dag yo!

All week, I’ve wanted ta h-u-double-rizzy n git a new pizzy up before some of you gangstas start ragg'n on me. But as mah classroom students can attest, I’m a gizzle n guys only have so many words per day. Once they’re used up… well, they’re used up. 
Sometizzle by tha end of tha day, I can’t find words ta finish sentences in class . Yippie yo, you can't see my flow. My grammar goes ta pot with the gangsta stuffs that keeps ya hangin. My well-hidden Australian accent becomes detectable ta tha discern'n ear of musizzy t-h-to-tha-eorizzy students. Alas, by late pm, I can open mah grill ta speak but be (only slightly) surprised by total silence. No vocal response ta cerebral messag'n fo gettin yo rap on. 
None of this, by any means, means I gots nuttin' ta say . Ill slap tha taste out yo mouf. It simply means that whizzat I gots ta say can’t find it’s way up the pipeline from tha streets of tha saltmine. Even nizzow, I’m chillin' tizzle mah daily word s-u-to-tha-double pizzy-lizzy is runn'n low, n I apologuise`bout any grammatizzles confusion, stylin' e-doublerizzy-ors, or expos'n of normally indetectable dialect .
Drop it like its hot, y'all.

even as the world was turning

In 1971, I was in first grade. In the spring of that year, I was 7 years old and huge, life-altering events took place. My baby sister arrived and my Papaw died. The audible clicking of the artificial valves put in his heart to replace the damaged fearfully and wonderfully made originals, ceased sufficiency, and stopped clicking.
I know my mom felt the greatest gift and the greatest theft in the span of a week. Spring brings life and Jodi was the first blossom of 1971, sent to bring color to the dark moments for the broken daughter who bore her. She told me the terrible news first thing next morning. It was a terrible loss. An enormous part of my young life was gone.
The previous fall, when it had gotten too cold to do all the outside things for which he’d let me tag along, he’d assured that warm weather would come again. On that April morning, I realized I’d never ride on his shoulders again, I’d never again ride on the flat bed of his truck and grip the cab and peer in through the rectangle to see him driving. But I didn’t cry. I, who to this day shed tears as easily as sipping coffee, don’t remember crying. In fact, I remember not crying.
What I did was dream about him every night. Every night. Every night the dreams were nothing more or less than was the norm when I was around him. He’d ride me on his shoulders, or perc coffee while he made cornbread or burnt toast. These dreams went on for many nights and then grew less frequent and stopped.
Those are two things that I’ve pondered many times in my life, those dreams and my dry eyes. I believe those dreams kept my eyes dry with joyful memories in my heart.
Often, someone will say something that brings those dreams to mind. Most recently, we were driving along listening to music and Jack said he thought his favorite lyric was this James Taylor verse:

I came out of a dream last night
Thought I was back in my old home
Mom and Dad were both still alive
And the babies not yet born, no
Felt like a festival
Felt like a Christmas morning
Felt the darkness fall away
Even as the world was turning

Immediately, my mind went back to 1971. And I re-dreamt specific dreams from those months. I don’t think I’ve dreamt about Papaw since then. Until this morning.
I was standing in the kitchen that is now Jodi’s, but the formica-top table with the chrome trim was still there. I was looking out through the screen door when Papaw and uncle Bub pulled up in a pick-up truck. He and Uncle Bub were both the same age, about 50, and I was the age I am now. They’d pulled all the way up in the yard, and beside the kitchen door, and were unloading turnips from the back of the truck. The back of the truck also held countless widgets and gadgets he’d just acquired and that he couldn’t wait to show me. “This one peels, this one slices, this one…” I said what are you doing with all those turnips?, it’s November!. He said, “are you kidding? Look how big these things are!”
He cut a turnip in half and we we’re eating it together when my alarm went off.
Sometimes, good dreams leave you feeling remorse at waking when you realize that they aren’t real. Reality becomes clear and the dream fades, and things are the way they are. Other times, dreams provide for a moment, what can’t be, and upon waking, reality is brightened by a memory or a hope and the day is lightened by the wearing of a blessing.
Such was this dream and this waking. It felt like a festival, a turnip festival, it felt like Christmas morning. I felt the darkness fall away even as the world was turning.
Even as the world was turning.

Technorati Tags: dreams, family

intimacy 1.0

Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding anyone.

-gertrude stein

I will spend way too much time in this series of posts talking about a sort of specific thing. I say way too much time because it is only a part of what I’m talking about, or maybe I should say, a symptom of what I’m talking about, or a manifestation. The problem is underlying. It is a relational problem and because our human relationships are at least partly types and metaphors for a greater relationship, practically everything I say will have a parallel, if not larger meaning. And though that of which I speak less, perhaps, will be of greater importance, and I’ll feel ok about having not had enough time to speak of it more because in fact, THAT is what I was talking about the whole time.
Many of you have spent a considerable amount of time with me and know this about me. You will probably follow right along. I tend to think very broadly and connected and feel relationship in all things. As a result, I’ll be talking about several things at the same time. The problem is that sometimes my language slips between metaphor and subject. Don’t be confused.

God’s language when talking about his relationship with his people nearly always reflected relationship between a man and a woman. He used adultery to symbolize idolatry. It seems that to him, idolatry WAS adultery in our covenantal relationship with him.
So our topic is sex, love, and worship.
I can think of no better language or relationship to discuss this, and so will follow his lead. There are words that are broader than their common usage, and phrases that are associated with meaning even when they are taken out of context. Sometimes, even similar phrases can have very different associations based on contextual perspective. So what happens when I juxtapose words and phrases and contexts?

Think these through:

Casual worship
Worship promiscuity
Love is verb
Worship is a noun

cup o' joe

Last week, for Molly’s birthday, she gave me a coffee roaster, and a pound each of green, fair trade, Ethiopian Harrar, and Sumatran beans. Daddy’s favorites. I immediately set about my first batch of Rod-roasted joe, but alas, the moment I turned the roaster on, it smoked and fizzled and never got warm. Allison called the company and they promptly sent out a replacement and right now, I’m savoring my first cup of Rod-roasted Sumatran. This is yummy stuff. Thank you Molly!
The weather is nasty tonight. There are tornado watches and warnings all around and it is raining huge drops very hard. The lights are flickering on and off, the fam is all snuggled into bed, and I’m safe inside with a candle burning and an extremely fresh cup of coffee.
Creamy, sweet, with a touch of butterscotch, spice and grassiness.
Care for a cup?

sonnet xi

An autumn babe is born as southern leaves
splash color in the groves of evergreen.
A neo-natal palette we receive,
with eyes a hue no leaf has ever been.
A moment savored, pondered as you grew,
how once I rocked you ‘neath the waxing moon.
From infant lips, a song I never knew,
you sang to me your perfect silent tune.
And deep inside your heart your silent song
came bursting forth when first it had the chance.
I sang it too, and it would not be long
till you had shown my full heart how to dance.
November princess, waste no time for fun,
Time dances past us, now you’re tendy one.

Technorati Tags: family

...yawn...

Time. There ain’t much to go around. And this week we messed with it. I’ve still not recovered. I approached the weekend exhausted and welcomed the extra hour of sleep on Saturday night. But for the next three days, my body told me it was an hour later than the clock said it was, and I walked around like a zombie.
I’m not really sure it’s been a week since I blogged. I think maybe the clock and calendar just got adjusted to make it look that way.
My end of the week exhaustion was caused by excitement though. On Thursday and Friday, we had Keith and Kristyn Getty on campus, and I got to play guitar with them in chapel on Friday morning and in a concert across town Friday night. The busyness of the entire day kept adrenaline high, but as soon as I got home, in the pouring rain, I felt like I suffered the ultimate sugar crash. And, of course, weekends are anything but restful.
Yesterday was the annual Advisor/advisee prayer day. As usual, I took my group to the Congaree Swamp. We stayed so long that I was a few minutes late getting to church last night. We walked so much among those pristine, ancient trees that my whole body ached when I finally got home. I don’t think I was awake 30 minutes after I got home. In fact, I awoke this morning not only fully dressed, but I still had my boots on. Don’t worry. I showered and changed clothes.

I’m tired.

Swamp pics here.