Mrs Metaphor

A few months back a friend of mine turned me on to Facebook. I was so hooked in. It’s scary how addictive it is. It’s like crack, it really is. Suddenly I felt like I had a connection to the outside world again. This is a good thing overall, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I find I spend way too much time taking personality tests and playing “scrabulous” and not so much time actually, say, talking to people in real life. This is a problem. That’s the first step, admitting that I HAVE a problem, yes?

So now, the same friend for a variety of reasons is taking a brief hiatus from the online world. My drug buddy has left the building. This gave me some pause and I began to examine my own stuff around what he calls a “social addiction.” One MIGHT think this would lead me to take my own hiatus but, erm…no. Not yet. Instead I wrote a song about it. It’s a start though.

For your edification and enjoyment I shall post the lyrics here:

Social Addiction

I rely on constant touch
saying things I think are clever
it’s no mystery
how much it means
every precious word
or gesture

no one knows
how deep this goes

I compose the perfect scene
arranging shows of my infirmity
wrap them close
keep them safe
clutched in my hand
just like a rosary

no one knows
how deep this goes
even I can’t find
the fear below

And the manifest symptom is this
My social addiction exists
Is it part of my story
Or half of my problem
Or one more solution that fits?

I confess to deep unrest
discontent to take the test
it’s no mystery
how much it seems
to press this pulse
and stop the beating

no one knows
how deep this goes
even I can’t find
the fear below
the surface

And the manifest symptom is this
My social addiction exists
Is it part of my story
Or half of my problem
Or one more solution that fits
For now?

Here is your radical thought for the coming week.

Pay attention.

Pay attention to the feel of the air on your skin. Pay attention to the color of the sky and the trees. Pay attention to the sound that fills the room and failing that, pay attention to the silence.

If you had a camera in your brain (and in effect, you DO have a camera in your brain as it were) and your eye is the lens then this week take as many well framed and focused photos as you can.

Slow down.

Look deep.

Breathe it in.

Pay attention.

This is for my Star Wars lovin’ friends and fans….you know who you are: 

I don’t usually post about my faith. I should amend that to say that I am always posting about my faith but I don’t usually post about it in quite this much detail. This, being the day before Easter, however I feel compelled to put some things down. This feast day is the reason that those of us who profess to be Christians, um, profess to be Christians. Without Easter, Christianity makes no sense, really…so there you have it.

For whatever reason I’ve been contemplating lately The Holy Kiss. This phrase has come to me again and again in the last year and it was just today that I thought to google it. I was contemplating writing a poem or a song or something. It’s just such a good visual, filled with all kinds of promise, yes?

In the early Christian church there developed a ritual greeting which was called “the Holy Kiss.” It was common in the culture to greet one another with a kiss. This practice, during gatherings of Christians though moved beyond the traditional nicety. It became a sign of such deep affection that it came to be seen as a sacred act. It was one of the things which DEFINED them as community.

We see the remains of this in some church services which embrace the “sign of peace” or “passing the peace.” For the most part, however, in our own culture we’ve moved away from the physical touch, away from showing this deep affection for one another. It is simply not done. It’s not alright. It’s not accepted.

I find though that I am drawn inexplicably to this idea. It’s an intruiging one especially for the latent German Catholic in me; this part of me which shies away from touch because of my own fears. The little voice present in the back (or sometimes front) of my head which tells me that I am not worthy of touch…I am not soft enough, I am not warm enough, I am not deserving of it.

This then takes me right into the acts of Christ in the New Testament…touching the untouchable, using his hands to heal and of course, my favorite; the story of the bleeding woman. When the hem of Christ’s robe is touched by the woman he FEELS it. Christ was all about touch, all about the Holy Kiss.

I wonder if He knew that it would be this very Holy Kiss which would signal His betrayal.

These are the thoughts that drive through my mind today, Holy Saturday…the day that I, as a follower of Christ and believer in His divinity, wait. We, as a body, wait for the chance to greet one another anew, on Easter Sunday with the realization that He is Risen and perhaps one day…the return of The Holy Kiss.

In a few short weeks I will travel to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Festival of Faith and Writing. It is a kind of ritual that my friend Karen and I relish. For me, the highlight is always getting to see up close one of my favorite living poets, Scott Cairns.

It is especially heightened for me this year because I am knee-deep in his book, “Short Trip to the Edge: Where Earth Meets Heaven - A Pilgramage.” The book details his experience as a Pilgrim to Mount Athos and of his search for a spiritual mentor. This strikes me soundly at this time in my life. I feel I have been in search of my own mentor for a number of years to no avail.

Rather than do a poor job re-telling what Mr Cairns does beautifully in his own words I will merely post for you his work, “Setting Out” which opens his book. It lays a wonderful foundation. If it rings something in your soul then pick up this book and let it speak into the echo left in the wake of that ringing.

Setting Out

In time, even the slowest pilgrim might

articulate a turn. Given time enough,

the slowest pilgrim - even he - might

register some small measure of belated

progress. The road was, more or less, less

compelling than the hut, but as the benefit

of time allowed the hut’s distractions to attain

a vaguely musty scent, and all the novel

knickknacks to acquire a fine veneer of bone-

white dust, the road became then somewhat more

attractive; and as the weather made a timely

if quite brief concession, the pilgrim took this all

to be an open invitation to set out.

-Scott Cairns

Stole this from my blog friend, Babychaos last week because I took a similar test on Facebook and the results were DISMAL! I feel redeemed now.

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary!You must be quite an erudite person.

Ok, just to tide you over while I travel this weekend you may indulge yourself with a little Rufus Wainwright. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.

There are many water roads in the brain of Mrs Metaphor…I’m sure they all lead to a remarkable ocean but for now, it’s just a stream of consciousness….

A friend of mine posted an excerpt from a TS Eliot Poem called “Little Giddings” recently. The part that stuck to me was this one:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

When I read this part of the poem I am reminded about a place I’ve begun to inhabit a little more frequently these days, my own unremembered gate so to speak. I suppose basically I’ve been an artist of sorts for a long time. I’m a musician, writer and sometime poet, abysmal amateur painter and heaven knows what else lies ahead in the discovery of me as artist. It’s only recently, maybe the last year or so of my life that I’ve begun to put on the metaphorical clothing of this artist and walk around in it.

It feels all new and at the same time familiar…like coming home and finding all the things we love about a place still present and new things cropped up in the dead spots…new life breathed into a dying place…a secret garden.

Secret gardens, however, are in need of labor and attention. Left unattended they move into this state of hibernation or overgrowth. When I leave the garden for too long the gate becomes hidden. When I let life and circumstance determine my true identity rather than something deep within me, something Creator made…the lock becomes rusted…the key becomes lost…the gate becomes forgotten.

It feels like a luxury in this mundane, quotidian life of mine to step into the garden. It’s often the first to be bumped to the bottom of my list. It’s a shame, really, because it’s not a luxury, it’s not superfluous or silly. It’s foundational. Just because I neglect the gate and forget about it does not mean that it ceases to exist, yes? It is there, waiting to be rediscovered and awakened.

In a way, it’s comforting to me, knowing that hibernation doesn’t have to be forever and yet in some ways it only makes seasons like that even more unbearable.

I’m getting ahead of myself though, another bad habit…not living in the now…always thinking ahead to what I will be missing later. Crazy-making at it’s finest.

Ah…now we’ve reached the shore. Carry on.

It’s been a while since we had a “radical thought” so here is an assignment for you.  When you are next paid a compliment no matter how big or how small I want you to do something extraordinary.  I want you to say, “Thank you” and leave it at that.  No, “thank you buts”  or attempts to play off the compliment in the name of false humility.  Just say “Thank you.”   Let me know how it goes.  

It’s not really a hairshirt, it’s actually this flannel jacket/shirt thing I wear around my house. Whenever I put it on I get very depressed. I put it on because I’m feeling cold and it’s the best choice in a utilitarian sense. It does the job so to speak. It just so damn ugly. I think this is it, at least. I’m not sure how it happens, psychologically or spiritually or what….but whenever I put it on I may as well have put on a suit of lead that accentuates every body flaw I own and a few I didn’t know existed.I only wear it at home, when I’m in parenting mode.

It gets all the snotty noses wiped on it (not my choice, it’s literally out of my hands or out of their noses perhaps is more like it.) By now you are asking yourself why I don’t throw out that shirt. That is a good question. In the spirit of giving things up for Lent, maybe this is a good time to give up the comfy crappy shirt and choose the good.  Ack,  it’s just so comfortable.

And because I am Mrs Metaphor and I just can’t leave it alone I gotta say that I think there’s a connection here for us to draw our metaphorical moment.  Looking at my crappy flannel I wonder, psychologically and spiritually, what else I’m clinging to in the name of comfort.  What have we grown accustomed to that  warms us up and makes us feel like hell at the same time?

Points to ponder…