I’m thinking a great deal this week about love and faith and even “religion” as I understand it…so…I thought it right and proper to put this out there and shine a little light on it.
There is this little book, “The Quotidian Mysteries” that was recommended to me long ago by my wonderful friend Karen. We both harbor a real love of Kathleen Norris’ work. This book was originally a lecture given by Ms Norris on Spirituality and it centers around the idea of embracing the “quotidian.” This is a delicious word, “quotidian” and I work it into blog posts and conversations as often as I am able.
The “quotidian” refers to what we would identify as the mundane, the ordinary, the everyday tasks. The word, however, is much much richer than we give it credit. Prayer, is quotidian…just as housework is quotidian. I’d go so far as to say that Love is quotidian. It must be revisited every day. It must have commitment every day.
This passage from the book puts it so well as it relates to my faith so I rest here for now: “Laundry, liturgy and women’s work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings. But they have a considerable spiritual import, and their significance for Christian theology, the way they come together in the fabric of faith, is not often appreciated. But it is daily tasks, daily acts of love and worship that serve to remind us that the religion is not strictly an intellectual pursuit, and these days it is easy to lose sight of that as, like our society itself, churches are becoming more politicized and polarized. Christian faith is a way of life, not an impregnable fortress made up of ideas; not a philosophy; not a grocery list of beliefs.”
Food for thought. Prepared lovingly. I shall be chewing on this as the week progresses.
I’m finding more and more that not only am I a “night person” I am also a “night parent.”
It’s hard to explain so I wrote it as a poem. (what a shock, right?)
Not my usual bag for poetry, this subject, but I’m branching out…
Late Night Parent
it is here
in these small hours
cicadas provide the soundtrack
the breeze
cool now
untouched by the sun
it is here
in this moment
of waking
with the cry
of the bad dream
or leg cramping
or croup coughing
it is here
the late night parent
finds her niche
calm and patient
the soothing voice
otherwise unavailable
during the day
over the din
it is here
that she is most at ease
engaged
and directed
and ready
to bring remedy
with no reservation
and it is here
that I,
while on night shift
thank God
with each forehead kiss
and each whispered assurance
that everything will be
alright
I’ve been thinking today about writing. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about it. I thought about it rather well. When the time came to actually put something down on what Luci Shaw referred to this weekend as the “democratic white page” I faltered. My fingers fumbled. Keystroke-like movements started and stopped. I thought about the look of the dogwood trees blooming and could not come up with words to describe them with any honor large enough. This went on for most of the day and into the evening.
I thought about the sound of the quiet, interrupted only by the uneven tapping on the keyboard when an idea came then followed quickly by the rhythm of the backspace key beating time with measured regularity.
It seemed so much more certain of it’s job.
At last all I am left with is the astounding realization and perhaps the appreciation finally, of the unfinished things.
I’ve been working on a line in my head for a couple of months now, was not sure where it was leading but it turned into a song last week and I thought I’d share that with you all. Those of you who know me in real life can guess what sparked these lyrics I’m sure.
…then I will introduce you to another fantastic loop-a-rific pair of performers. This vastly talented duo came to me through a series of friends recently and I am proud to say I was stealthy enough to woo them as friends myself via Facebook. God love Facebook.
This is Steve Lawson and Lobelia Sabo (whose voice, by the way, SLAYS me…SLAYS me, I say.) I hope you’ll dig their stuff. I know that I do.
As Steve says in his description:
“Bass ‘n’ voice looping and strangeness take on Pat Benatar’s 80s arena rock classic… enjoy, but be warned, it gets very odd towards the end!
All the loops and layers are live - there are no pre-recorded samples or backing tracks. the looper used is a looperlative. And that’s a 6 string fretless bass, not just a tiny guitarist… :o) ”
For more info about their duo live EP, see www.stevelawson.net or www.lobelia.net
I confess that I think one of my blogger friends may have posted this in the past but in my parenting stupor I just cannot rightly recall…so Aunt Barb gets the credit.
I went to my guitar lesson this week and plugged into the amp. As I played I realized that the sound coming out was not even remotely similar to what I hear at home. This was crunchy and grungy and erm…not quite the me I expected to hear. I was thrashing without even trying, babe. My guitar teacher reached down and turned a knob, pressed a button, something… bringing me back to familiar ground and sound.
I confess that while I feel I’m picking up the musicality of the instrument fairly well, I am still finding my way around the technology. For the first time since I made the decision to purchase my semi-hollow body electric rather than the nice sounding but not sexy acoustic I wondered if I was maybe in over my head.
I’m making some good noises with the guitar. I am really very happy with my progress. I even “hammer-on” stuff now and again. Yeah, baby. The trouble is that I still have to think about what each of the little knobs and buttons and bells and whistles do in this setup. I am astounded at how one thing turned ever so slightly completely changes everything.
Things are simpler on an acoustic. You sit, you play. No electricity involved. No 9v batteries to change so that your humbuckers stop humming. No grunge buttons pushed by mistake. You sit, you play, kum ba ya, my Lord, kum ba ya.
I imagine my learning curve would be less steep had I gone with the acoustic.
Then again….there is this moment I recognise in all of this and if everything is metaphor then there is one here as well, yes?
There is this moment where I think about this complicated choice, this sharp learning curve and I see how having this kind of latitude in sound fits me. It mirrors so well the life I’ve chosen….the life of the artist, the wife of an artist, the mother of the chaos crazed artists in training. Nothing is certain. Everything can change in a breath. We adapt, we push a button, we turn a knob and find a sound that works here. Half the time we don’t know what will happen…feedback, more often than not, trial and error, it’s all good….or it’s all good-ish at least. It’s an adventure.
I will learn what each knob does in time. I hope I remember after I learn it. It will probably take the rest of my life to figure it out and put it all into practice…then again, metaphorically the lesson is that perhaps really it’s more about seeing this AS my life after all…rather than something I do to fill the time.
That Writerchick. I like her an awful lot. She has issued a “meme” recently that really did stick in my brain so I thought I would venture out and join the crazy fun. For the most part, “meme” stuff makes me mental these days (although I secretly enjoy them….go figure.)
Anyway, this one is fairly easily and acts as a kind of “self marketing” meme in the process.
Here is the basic layout:
1. Go through past posts and link to five of your favorites, one for each of the following categories:
* Family
* Friends
* Yourself
* Something you love
* Your personal choice
2. Tag five other people to do this meme. Two of them must be people you already know so that you can get to know each other better. That Writerchick is so very wise and cool that I am actually going to copy her and not “tag” anyone. Maybe it will stick in your brain this week and you’ll want to just tag yourself, though huh?
