A Little Tweet

Sending a little tweet your way, just in case you needed a charming chirp of a moment. 

If you are looking for some ideas on how to bundle up best for the winter, take direction from these smart birdies. These little birdies so graciously agreed to model the latest trends for keeping warm this season. 

For those long walks in the park, a checkered cap is perfectly paired with a wool scarf and suede jacket. You will enjoy every minute amongst the fallen leaves.

Surely, you'll need to head to the library frequently, and the perfect attire is a tweed jacket, bow-tie, and corduroy deerstalker cap. Don't forget your glasses, so you can read all those stacks of books that are on your list.

When you are lounging, choose the onesie (and cap!) that makes you look like a candy cane (or Where's Waldo?). You will surely be the most cosy for sitting by the fire with a good book.

If you must head outside to the frozen tundra, grab your puffer coat, resplendent with wooden toggle buttons, and complete with fur lining to keep your face feathers warm.

It's only getting colder out there, so, grab your scarf, tweed jacket, striped pajamas, and fur lined coat.

Locked Doors and Imagination

They open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.
- J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories"

I've been reading Tolkien's excellent essay "On Fairy-Stories", which covers the depth of story, meaning, purpose, and hope. I have read this essay a few times before, but this time, my eye was keener and my heart took time to dwell in these ponderable ideas that provoke me to celebrate and embrace the written words of imagination and good story-telling.

Fairy stories take us into a new realm, a secondary world created by a thoughtful sub-creator with an imaginative mind. When we open a book into a good story, we exit the primary world and enter one where we are open to strange and different things. Here, elves are living in the woods. The woods may feel familiar, but there is magic amongst the trees. Elements of nature become more real to us as if seeing for the first time, and there is a hidden mystery that we explore along the laws and rules of the realm.

The Locked Door stand as an eternal Temptation.

We come to a place that blocks us, and we can go no further. How much do we desire, then, to get through? Our curiosity should imagine what is on the other side. Why would we not imagine that? I wonder about those who would have no curiosity. How dull it must be to them all the time to come across something imaginative.

Tolkien believed to be a true fairy-story, there should be a happy ending, which likely takes place after the sudden good catastrophe (he coins a new word here, eucatastrophe) when everything seems most dark. It comes out of nowhere, with no sense that it could ever happen again. This is where the hope in the story shapes our own imaginations to look for that hope in other stories, including our own. 

Bringing it all the way home, Tolkien explains that the story has entered History. The eucatastrophe of man's history is the birth of Christ, he writes. Then, the eucatastophe of the incarnation is the resurrection. Fairy-stories are not just those little tales you learned as a child. The Gospel is a telling and entering into history of the true fairy-story. 

Week of Thankfulness

Every week is a week of thankfulness. I fill many pages of my journal with stories and things I am thankful for, including prayers that keep me centered in the thankfulness. But this week in particular should be more keenly focused. The week of Thanksgiving can be hectic and rushed, with travel and frustrations along the way. May we be more mindful of all our reactions to any snags we hit. If there is traffic delaying us, listen to some favourite music. If you cannot seem to get everything done, acknowledge that everything will still be grand if you don't finish it all. If things feel too hectic, take fifteen minutes, step away, sit in quiet solitude to re-center and pray for refreshment.

Let us be thankful for the depth of all we have, and the freshness of each new day.

Like the glory of mornings
and the cheerful birdsong outside.
The wonder and beauty of the everyday.
Nature is never spent.

Soft lighting with candles.
Long conversations with friends and family.
Safety and comfort from another
like warmth gathered with a blanket.
Closeness and familiarity.

A mug of hot coffee or tea.
Thoughts swirling in gratitude
and words spilling out on paper.
Bound in pages and cover.
Words of truth and beauty.

What fills your heart with thankfulness?

A FLW Tour at FSC

Space is the breath of art.

- Frank Lloyd Wright

A Frank Lloyd Wright tour at Florida Southern College.
I love to be a tour guide of my old college, Florida Southern, to anyone who is interested. This weekend, my aunt and uncle came to visit (from Tennessee) and I jumped at the opportunity to show them the largest site of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and my old Alma Mater. My brother and sister-in-law also share in the enjoyment of this campus, as they graduated a few years before me. Many thanks to my aunt for taking several of these photos, and sharing them!

Every time I step back on campus, it feels the same, in all the essentials. Sure, some flowers are planted by the chapel now, there are new buildings on the outskirts, and the rose garden did not exist when I was a student, but the main buildings, the landscape, and the feelings of the college are ever present in the same way. The students look super young, but somehow I feel like it was just a few years ago that I graduated.

Included in the delights I love to show on campus - Danforth Chapel, a tiny chapel that many probably don't notice. It has the original pews, vibrant stained glass, concrete details, and geometric elements scattered everywhere.

Always on my list of favourite spots is the Hollis Room, which was the original library. This room is not usually open, but we had providence on our side that day. Uniquely, it is a round room (so as to let sunlight into the library at any time of day) now used for seminars, speakers, and meetings. It is the perfect setting for that. They also had some original Frank Lloyd Wright designed furniture on display. I always thought those little geometric chairs looked fun, but probably not comfortable for long. FLW was an original designer of the mid-century modern. I wonder where those chairs were used, and if people thought they were comfortable.

I always hope that when I give tours people find it all as interesting as I do. I think the buildings and the campus is filled with interesting viewpoints, angles, and structures. There is no other campus like it!

On the Heart Again

This forming of heart-stuff in moulds of brain
Is helpful to the soul by which 'tis wrought,
The shape reacting on the heart again.

- George MacDonald

I emerge at last, to dive in deeply. The sun's rays hide behind dark grey clouds all day, and misty rain falls almost continuously. My kind of day. I smile, as the temperature stays down because of the welcomed clouds. It's a southern Autumn day. The scent of cinnamon and nutmeg permeates my home as coconut granola bakes in the oven.

I yield to the feeling of Sunday. The slowing down and being more intentional. But it is hard to slow down, to think, to be explorers of the heart. I recognize it is not a lane we all like to travel. But here is where I feel the pause pulling me to its gravitational field. I resist many times with lists of things to do, and all the chores staring me down when I am at home. So many times we know of the goodness that awaits us, but we hesitate to enter the realm:

I always had a feeling it led somewhere wonderful, but I was afraid to go and see, in case it didn't.
(Elizabeth Goudge)

I am one who likes a lot of time to reflect. I know this about me, and most people who know me well also know this. If there is a busy day, filled with good things, or travel, or talks, or events, I prefer to take the next few days to ponder and reflect by way of writing in my journal to record all the thoughts and stories that were and that could be. I suppose that I need to let my thoughts take a walk for a bit. As my thoughts stretch their legs, my musings become more meaningful. Immediately rising in me is thankfulness and praise to the Lord for all the good. Then, I anticipate when I can be introspective.

It doesn't always come so easily. This is a busy, fast-paced, distracting world. I believe we all need time to be reflective, so that we can be intentional in our actions and thoughtful in our intents. Fruitfulness expands as we dwell in the quiet presence of our place, wherever that may be. 

This lovely month, November, should be a month of thankfulness. Too often it becomes a rush of events and calendars that are crammed full. This heart-stuff is helpful to the soul, but it requires some work on our part - to let it sink into the heart and dwell in the shape that it is.

Lord, whether we gather papers or gather friends, let us dwell deeply in thankfulness.

Poem for Thought

Now that night is creeping
O'er our travail'd senses,
To Thy care unsleeping
We commit our sleep.
Nature for a season
Conquers our defences,
But th'eternal Reason
Watch and ward will keep.

All the soul we render
Back to Thee completely,
Trusting Thou wilt tend her
Through the deathlike hours,
And all night remake her
To thy likeness sweetly,
Then with dawn awake her
And give back her powers.

Slumber's less uncertain
Brother soon will bind us
- Darker falls the curtain,
Stifling-close 'tis drawn:
But amidst the prison
Still Thy voice can find us,
And as Thou hast risen,
Raise us in Thy dawn.

-C.S. Lewis

Most people do not know that C.S. Lewis wrote many poems, and more than anything when he was younger (pre-conversion) he wanted to be a poet. While his poetry is not well-known and not usually seen as his strength, I am always captivated and drawn into his poems. Sometimes he is over my head, deep in myth and meaning, but often I find myself pleasantly awoken to something that I admire in the best of poetry - something to muse upon, translate in my mind, and words that sink into my heart. Words that prompt reflection.

I also find it interesting how often Lewis uses feminine images or personifications in his poetry, as he is usually seen as a pipe smoking, bachelor don who didn't understand women. Since he lived in the same house with women and had guests quite often stay at the Kilns (his house outside Oxford), I suspect that he knew more about women than any of the stereotypes portray, and I think that comes out in his writings, especially his poetry.

Reading almost like a bedtime prayer through some creeping darkness, his words embrace us as we close our eyes to the tension of the day meeting night. The darkness envelopes us. Particularly in this darker time of year, when the sun sets so early. We need the reminder that we are not lost to the darkness. We are found, and once again rise in the morning to a new dawn full of graces.

Love's Well-Ordered Dance

When Love had shaped this world...

A poem called "Orchestra", by Sir John Davies has been my study for a few days. I brought it to Concord Coffee to accompany my weekend ritual of some time at a coffee shop to write and read. The words sing into my soul with meaning in each stanza. Ponder upon each section, and you are rewarded with glimpses of God's goodness, creation, and centered love that pulls everything to it.

In one section, the speaker of the poem asks if atoms are so compacted, how were they built? Did they form by chance? Keep in mind this poem was written in 1594. Even then, culture was grappling with the question of divine creator or complete chance that we exist. Davies answers, no it is not by chance, love brought the atoms together, in a well-ordered dance.

The concept of dance is the theme of the poem, as a suitor tries to convince Penelope to dance. She protests that it is a new-fangled thing, and she can only do ancient things. But, the suitor points out that dancing is as old as the cosmos because that is how creation came into being. In beautiful imagery, he provokes imaginings that the spheres and even the tiny motes (atoms) were created by dancing, as love drawing them all into their place of belonging.

The language dances; through the verses you can hear the steps and imagine the dance of beauty and light.

Both back and forth and sideways passing light,
His gallant grace doth so the gods amaze
That all stand and at his beauty gaze.

Just as the cosmos dances into His love and centers around love, so should we all do in our relationships with one another. In different ways, of course - family, friends, spouses. Each has its own beauty and sense of delight as each person brings their important, unique part of the dance, and you all circle the same Creator, in love. Each person has their own space as the movements are continuous, and the beauty of the dance is there is not cramping each other's space. You move backward, forward and around, and so do the others close to you in unison. In goodness, in gratitude, and in awareness. As we are aware of one another, we share in helping one another grow if we need some instruction. We watch with regarding eyes. To love and gently correct leads us till around the centre in love.

Hence is it that these Graces painted are
With hand in hand, dancing an endless round,
And with regarding eyes, that still beware
That there be no disgrace amongst them found.

I love the use of the word 'concord' (it seems rather appropriate that I was reading this at Concord Coffee) and how it is a heavenly treasure for us all to have different parts to play, but at the same time to have a unity with one another, all compounding in one, and with one consent all being able to agree. There is so much beautiful imagery here, it is a delight to unpack it all in thoughts and musings.

Concord's true picture shineth in this art,
Where diverse men and women ranked be,
And every one doth dance a several part,
Yet all as one in measure do agree,
Observing perfect uniformity:
All turn together, all together trace,
And all together honour and embrace.

Mood of the Evening

The mood of the evening.
Dark and candle-lit, cosy.
Book-strewn table. A good story
in process - The Herb of Grace.
The temperature dropping,
my heart lightening.
A contrast I welcome.
Getting lost in a good story. Hearing words
in my head, inspiring and thought-provoking.
Language to create and foster goodness, 
can do the opposite if we don't think.
A quiet and peaceful home
growing chilled as the hours wane.
But hours pass like minutes within the pages.
Can such little moments produce good?
Will words change things?
Oh yes, indeed. Such little things can do 
a swirling world of good.
Other small things can, too: a smile, eye contact,
a gentle touch, an encouraging word.
These are large and thankful graces, 
ever I am blessed to encounter or give.
Fall, leaves, fall in due season.
Now is the time to bundle into
such graces.

Poetic Points of View

The depth of sea and the height of air
Present contrasting points of view
In a Coleridgeian sense a place does not spare
Its landscapes, a beauty to pursue.

Often our space for view, observation,
Notes on shape, tone, hue, and curve,
Raises in us questions and speculation
In all things, love, is it present, does it serve?

I went to a poetry reading at the library the other afternoon. It was an author reading her own works (and she had 8-10 published books for sale - really remarkable!). She read many of her poems, during which, I sat watching her read, listening to her word selection and associations that she would use that were contrasting and interesting. I appreciated her alliterative descriptive phrasings. Her use of repetition was effective, especially as she talked about leaves in autumn and the abundance of them where she lived in Minnesota. Her images were abundant, and eventually led somewhere. That is the nature of poems. 

In between reading poems she would share a quick bit of wisdom about poetry. I scribbled in my journal. I love to hear other's insights into their creative process and their discoveries from their years as a writer. 

Her poems were meant to be read out load to people. Most poems are meant for that. Like good music, good poetry has a communal appreciation when you are among other poetry lovers. A young woman a little older than me sat next to me and we started chatting before the event started. She, like me, was a lover of words and writing. She had her notebook to write in, as well. I was glad I wasn't the only one who jots notes during presentations and lectures. She had just started a blog so that she can practice her writing and stay motivated. I told her that I have written on a blog for years, in order to practice and challenge myself to keep on writing.

It's small encounters like this that help remind me to keep writing, keep practicing, keep doing what I love. When we really care deeply about something, it is usually going to come out and shine to anyone who encounters you. As I left the library, I stopped to smell the gorgeous autumn roses just outside the building.