the tension,

surprise,

fear and delight of the circus,

the round world,

the full existence

-e e cummings

waiting to grace you

stealing this from another writer whose work resonates. she can be found on the blog www.rootsofshe.com

Like the sky holds the storm

by Rachael Maddox.

there is a woman in a room full of poetry waiting to grace you with

healing hands

she knows without ever knowing you, how much your tired heart needs

her loving touch

she will tell you as you stumble to lock up your heavy bike–

as you stand beneath the crying sky, for yet another day–

that you have arrived to the right place

and she is so glad you came

her smile will hold your sadness

like the sky holds the storm,

her creased eyes will see straight into your soul

and you will say nothing

but she will hear it all

as you rest there together beneath your crying eyes

she won’t be the first person to fetch you water

but she will be the first to fill your cup with healing–

to hold it all, like the sky holds the sunset and the storm

sometimes all in one day–

and she will ask, like the miracle of sabbath,

if you can stay and rest a while

to let her sing sunsets onto your storms

and you will smile through knowing tears

and you will sigh tornadoes of hope

and you will fall like waves in the gulf

and you will surrender to your tired, trying body

and you will laugh, i mean really laugh, at your attempt to defy nature

and you will say yes as sure as the dew kisses grass at dawn

not because you’re well-versed in yeses

but because no storm lasts forever

and even sunrises need someplace to rest.

[this "she" is how i experience God. being with us as we rest, reminding us how happy God is that we've come, that we've brought ourselves to God. may you experience hope, and falling, and surrender, and most of all, healing. this is my hope for you. love, b.]

strange anniversaries

today i'm feeling an odd and poignant awareness of what my life looked like a year ago and what it looks like now. i have these strange anniversaries quite often lately, because in so many ways the day-to-day of my life has changed so much each year for the past several years.

it's similar in the sense there are still stressors and deep joys, but now the stressors are different, less powerful, and the joys are deeper, a product of learning concrete methods of self-care, ever so slowly.

gratitude and grief, awareness of brokenness and glimpses of real hope, these things are the rhythms of my life, always paired together, a double-edged blessing. a gift that pierces even as it heals.

and so the gratitude flows through me, following the rhythm of the breath. even when i am exhausted, the gratitude is there, amidst the longing for rest and renewal, helping me to remember how important it is to create spaces in which i can rest.

may your strange anniversaries bring you not sadness but gratitude for having lived and breathed and loved through another year of griefs and joys.

like the dawn

"Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call,

and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help and God will say,

Here I am..."

Isaiah 58:1-9a

letting it be

"Healing, then, becomes not the absence of pain but the increased ability to meet it with mercy instead of loathing. No one can wholly remove our pain. All we can do is increase the spaciousness of mind and heart in which it is allowed to decompress.

Letting go is letting be.

As a result, we find ourselves exploring the capacity to slowly increase that space in which even great grief--the loss of a love, the loss of a child, the loss of innocence, the loss of faith--can be experienced.

We find ourselves meeting helplessness with a simple kindness that confounds our addiction to critical self-judgment. We find ourselves more likely to meet others' confusion and helplessness openheartedly. We find ourselves with less need for others or ourselves to be different in order to be loved.

We find ourselves."

--from Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine