Writing Through Difference…impossible!

Posted on May 14, 2010 by kathrynrickert

This practice of writing and sharing the writing with other people is a form of exercise; an exercise in trying to connect the stuff of my head and  heart with other heads and hearts in a way that survives the differences between us.

In more than a few of the venues for my life — probably ALL of them–; there are sagas of disconnection where so and so can’t be in the same room with so and so for some unmentioned yet very strong reason. I admit to turning off the radio when certain voices and even certain tones of voice, i.e. the ones I don’t want to hear, are there. So, I am wondering if it is even possible to try to learn how to listen, write, speak and read through the differences.

Why I keep on trying to do what most normal people can esaily see is impossible, I do not know. I do know that it is not because I think that I have any ability or skill that is greater than any one else’s. If the questions would go away, then perhaps I would stop chewing on them. Until that happens I will continue to see if I can write my way toward even a glimmer of an understanding.

Why would we want to do this? crossing differences so that all of the difference remains, yet not as an obstacle but more like a bond. It is more comfortable not to have to deal with sounds, ideas and people who distress me. Surely, everyone must have some such list of people, ideas, perspectives, food, music, colors, sounds, that are unwelcome to their ears. mouth, eyes, etc.? Or does everyone do this?

I do not play in the kinds of public arenas where harsh, insulting discourse is familiar or at home. I don’t watch TV, or listen to talk radio. I hear only a rather narrow band of ideas, i.e. mostly those with which I agree and am comfortable. When the other kinds show up, which is extremely rare, I find some means of escape.

And when new ideas, or ideas that challenge or don’t fit into any of my usual categories  show up– I literally don’t know where to put them or what to do with them– then I am slowed down and caused to chew for a while.

My observation yesterday was of a tryptic: one group looking upon the world as being they way it “should be”, without noticing more than a glaring bit of injustice and innocent suffering. Another group, or possibly the same people, but on another day, had a less clear-cut view of things, with some sense that there is BOTH justice and injustice going on here and there, but the reasons for the differences not so clear. And then another group, or maybe the same people on yet another day and in another setting, saw only injustice and innocent suffering and nothing else.

So I have been wondering for several weeks now if there is any way at all to write, think, hear, read, speak across difference so as to actually arrive at the other side without doing damage to myself , to the other, or the differences. And here these differences are very clear — race, gender, ethnicity, physicality, nationally, economic level, political pov, education, personality type, religion, cultural context, experience, age….

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“The wheat is here!”

Posted on April 13, 2010 by kathrynrickert

Most Fridays I walk from the house here in Richmond Beach across Shoreline to the Great Harvest Bread store in Lake Forest Park. It is a very engaging walk in that I pass along the main road into Richmond Beach, up over the plateau between 8th NW and Aurora, across I-5 and then down into this stunning, road along MacAlear Creek in Lake Forest Park. Once I get that far, it begins to look more than a bit like the road into Cade’s Cove in Smokie Mountain National Park.

I do this walk while Gary goes to a yoga class…one for moms with little kids and a few “geezers.” I do some reading, and note-taking etc. while drinking tea and listening in on the work of the bread store. I have been doing this for long enough now that they know me by name and I have begun to feel that I belong there on Friday mornings.

The reason we go to that store on Friday mornings is to pick up the Challah, the sabbath bread, that will be part of our “special dinner” that we celebrate almost every Friday night.

Two Fridays ago there was a power outage, the store was dark and quiet. It was a good place to read, good that is until a TV crew showed up to interview Jeff (the owner of the bread store).! Since when is wind news? This interview took place maybe 6 feet away from the table where I am trying to read something…heavy.

Last Friday was a more rewarding experience; the wheat arrived.

“The wheat is here!!” It was the announcement of a great event, as though an important person had just shown up. (It was MUCH more interesting than that TV crew from the week before. The arrival of 2,000 lbs of organic wheat in a huge reusable bag, IS news. )

It was not clear to me just how it is that the wheat “arrives.”

Outside in the parking lot was a WA statewide freight truck…Harbour Freight, or something like that.  Then Jeff, the owner, went out to “get” the wheat. The wheat is 2,000 lbs of organic, whole wheat from Bridgeport WA ,  in a huge reuseable bag, complete with handles, set on a wooden palate and moved by hand with palette mover through the doors of the store into the back of the bakery. That wheat will be used to make bread for the next three weeks.

I had no idea that the arrival of wheat could be so exciting. I had no idea that wheat arrived.  It had never occurred to me that the Great Harvest bread I have been eating for the past 10 years or more comes into being by means of such an elaborate procession from Eastern Washington into the Great Harvest Bread Store and eventually up and over the hill to our house in Richmond Beach.

Maybe one does NOT want to know what goes into sausages, but I am thrilled to know what goes into this bread with which we celebrate every Friday night.

And now I have to wonder about the processions behind the rest of my food.

Posted in God at Gatherings, food, drink and holy stuff, God at Work, God in Creation | 3 Comments

Finding God on the Calendar: Holy Saturday

Posted on April 3, 2010 by kathrynrickert

Calendars are powerful pages; they have a capacity to give names and meaning to days even if everyone does not share those names and meanings with you. Holy Saturday is one of those days with a little known name, and a meaning knowingly shared by very few. But once people hear what some of us find in this day, it becomes more familiar and even useful.

For those who keep track of life according to a Western Liturgical calendar, Holy Saturday is that day after Jesus dies. This quiet, empty day is at odds with the energy of Easter Egg Hunts and shopping mall frenzy. (I know this because I went to the mall.) This is the power of a calendar; even when other folks may be oriented to egg hunts and new shoes,  it is still possible to overlay this other meaning on top of , and/ or along side of the other one. There is room for both.

(This calendrical alchemy is part of the great joy of living in a “postmodern” era; some how, even if we don’t know how, we manage to forge these amazing hybrids out of what was with what is and with what might be.)

My sense of Holy Saturday was born from many Holy Saturdays at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Seattle, where for many years we sang in an Evensong Choir which became transformed into a Choir for the Three Days at this time of year. The liturgy for Holy Saturday, according to the ways of the Episcopal Church, and as we observed it at Trinity is very brief, yet some how while colored with grief, is also beautiful in a comforting way.

The Church is empty of “holy stuff” on this day; the altar was stripped after the worship of  Maundy Thursday. There are no colors for this day, beyond black. There are no candles and we did not use the organ…rather more simple instruments of flute, voice.

If someone you love has died and you remember the day after that death, that memory may attach itself to Holy Saturday. This day-after becomes an emptiness that is some how  full of memories of someone who is not  here, who is gone and yet is also here. The emptiness of this day is filled with longing for and glimpses of what has been lost.

To me, it feels like a violation–  a matter of not fitting this time and space– to fill this emptiness with “stuff ” because the “stuff” blocks out the tenderness of the waiting and hope.

The joy and noise of the Easter Celebration as they occur in the Easter Vigil — with the lighting of a fire in the darkness, followed by shouts of “Christ is Risen!” , “The Lord is risen, in deed!” –are  welcome after this day of emptiness and waiting.

The next day, the day of Resurrection, when the world  is transformed again with memories and visions of new fire and new life and, the new shoes seem to fit better. Today the world is beautifully empty, open, and waiting for hope and love.

Posted in God at Gatherings, food, drink and holy stuff, God on the Inside | Leave a comment

Before the Fray Begins

Posted on April 1, 2010 by kathrynrickert

Spring Quarter begins tomorrow for me. I will be teaching, “Lamentations Ancient and Postmodern” for the first and possibly only time at the School of Theology & Ministry at Seattle University. Knowing how it is that academic quarters can run away with life, I have decided to offer this little post now, while I can.

God was there on the corner today, the corner of Madison and 12th. I had gone in for a planning meeting, — a wonderful meeting with people who work together well, and listen to each other — and then stayed in town so that I might go to the Tenebrae liturgy at St. James Cathedral.  (It is the only Christian liturgy to make any use of the Book of Lamentations. I am not sure that any one who did not already know the book well, would have found it in all of that singing.)

Oh, well…on that corner in front of the “self-storage”. As I walked north looking for some kind of dinner before Tenebrae, a man, who is part of a couple — tourists — stops me to ask if there is some kind of 3-day bus pass so that they can get back and forth more easily from where they are staying and downtown.

I pull out my Orca card and try to explain that after more than 4o years of trying, we do finally have light rail, and even Orca cards, but not — unfortunately – that “normal” kind of tourist transit pass that every other civilized city I know of has!!!

They were from Eugene, where they too are also trying to get light rail.

So, although I could not lead them to what they needed, we had this wonderful conversation on the street.

And then, just as soon as they stepped toward an arriving bus, a homeless man carrying a lot of stuff told me about his back problem. I had a very small amount of change in one pocket. I handed it to him, saying…that’s all I can get to for now.

He was thrilled…”It’s a lot more than most people!”

So the fact that the whole world can see that I am harmless and might even help doesn’t deter me. There is something about all of that life on the street, in front of the huge self-storage building that is simply exhilarating.

So there I am, some place in the middle of a process for moving to Whidbey Island and knowing how very much I also love the city, and the people, and the homeless guys with back problems, and the tourists.

Some place in the middle, between the guy with back-problems,  the people looking for transit passes, and the city dweller moving to an island, is the Holy One, at peace before the fray begins.

Posted in God at Gatherings, food, drink and holy stuff, God in the Streets | 2 Comments

… you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.

Posted on March 21, 2010 by kathrynrickert

“You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”  John 16:20

I have been sad for a variety of reasons— several friends who are seriously ill, others who are dying, friends who are in between things in life and living without being able to look very far ahead, and my own little list of feeling useless, etc. –and then feeling guilty for such darkness in the midst of much that is beautiful, life-giving and worthy of joy.

I hear these words above as a commandment to grieve.

Go on, grieve, there is much that calls for grief, grief is not the wrong thing to do, it is called for!

There is a form of power in grieving, in lamentation. This power source is not automatic, perhaps not even likely when we are lost in hard places.  When we do manage to come through those hard places and back into the light this happens through the opening that grief and lament accomplish inside of us.

We open to each other, and to the Holy One.

That opening is another power aspect of grief and lament.

By means of this opening we are moved towards each other, into each others’ arms, hearts, and tears.

Posted in God in Stuggle and Distres, God on the Inside | 5 Comments

An Act of Soliciting… from Life

Posted on March 11, 2010 by kathrynrickert

“An act of  soliciting which issues from people whose eyes and ears are vigilant and who are mindful of the whole body of writing from which the extract comes, and equally attuned to life: the city, the street, other [hu]men[s].”

Emmanuel Levinas, in “On the Jewish Reading of Scriptures” in Semeia Studies #43, 2003 pp 17- 31

This may not sound like the stuff of philosophers and biblical scholars, but that is where it comes from.  On the one hand it is encouraging to come across this sensibility in a scholarly journal; on the other it is discouraging to see that this idea is not new. So, why is this so rare? Why is there such a pull between the world of serious study and thought and that of a more relaxed and playful approach to life? Or, perhaps I pick up a pull that I insert myself?

I am only guessing– not knowing what else to do –that the transition or movement from the kind or quality of attention that goes into serious thoughtful work while benefitting from being anchored in this kind of hearing and sight is also some how more strenuous that what happens when one is on vacation.  I deeply enjoy both; and find it VERY hard to move back and forth between the two.

Perhaps if I could grasp what it means and feels like to see my work as what Lenivas calls “an act of soliciting” the transition would not be so jarring? “Solicitating from life” sounds like a lot more fun than studying, or work, or research or even writing. There are some slightly playful hints in the word. And the requirement for a balance between awareness of texts as well as life means that one has to actually take the time for that awareness and stop feeling guilty for the “time off”.

In the last 24 hours I also spent some time reading Power by Linda Hogan.

I was struck by how much Hogan’s portrayal of some fictional “Taiga” elders method of decision-making sounds like Levinas:

“It is the story the elders need, even though it seems untellable to me. It’s why they have called me here, to tell this thing that can’t be told, to send words into a place words have not yet been, a ground not yet broken by them. And then, if the story is right, if the story is deep, if the story offers food, and there is something saving in it, they will take this in, consider it, judge it.” p 160

So, may we be attuned with ears and eyes to the whole around us, especially the city, the streets and the people, and may we have even a small amount of the kind of patience to “send words into a place words have not yet been.”

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A Calling into the World – engineers

Posted on March 7, 2010 by kathrynrickert

When I was trying to make sense of raising three children born within 26 months, I was part of something called The Martha Movement. That reference to Martha comes from the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke 10:38-42.

Our rather small  “movement” included three of us. While each of us saw ourselves as Christians; we could also see clearly that for us the Mary role  would mean abandoning the strong calling we felt in being at home with several young children.

So, there are some of us for whom it is difficult to hear that story, because we know that for now we are the daughters and sons of Martha rather than Mary.

It appears that Rudyard Kipling also appreciated this tension when he wrote “The Sons of Martha” ( 1907). The poem is sentimental and perhaps not to 21st C tastes; but it offers a midrash — another reading that allows the tradition to move forward– which could give honor to the sons and daughters of BOTH Martha and Mary.  Kipling is clearly on the side of the sons of Martha, and all but mocks the sons of Mary. I offer the poem in the hope that, as the last line of the poem, suggests, we need all the children of both Mary and Martha.

The clue to the value of Sons of Martha is offered by the posting after the poem: this poem is used by some engineers in a ritual to commemorate the “calling of an engineer.” That too, is  service and ministry.

Follow the link to the poem and comments:

http://www.mindspring.com/~blackhart/The_Sons_of_Martha.html

Posted in God at Work, God in the Streets | Leave a comment

God is a pink-orange plant, hanging onto a concrete wall

Posted on March 5, 2010 by kathrynrickert

It is easy not to notice a way that one has passed for many years. The way to Seattle University, to NW Girl Choir when Mieke was little, etc., is a way that I have been driving for over 25 years always takes me up Aloha.

In the block just past 10th Ave East, not far from St. Mark’s Cathedral, on the left, high above the street, growing out of the yard of one of the huge, mansions is a plant. I can’t remember the name of this plant. It blooms this time each year, short, thick, stubby blossoms on bare bark branches, no leaves. The color is that pink/ orange that my mother loved and which hardly even occurs in anything else. The color seems out-of-place when it shows up on clothes, etc. but there, hanging down over the side-walk, the plant it some how Holy.

The street , side-walk and walls are very concrete, with a slight curved turn to the right as it moves toward 12th Ave. East. This  hanging holiness is some how a surprise….demanding attention, appreciation, even gratitude for this almost rude burst of color where nothing else grows or dwells.

It did not stop my inward focus…and sadness completely, but it stopped me enough so that I noticed and thought again. A powerful plant this one, hanging on to a concrete wall. Without moving, it loosened my hold enough to shake loose the stuckness, once again.

Posted in God in Creation, God in the Streets | Leave a comment

God Rides the Bus

Posted on March 3, 2010 by kathrynrickert

There is such a thing a being in relationship with people we don’t know, mostly by the fact that we are in the same place at the same time. Such “relationships” are some what optional, that is we may notice and revel in them, or sleep or read through them.

I don’t know any of the people I went downtown with this afternoon; but some how we all did that together.

“We” were such a mixture of colors, textures, languages, awakeness.

From the languages and clothing, we might have been in many other places than here in the Pacific Northwest.

English certainly wasn’t the only language spoken. I have no idea what language the beautiful woman sitting                 next to me was speaking. Once in a while she used an English word — Okay, “downtown” — while talking on her mobile phone. (She spoke  quietly so that no one else would know she was doing that. That was one of the differences between the people speaking some other language; at least one English speaker who made an appointment for Thursday afternoon that ALL of us knew all about.)

Still, it is all of this difference sitting there next to each other, riding the bus to downtown that some how feels holy, blessed, gathered. The “Holiness” isn’t in the words so much as it is in the together, in who is there. All of these people from all over the world riding downtown on Tuesday afternoon.

Mostly, the holiness is in the silence; in simply sitting next to another human being, with or without a conversation. Simply being there.

Posted in God at Gatherings, food, drink and holy stuff, God in Relationships, God in the Streets | 2 Comments

Tonasket, the dog

Posted on March 1, 2010 by kathrynrickert

…in the street, actually at the beach, that is where I found God this morning.

Blazer was this wonderfully well behaved dog who for ten years accompanied his human, Allen, every where Allen went. To the Richmond Beach Coffee Company, to the Richmond Beach Library and two trips to California.

About 6 months ago, Blazer was not accompanying Allen as he walked down 20th to the daily stops.

Blazer was the kind of dog I always greeted on my walks. He was gentle, quiet and very disciplined, with that haunting look of love in his eyes. Blazer was a PAWS dog who had come from Howling Ridge Rescue in Okanogan County.

The story I heard on the beach is that Blazer was fed rat poison laced dog treats by someone who hates dogs,            someone who is a volunteer at the Library and “fed” the dog while Allen was inside.

Once Blazer died, Allen was “grief stricken.” As with many of us, he spent more time with that dog than any other creature on the planet.

I wasn’t exactly happy not to see Blazer. Allen, with whom I had not spoken before, appeared at bit gruff. I got along better with his dog. And, when the dog was suddenly gone…more links to those other dogs I have loved and buried.

The holiness of this morning was to hear the story of how Allen found Tonasket–

a lot of patient searching, visits to PAWS. phone calls to the shelter where Blazer had come from, and much

desire for a companion creature –  -a part Anatolian Shepherd and part Great Pyrineis..mix. Tall, strong, elegant…playful. A dog who had lived on his own, according to the Wendy, the Mother Teresa of Dogs in Okanogan County…from age 2 – 8 months. He needed eye surgery, had never been in a building or car.  He did not know what stairs were, and the first time he came to Richmond Beach and looked out on all of that water, he simply sat down, and whimpered. He was afraid of that much water in one place.

Today, Tonasket is leaping, and bounding  over the logs, play-biting Bear’s head…

a glorious Creature…due to the great generosity and love of various humans.

And, now we need to pray for the deranged man who fed the poison treats to Blazer and tried to do the same to Tonasket.

That is the story for today.

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