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Month: March 2020

Unexpected stillness

Unexpected stillness

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“May God bless this unexpected stillness in our lives.”

I have been corresponding with Kirsten, our dear friend from Edinburgh, Scotland. My wife, Lynne, and I have plans to travel to Scotland for two weeks in July. We intend to revisit many of our favorite destinations — Stonehaven, Edinburgh, Glencoe, Oban, Loch Lomond, Skye, Iona — as well as introduce two Iowa friends to this magical land.

The trip has been in the works for over a year and I have already made all the reservations for flights, rental car, housing, a Skye boat trip, and even a birthday meal for Lynne at a favorite Stonehaven restaurant. But now, because of this global pandemic, our trip seems very much in doubt.

Kirsten ended her most recent email, responding to my inquiries about the state of life in Scotland under the current lockdown orders, with those words: “May God bless this unexpected stillness in our lives.”

Oh, my …

Unexpected stillness. May God bless this unexpected stillness. Her words pierced me to my core and brought tears to my eyes. Such a simple description of our present state of being, but so lyrical, poignant, moving, and hopeful.

Unexpected stillness. This is a stillness, but stillness can be a gift. Unexpected stillness can be an unexpected gift. We are obliged to set aside most of our usual comings and goings, much of our usual busyness. We are constrained to be quiet, often alone or with just a few nearby, to be still. But in the stillness … we may hear other voices, we may hear other things, we may remember, we may discover, there may be space enough in us … for God to fill. In the stillness, we may be blessed.

May God bless this unexpected stillness in our lives …

Chastened, humbled, wiser, better

Chastened, humbled, wiser, better

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There is nothing good about this global coronavirus pandemic. There is nothing good about people dying. There is nothing good about people losing their jobs. There is nothing good about cherished cultural institutions being put in jeopardy.

And yet, I pray that good may come out of it, that when the disease has run its course, when social distancing is no longer required, when we return to offices and schools and theaters and restaurants and sporting arenas and concert halls, we will not be the same, we will not simply return to business as usual.

I pray we may be changed: chastened, humbled, wiser, better.

May we be chastened, newly conscious of our vulnerability, recognizing that we cannot bend this world to suit our own purpose and pleasure no matter how smart or powerful or wealthy we fancy ourselves.

May we be humbled, acknowledging the limitations of our capacity to take care of ourselves, the frailty of our most prized institutions, whether governmental, economic, technological, or medical. May we be simply and profoundly grateful for life at all, for each moment, for each breath.

May we be wiser, cognizant of the frivolity of so many of our passions and pursuits, not abandoning ambition or aspiration, but keeping all these in perspective, remembering what it is that does matter: faith and hope and love.

May we be better, fully comprehending, not merely in our minds, but in our hearts and bodies, too, that we and our fellow human beings, near and far, are not competitors in a zero-sum game, but colleagues, companions, housemates, siblings, we and they children of God alike, we in need of them, they in need of us.

As we face this ordeal together, may we be patient, kind and generous, hopeful, faithful, grateful, and eager … eager for the dawning of the day when this pandemic will be a threat no more, but eager too for the dawning of a new goodness, in us and among us.

The Box

The Box

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This week, a member of the Deer Isle Writers Group, which I have recently joined, emailed us this challenge:

Miss our group. Here is a challenge if you wish to take it. Select an object that has been important to you and write about it. Share with the group. Add a photo if you like!

I wrote this piece yesterday in response …

Coronavirus

Coronavirus

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Coronavirus

coronavirus
        invisible ravager of bodies and economies
        ineluctable disrupter of culture and the social fabric
        insidious sower of dread and despair
what you can’t see can hurt you

you and me
        shown to be like by our common vulnerability
        choosing to be like in listening carefully, thinking wisely, acting bravely
        reacting, adapting, embracing life as it is now for hope of what it will be
what you can see can heal you

Roque Island Haiku

Roque Island Haiku

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Encouraged by members of the Deer Isle Writers’ Group, I am trying my hand at writing haiku. Here is a series of ten haiku describing a circumnavigation of Roque Island that my son, Matt, and I did together several summers ago.

Roque Island

Fair day gentle wind
We launch from shore aflutter
A new adventure

Crescent beach tall cliffs
An astonishing vista
Even better shared

Sun on the water
Twin kayaks bob and glisten
Crossing Shorey Cove

Great Head looms starboard
Eight miles of voyage complete
Gratifying day

Sudden wind cold mist
Two miles of open water
Dare we make the crossing?

Dense fog obscures all
Clenching compass in my teeth
I paddle forward

Son in the water
Kayak upended by waves
Grim brume fills my heart

Rushing to rescue
We get him back in his boat
Brief lifting of fog

A glimpse of shoreline
Taking another bearing
We paddle with hope

Kayaks touch the beach
Alighting and approaching
Sharing happy hug

Soul

Soul

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Another poem, written today …

Soul

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul

          what if soul is not contained within me
but me within soul?
          what if soul does not belong to me, “my soul”
but I belong to soul?

          what if I am what I appear to be
animated body: breathing, moving, lifting, eating, thinking, feeling, writing,
swimming, hoping, crying, laughing, reaching, growing, aging, dying, being?
          what if me is not some hidden, ethereal, immaterial , immortal soul
but what you see is what you get is me
          and soul, far from hidden, ethereal, immaterial, immortal
is like me, made of the same substance, made like me or me like soul?
          what if we are made not merely of the soil of the earth
but of the soul of the earth?

          when I look out from the outcropped granite on the southern flank of Blue Hill
          I do not merely see a view that pleases me
I see me,
          the me that is part of something much larger than me
soul
          and I am not merely in a place, but of a place
of this place

          wind, rock, shoreline, bay, mountain, island,
soul
          breath, horizon, ocean, headland, sun, tide,
soul
          Cadillac, Newbury Neck, Long Island, Naskeag, Isle au Haut, Megunticook,
soul
          in this moment, in this place, woods, pond, boulder, tree, you, me,
soul
          alike made of the soul of the earth
          in the image of God

Little Splat

Little Splat

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A poem I wrote today …

Little Splat

silent and still and slow,
    very slow
        is this what it is like to die?
silent and still and slow,
    very slow?

I am here for joy
    for the joy of emerald water
        pouring and twisting among grey boulders
        churning over drops and plunging into holes and piling up in frothy mounds
    for the joy of the dance
        pas de deux, me and the river
        lean, glissade, pirouette
    for the joy of comradeship
        eight days and eight of us, two thousand miles of road and sixty miles of stream
        paddling and paddling some more, talking paddling and dreaming paddling
    for the joy of the adventure
        Zoom Flume and First Island, Little Splat and Wonder Falls, Wonder Falls!
        launching boat and body over the lip of eighteen-foot Wonder Falls, exult!

and now,
silent and still and slow,
    very slow

not able to breathe, but able to see
    seeing only the subaqueous darkness
not able to move, but able to feel
    feeling canoe and me stuck, stuck between rocks, between foot pegs and saddle
able to think, but silent and still and slow,
    very slow
no panic, no terror, no dread, no self-pity, no despair, no regret
    only silence and stillness and slowness
and watching, watching myself, watching myself from outside myself
    and wondering, wondering, wondering
        is this what it is like to die?

I try again to move
    and I am out

there will be no dying today
    no second-guessing or rueing or wishing myself somewhere else
because I am here
    because I am here
because I am here for joy!

Timothy Ensworth

 

(In April 1991, I traveled to West Virginia with seven other members of the Maine Appalachian Mountain Club whitewater canoeing group. Along the way, we paddled the Indian and Hudson rivers in New York, and Stony Brook and Dark Shade and Shade Creeks in Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, we ran the Shavers Fork of the Cheat, the Middle Fork of the Tygart and Tygart Gorge, the Upper and Lower Big Sandy River, and the Cheat River. This poem comes from my descent of the Lower Big Sandy and a capsize at Little Splat.)