Fishers of Men/The Strength of Fields

Some days, the right words come along and stun me into silence.  I'm headed out to read at church this morning, Psalm 62:5-12 and Mark 1:14-20.  The latter has always been one of my favorite passages--that we can become fishers of men.  I am not one for proselytizing or preaching on street corners; a person's road to God is his or her own personal business.  But I've always loved the notion that behind the fishers of men line, that if we are passionate and honest enough, we can unite people to our cause, give them a sense of their own power, infuse them with the light that shines in us.  I don't think that infusion has to be relegated to faith, though it's clear that was Mark's intention.  I think we can light ourselves as we light others, filling and refilling our own depleted souls through the sharing and telling of stories that brings people always always together.

And that sharing can give us purpose.  Today, James L. Dickey says it better than I ever could.

The Strength of Fields

BY JAMES L. DICKEY

... a separation from the world, a penetration to some source of power and a life-enhancing return ... 

Van Gennep: Rites de Passage 

Moth-force a small town always has,   

          Given the night.

                                           What field-forms can be,

         Outlying the small civic light-decisions over

               A man walking near home?

                                                         Men are not where he is   

      Exactly now, but they are around him    around him like the strength

Of fields.    The solar system floats on

    Above him in town-moths.

                                             Tell me, train-sound,

    With all your long-lost grief,

                                             what I can give.   

    Dear Lord of all the fields

                                             what am I going to do?

                                        Street-lights, blue-force and frail

As the homes of men, tell me how to do it    how

    To withdraw    how to penetrate and find the source   

      Of the power you always had

                                             light as a moth, and rising

       With the level and moonlit expansion

    Of the fields around, and the sleep of hoping men.

       You?    I?    What difference is there?    We can all be saved

       By a secret blooming. Now as I walk

The night    and you walk with me    we know simplicity   

   Is close to the source that sleeping men

       Search for in their home-deep beds.

       We know that the sun is away    we know that the sun can be conquered   

   By moths, in blue home-town air.

          The stars splinter, pointed and wild. The dead lie under

The pastures.    They look on and help.    Tell me, freight-train,

                            When there is no one else

   To hear. Tell me in a voice the sea

         Would have, if it had not a better one: as it lifts,

          Hundreds of miles away, its fumbling, deep-structured roar

               Like the profound, unstoppable craving

            Of nations for their wish.

                                                      Hunger, time and the moon:

         The moon lying on the brain

                                                    as on the excited sea    as on

          The strength of fields. Lord, let me shake   

         With purpose.    Wild hope can always spring   

         From tended strength.    Everything is in that.

            That and nothing but kindness.    More kindness, dear Lord

Of the renewing green.    That is where it all has to start:

         With the simplest things. More kindness will do nothing less

             Than save every sleeping one

             And night-walking one

         Of us.

                   My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

3 Things Worth Watching

Justin Townes Earle, Trailer for "Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now" 3.27.12

L.P., "Into the Wild"

Melody Gardot, "If the Stars Were Mine"

Good Reads

If you are a bibliophile and you're not using Good Reads, you're missing out.

You can review books you've read, build a digital library, read reviews of things you're interested in reading, connected with other book loving like minded friends, win books in random giveaways (I just received my first--a hardcover copy of Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn West--it won the National Book Award), and you may be solicited by Good Reads editors to submit questions to your favorite writers for upcoming features on their site.  Today, I wrote three questions for Anne Lamott.  Anne Lamott.  As in Bird by Bird, Traveling Mercies, Plan B, etc.  I love her, and because I read constantly and use this site, she may answer a question I wrote.  So cool.

So, anyway, Good Reads.  I cannot recommend it enough.  Join it, find me, let's read together in 2012.

Who's in?

Let Go

When I was in high school, I was pretty.  I didn't know it then.  I look at pictures of myself from that time and think, man, I had a good figure, great hair, but I thought I was overweight and strange looking.  That my hair was too big, too blonde, my hips too wide, body too...developed.  The girls who were sought after played sports, had flat chests and wore size two jeans. I was bookish, curvy, and a size twelve.  I wasn't big, I just felt that way--conspicuous--like all eyes were on me.

And, because I was self-conscious, I didn't date much.  I also thought most boys my own age were stupid--which admittedly, may of them were--I'd been reading since I was three and made it through the entire College Prep List by the time I graduated simply because I wanted to prove I could.  That wasn't sexy or alluring, it was just weird.  I had friends, I even had a couple of odd relationships that you might call boyfriend-girlfriend, one junior and one senior year.  They each ended tragically--the former when he paid $5 to enter a building I was in watching a friends band play just so he could break up with me, the latter about three weeks after I had sex with him (my first time) so he could take someone else to prom.  Winners, those guys.

In retrospect, and I can only say this in retrospect, I was probably a lot to handle.  Emotional, clingy, desperate to be loved.  But still, they were pretty dickish, right?

And I had male friends.  Lots of them.  I was the girl they all wanted to talk to about their relationships, the one they told their problems to, problems with parents and teachers, friends and girlfriends.  And, when we were at parties, after a couple of drinks (almost always them, not me), they wanted to kiss me.  To tell me how pretty I was, how they wished they could meet a girl like me, how they would so date me if it weren't for some girl whose name ended in an 'i' or an 'ee' or a 'y'.  And I, emotional, clingy, desperate to be loved, let them kiss me, kissed them back, always thinking on Monday morning they'd see me at school, remember our fumbling liplock from Saturday night and know, in that hazy moment in the SVHS hallway, that I was the one they really wanted.

But, as these stories always go, that didn't happen.  Instead, there was awkward avoidance (theirs) and hurt sulking (mine) that had to smell like sulphur on a hot day, the slow smoking pain of adolescent rejection rising like so much smoke off the burnt orange carpet.

That feeling of rejection, of being someone's secret, of not being good enough to like in public has haunted me for twenty years.  I've felt less than, humiliated, unwanted, and plain old shitty about myself for so long that now, at an age when I finally feel ready to embark on a real relationship, I'm scared to death that I'll wreck it because I can't quiet that fifteen year old girl in my head who says not to trust, that it's too good to be true, that--come Monday--none of this will matter.  But in my heart, I know it does matter.  That love can exist, that something good can be true, I know it can, I just need to let myself live in that knowledge.

So, I need to let go of that voice.  I need to let go of that girl.

Here's hoping I can.

I Would Prefer Not To...

In this crush to resolve, well, everything, I find myself oddly uninterested in resolutions--making them, achieving them, working towards them--in large part because I don't think we ever really resolve anything inyour lives, we just learn how to move through or beyond it. So, when it comes to making resolutions this year, I would prefer not to.

Like Bartleby, I find it profoundly depressing to scuttle through the same slog day in day out with little to no variation, I don't like doing things simply because it is expected of me, and I certainly don't want to live a small life (see Mojo, etc. for an excellent post about this fear). And making resolutions, saying I resolve to do this or that, seems to feed in to all of the three things above. Every year, I--and millions of others--make resolutions that we break within days or weeks simply because our resolve to be resolute is leto than our desire to remain exactly who we are. It's easier to stay static. Change is a bitch in four inch heels with better hair and a more expensive wardrobe than I could ever afford. So screw her.

But, even though I would prefer not to make any resolutions, I find myself fixating on the what ifs. What if I did work harder to save more money, what could I accomplish? Travel? Paying off some of my debt? That elusive beast known as financial security? What if I did lose some weight, not because I need to look better (I really truly do dig how I look, it took awhile, but i'm there), but because I'd like to feel better. A little less back pain, sleeping better because my body was exercised and healthier. And what if I really could let go of all the past hurts and insecurities and live, truly joyously, presently live I this day, this moment, and in the radiant light of a hopeful future? What if what if what it.

So, this year, though I prefer not to make resolutions, I have decided to make myself a few promises about trying. No absolutes, just suggestions for myself ppthat, unlike resolutions, won't leavening me buried in a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk when I slip up.

This year, I will try to be more forgiving of myself first so that I am more capable of forgiving others.

This year, I will try to place physical health and well being on my list of priorities.

This year, I will try to attend church more not because I need to perform my faith for it to be meaningful but because that space centers me and guides my feet for the week ahead.

This year, I will try to think first before I react to situations that threaten or scare me.

This year, I will try to love myself as unconditionally as I love others.

This year, I will try.

End. Begin. End. Begin.

" For last year's words belong to last year's language
     And next year's words await another voice."
--T.S. Eliot


Last night, made up, readying for a night on the town.

This morning, no make-up, cleaning the house, laundry, taking down the tree.

I am happy to report that finally, at 35, I don't have a preference when it comes to these two photographs.  Time was, I would have died before showing myself without make-up, but now...this is who I am.  And I think she's pretty okay.  


So here's to 2012.  It's just has to be better that last year.  It just has to be.