The Inebriation of Soberness

It's only the fifth day of the Nativity Fast (for Orthodox Christians) and as I continue to struggle to embrace it as the spiritual blessing it's meant to be, rather than as strange rules that ruin the festive spirit of the pre-Christmas season, I'm thankful to read these words by St. Ambrose of Milan:

"If you offer fasting with humility and with mercy, your bones, as Isaiah said, shall be fat, and you shall be like a well-watered garden (Isaiah 58:11). So then, your soul shall grow fat and its virtues also by the spiritual richness of fasting, and your fruit shall be multiplied by the fertility of your mind, so that there may be in you the inebriation of soberness, like that cup of which the Prophet says: 'Your cup which inebriates, how excellent it is' (Ps. 23)!"

The inebriation of soberness. I want that. Maybe that's what it feels like to have a fat soul and a fertile mind. And into the mix, I wouldn't mind having a skinny body. Some of the saints write that heavy bodies weigh down our souls, making it more difficult for us to soar to heaven. I think that's true in my case, because I just feel more lazy and down-trodden when I'm overweight. And in the past, during certain Lenten Fasts when I've been able, by God's grace, to keep the fast a little more obediently, I do remember feeling "lighter" ... not only in my body but in my heart. More alert to God, and to the people around me. I wonder if having "fat bones" means stronger bones, which will help my osteoarthritis? St. Ambrose was not only a bishop, but also had the gift of wonder working, and healed many. You can read more about him here.

The trick, I think, is not to approach the Fast as a "diet"... not to have weight loss or lack of physical pain as my goals, but rather to desire to have good fruits. And if, along with those good fruits, I am perchance also granted the inebriation of soberness, that would be, as the Psalmist says, most excellent.

An Unexpected Gift

Yesterday was my bi-monthly visit with my mother at Lakeland Nursing Home in Jackson, Mississippi. If you’re new to my blog, Mom is 81 and has Alzheimer’s. For links to past blog posts about Mom, click here. But my most recent post about mom is here.

As I drove down to visit her, I received a phone call from a dear friend in Memphis. Her mother had fallen and was in the hospital. Another friend’s mother had also fallen, a few days ago, and is now staying with her daughter and family as they decide if she can return to her home, assisted living, or other options. And yet a third friend emailed me with news of her father’s recent diagnosis with cancer. This business of getting old is complicated, I think, by two things in particular, and probably a whole slew of things in general. The specific things I’m thinking of now are:

1. People are living longer, due to medical advances, and
2. Families don’t stay together as much as they once did. And other cultures continue to have extended families living under one roof, while we Americans want “our space” and to live our lives unhindered by the burden of 24/7 care of aging parents. (I do have several friends who have their elderly parents living with them. They are better people than I could ever be.)

Anyway, when I visited with Mom on Monday, she did recognize me. “This is my little girl!” she told the ladies in the wheelchairs on either side of her in the hall.

“Oh, she looks just like you!” one of them said, and I thanked her. I think my mother is beautiful.

After our usual interaction about practical matters, which are completely lost
on her now (I washed and ironed two of your blouses, Mom, and I’m putting them in your closet now. Where is my closet? Be sure you don’t lose them, etc.) I wheeled Mom up to the front lobby where we could visit and share a piece of coffee cake from Starbucks.

I entered her world, as I always do, and complimented her, again, for her landscaping work on the patio (which of course she had nothing to do with) and showed her (again) photographs of her great-granddaughter, Grace, whom she can’t fathom, as she struggles to remember even her grandchildren at this point. She can no longer form complete sentences, but speaks in fragments, sometimes apologizing that she can’t remember a word, a person, a place…

But suddenly, she smiles at me and says, “I love your hair!”

“Really? I haven’t had it this short in years. I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s very flattering.”


Smile. “Thank you, Mom. I really like yours long, in a ponytail, like you wore it when you were young."

This conversation is repeated 3-4 times, which didn’t bother me at all. I could have listened to her praise and compliments all day. They were rare for most of my life. And even though she was talking about something as mundane as a haircut, coming from someone who, when she was “in her right mind,” usually criticized me for being fat, having bad hair, etc., this was like oil being poured out on a wound. At age 58, I was finally receiving praise and approval from my mother.

If this sounds silly to you, you might as well just quit reading this blog post now. Just move along. There’s nothing to see here. But if this strikes a chord with you, please keep reading, because it gets better.

As I was about to leave, the sky was getting dark and it began to rain.

“Mom, it’s going to be thunder storming, and I need to drive back to Memphis, so I’d better leave soon.”

Mom’s smile faded, and she reached out, grabbed my hand, held it tightly, closed her eyes and prayed:

“Oh, Lord, we ask you to protect Susan as she drives. Take care of her and keep her safe….” She went on and on, for several sentences, speaking with complete clarity.

Tears ran down my face as I listened to my mother, who usually can’t speak a complete sentence, pray with such beauty and ease. I don’t remember my mother ever praying for me, with me, like that. Ever. All the years of verbal and emotional abuse that I suffered from her seemed to melt. Forgiveness gushed from my soul as I listened to her prayer.

When she finished, she opened her eyes, smiled, and kissed me on the lips.

I drove home to Memphis through the rain with no difficulties, and with an unusual peace. When I told my husband the story on the phone tonight, I said, “her prayer reminded me of my father, who was a teacher and prayed eloquently.”

“She was replaying the tape of your father’s prayers,” my husband offered. And I wept at his words, picturing my parents, doing their daily devotionals together every morning. Dad was eloquent. As an elder in their Presbyterian Church, he preached many sermons during interims when they didn’t have a pastor. And he led evangelism seminars and taught Sunday School classes. And of course I thought that some day when my mind is struggling to hold on, that my own dear husband’s prayers will be my salvation.

For all the dysfunction of my family of origin, today I am thankful for this unexpected gift of prayer from my mother’s lips. Alzheimer’s might be taking her mind, but God still has her heart, as broken and wounded as it is. I pray that He will protect her soul in the coming months and years that she might have left on this earth, and sustain the peace and forgiveness that I experienced today, by His grace.

How Can I Know?

I’m heading into a busy weekend, so I’m going to “cheat” a bit on this post. I think you’ll forgive me, when you read the words of wisdom that I’m going to “borrow” in a few minutes. You see, I’m going to the annual women’s retreat at St. John Orthodox Church tonight and tomorrow. Our speaker is Father Stephen Freeman, pastor of St. Anne Orthodox Mission in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He has a great blog, “Glory to God For All Things.” I’ve been enjoying getting to know his daughter, Clare, who is a student at the Memphis College of Art.

Anyway, Father Stephen will be speaking tonight and tomorrow on “The Emptiness of God.” I know that sounds like a strange title, but maybe the titles of his four talks, based on Philippians 2:5-7, will shed a little more light: “The Feasts of Emptiness,” “The Fasts of Emptiness,” “The Prayer of Emptiness,” and “The Fullness of Emptiness.” If you’re in Memphis and you’re reading this and want to drop by, his first talk is tonight at 7:30 p.m., and the church is at 1663 Tutwiler, just 2 blocks north of North Parkway, on the corner of Dickinson and Tutwiler. His next talk is at 9:15 a.m. on Saturday. There are prayers and meals and coffee breaks involved…. Call 901-274-4119 for more information.

All that to lead into what I’m going to “borrow” for today’s blog post. As we approach the Nativity Fast (November 15-December 24) which is like a pre-Christmas Lent for Orthodox Christians, I’m always looking for ways to turn up my (very weak) ascetic struggle a notch or two. So, when I received this link from my friend, Father Paul Yerger, last night, I thought, “that’s what I want to share on my blog.” Father Paul is quoting Father Thomas Hopko, retired Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, in his weekly bulletin from Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Clinton, Mississippi.


There are two segments here—one is a more developed exploration that Father Hopko calls, “How Can I Know God as God Really Is?” The second segment is simpler, but longer, and it’s called “55 Maxims.” If you choose to read either or both of these, please don’t think of them as “rules.” I think Father Hopko would agree with me in saying, as I learned when I was part of a 12 Steps Program, “take what works and leave the rest.” The original site where these were posted is here, and it includes a nice introduction about Father Hopko.

The rest of my weekend remains busy, as I welcome two dear friends from out of town (one from Arkansas and one from Mississippi) to stay with me, and then as I head back down to Jackson (Mississippi) to visit my mother and some friends from my high school days. I’ll be back on Monday, which will probably be the next time I’ll post. Have a great weekend, everyone!

And now, your weekend reading:

HOW CAN I KNOW?
By Father Thomas Hopko

How can I know God as God really is?

How can I know Christ as the way, the truth, and the life of God, and humanity, the light of the world? How can I know the Orthodox Church as “the household of God,” and “the pillar, and bulwark of the truth” - God’s kingdom on earth? If you want to find answers for yourself to these questions, Orthodox Christian saints, and spiritual teachers would ask you to do the following things as faithfully, and honestly as you can, and to see for yourself what happens.

1. Be ready to do whatever it takes to know. Humbly, and courageously do what you are told without questioning it in any way. Be determined to follow what you come to know, whatever the cost.

2. Pray for enlightenment, even if your prayer is “to whom it may concern.” Pray something like this: “God, if you exist, reveal yourself to me.”
If you already believe in God somehow, then pray: “God, reveal yourself to me as you really are.”
As you pray, do not look for anything. Let whatever happens, happen.

3. While praying this way, read through the New Testament very slowly, at least three times. Take several months to do this. Do not be bothered about what you don’t understand, but try to put into practice what you do understand.

4. During this time, go to Orthodox Church services if you can. Just stand, or sit there, and listen. Do not judge the people who are there, in any way. Do not De bothered about what you don’t understand. If you are a confused, and troubled member of the Orthodox Church, do not serve at the altar, or read, or sing in the choir, during this period.

5. During this time, do not lie about anything, do not consciously harm anyone, try to be kind, and good to everyone you meet, without exception. If possible, do some good work for others, even if just for an hour or two a week, as secretly as possible. Also if possible, give away some money secretly to those in need.

6. During this time, if you are not married, do not engage in any sexual acts at all, of any kind, even with yourself alone. If you fail in this, forget it immediately, and start over.

7. During this time, do not get drunk. Do not eat too much. Do not eat unhealthy foods. And try to eat, and drink less than normal, a couple of days a week, e.g. on Wednesdays, and Fridays.

8. During this time, sit in total silence, at least 10 to 15 minutes a day, or even up to 30 minutes a day, if you can, watching the thoughts that come to your mind, and letting them go with a prayer: “God [if you are there] enlighten my mind. God [if you are there] help me with this. God [if you are there] help these people who come to mind.”

9. During this time, try to speak as little as possible, without irritating others. Do not try to make your opinions known, or accepted in conversations, unless asked. Listen to others. Be attentive to their presence, and their needs. Do not argue with anyone about anything.

10. During this time, find someone that you fully trust, and share with him/her your thoughts, feelings, dreams, hang-ups, compulsions, etc. in detail. Do not, however, go into detail about sexual things, or about other people. Discuss in detail your family of origin, and your childhood experiences — good, and bad. Focus on what memories distress, and sadden you, and what memories bring you joy.

11. During this time, do a “check list” for possible food, alcohol, drug, or sex addictions, and other addictions that you may think that you have, like, e.g. rage, gambling, or shopping. If you see that you are addicted in some way, enter a treatment programme (or a support group).

12. During this time, do your work, or your studies, to the best of your ability: carefully, responsibly, conscientiously, and devotedly. Live a day, even a part of the day, at a time. Focus fully on what you are doing at the given moment.

55 MAXIMS
(2008)

01. Be always with Christ, and trust God in everything
02. Pray as you can, not as you think you must.
03. Have a keepable rule of prayer, done by discipline.
04. Say the Lord’s Prayer several times each day.
05. Repeat a short prayer when your mind is not occupied.
06. Make some prostrations when you pray.
07. Eat good foods in moderation, and fast on fasting days.
08. Practice silence: inner, and outer.
09. Sit in silence 20 to 30 minutes each day.
10. Do acts of mercy in secret.
11. Go to liturgical services regularly.
12. Go to confession, and holy communion regularly.
13. Do not engage intrusive thoughts, and feelings.
14. Reveal your thoughts, and feelings to someone regularly.
15. Read the scriptures regularly.
16. Read good books, a little at a time.
17. Cultivate communion with the saints.
18. Be an ordinary person, one of the human race.
19. Be polite with everyone, first of all with family members.
20. Maintain cleanliness, and order in your home.
21. Have a healthy, wholesome hobby.
22. Exercise regularly.
23. Live a day, even a part of a day, at a time.
24. Be totally honest, first of all with yourself.
25. Be faithful in little things.
26. Do your work, then forget it.
27. Do the most difficult, and painful things first.
28. Face reality.
29. Be grateful.
30. Be cheerful.
31. Be simple, hidden, quiet, and small.
32. Never bring attention to yourself.
33. Listen when people talk to you.
34. Be awake, and attentive, fully present where you are.
35. Think, and talk about things no more than necessary.
36. Speak simply, clearly, firmly, directly.
37. Flee imagination, fantasy, analysis, figuring things out.
38. Flee carnal, sexual things at their first appearance.
39. Don’t complain, grumble, murmur, or whine.
40. Don’t seek, or expect pity, or praise.
41. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.
42. Don’t judge anyone for anything.
43. Don’t try to convince anyone of anything.
44. Don’t defend, or justify yourself.
45. Be defined, and bound by God, not by people.
46. Accept criticism gracefully, and test it carefully.
47. Give advice only when asked, or when it is your duty.
48. Do nothing for people that they can, and should, do for themselves.
49. Have a daily schedule of activities, avoiding whim, and caprice.
50. Be merciful with yourself, and with others.
51. Have no expectations, except to be fiercely tempted until your last breath.
52. Focus exclusively on God, and light, and never on darkness, temptation, and sin.
53. Patiently endure your faults, and sins peacefully, under God’s mercy.
54. When you fall, get up immediately, and start over.
55. Get help when you need it, without fear, or shame.

When You Come to Love: Poetry on the Eve of Veteran's Day

This must be my week for all things poetic. After the amazing spiritual writing workshop on Saturday, led by the poet and prose writer, Scott Cairns, I found myself returning to Oxford again on Tuesday night, this time for “Harvest Writers Reading” at Roosters Blues House on the Square. In addition to the fact that they raised lots of money (and received canned goods) for a local food bank and the national organization, Share our Strength, which works to feed hungry children across the country, the evening was, well, magical. Danielle Sellers, volunteer organizer for the event, posted this on Facebook after the evening:

“Thank you to everyone who came the to event tonight. It was a great success. We made over 300 dollars for hunger relief and I have a truck full of cans which will be delivered to The Pantry in the morning. Good work Oxford! And thanks to all who made the drive down from Memphis!”

While I very much enjoyed the readings of my friends and mentors, Beth Ann Fennelly, her husband, Tom Franklin, and Jack Pendarvis, it was my introduction to Ann Fisher-Wirth that made the evening so magical for me. Ann is a Professor of English at the University of Mississippi, and Beth Ann Fennelly considers her a mentor. Their friendship is obvious in Ann’s volume of poetry, “Five Terraces,” which include a poem dedicated to Beth Ann: “Sphinx, Star-Gazer, Mountain: Leading yoga. For Beth Ann Fennelly.” (Ann also teaches yoga. It shows in her body, in her carriage, in her spirit.)

I forgot my camera (if you can believe that) and took a few snapshots with my cell phone, but the quality is so bad that I will spare you. This picture of Ann is from the internet, and it’ s much better than mine. Here’s an interview with her at The Best American Poetry. You can read some of her poetry here.

Ann was an army brat, and I love the poems she read about her military childhood. They seemed especially appropriate on the eve of Veteran’s Day. And after the readings were over, when I went downstairs to leave Rooster’s, I was stopped in my tracks by a group of Marines, standing at attention in the downstairs bar, singing The Marines’ Hymn with vigor and reverence. It brought tears to my eyes. Afterwords, I said to one of them, “My son just got to Afghanastan this week. He flies helicopters for the Army.”

“Tell him we’ll be joining him as soon as we can, ma’am. We’ll have his back.”

I gave him a hug, and then looked around at the circle of young men with crew cuts and shining faces. They were beautiful young men, all of them. And I wept as I left the restaurant and got into my car to drive home to Memphis.

The next day I picked up Ann’s volume, Five Terraces, and found a few of the poems she had read the night before. The one that I found myself returning to again today is called, “When You Come to Love.” I hope I’m not infringing on any copyright laws by sharing it here, and I hope it will inspire my readers to find this book, and others of Ann’s, and buy them and enjoy them for yourself. Or give them as Christmas gifts to people you love. I’ll close with


When You Come to Love

by Ann Fisher-Wirth

When you come to love,
bring all you have.

Bring the milk in the jug,
the checked cloth on the table—
the conch that sang the sea
when you were small,
and your moonstone rings,
your dream of wolves,
your woven bracelets.

For the key to love is in the fire’s nest,
and the riddle of love is the hawk’s dropped feather.

Bring every bowl and ewer,
every cup and chalice, jar,
for love will fill them all-

And, dazzled with the day,
fold the sunlight in your sheets,
fold the smell of salt and leaves,
of summer, sweat, and roses,
to shake them out when you need them most,

For love is strong as death.

Prehistoric Hypertext

Annie Dillard says he’s one of the best poets alive. And on Saturday, I sat around a table with seventeen other participants at a spiritual writing workshop hosted by St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford, Mississippi, learning from him. His name is Scott Cairns, and he teaches at the University of Missouri. His poetry and nonfiction have been included in Best American Spiritual Writing and other anthologies, and his poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Repubic, Image, Poetry and other journals. So, how did I find myself in this intimate group of spiritual writers on Saturday?

It began sometime last year, when I walked into Father John Troy Mashurn’s office at St. John Orthodox Church here in Memphis. Father John is our pastor. His coffee table is often laden with beautiful books from monasteries all over the world, some with beautiful iconography. No matter what spiritual urgency leads me to his office, my eyes always scan the table when I first sit down. On that particular day, they fell on a small volume of poetry by Scott Cairns—Love’s Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life. Picking it up, I asked Father John, “What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s a book of poetry. Cairns is Orthodox… he took a number of mystical writings and adapted them in verse. You’d probably enjoy it, although I prefer the original texts myself.”

Thumbing through, I find familiar ground, like one of my favorites, Saint Isaac the Syrian. “Can I borrow this?”

“Sure. He’s also written a book about his pilgrimage to Mount Athos. I actually like that one better.”

The conversation held no surprises. Father John holds tenaciously to the words of Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers of the Church, and doesn’t like people messing with them too much. We both share a deep love for Saint Nikolai Velimirovich, for example. Many years ago Father John shared Saint Nikolai’s Prayers by the Lake with me. They are probably the most beautiful spiritual poems I’ve ever read. So, it’s not that he doesn’t like poetry. I think it’s more that he prefers the original to an adaptation.

That conversation was on my mind as I listened to Cairns on Saturday at the workshop. Although he spoke about various aspects of poetry, his emphasis on a form which I wasn’t familiar with made the biggest impression on me. It’s called ekphrasis. It’s a Greek word, and it refers to poetry that’s written about a prior text or a work of art. Cairns said ekphrastic poetry should “give voice to an artifact… making meaning with narrative about something the piece of art might be saying.” Here’s another link with some examples. And yet another.

Later, when I was having lunch with my friend, Michelle Bright, (in the center in the picture) a graduate of the journalism program at Ole Miss, I found that this is a fairly well-known entity—Michelle had a teacher in junior high school who taught her students about ekphrastic poetry. I was impressed and a bit envious. Another of our writing group friends, Patti Brummett, also joined us for lunch. Patti is just a freshman at Ole Miss, but spent her junior and senior years of high school at the Mississippi School for the Arts in Brookhaven, where she focused on literary art. She blew us all away with her lyrical prose writing at the Yoknapatawpha Writing Workshop back in June. One night, at open mic, she gave a performance akin to da-da poetry, keeping the beat with quiet finger snapping. She could have been a beat poet in Greenwich Village in the 60s.

During the workshop, Cairns read examples of poetry—his and others—written about passages of Scripture. He was drawn to Judaism early in his spiritual journey, “because of the Rabbinic attitude towards language.” There’s a genre called Midrash, which Cairns describes as “humble and earnest,” which “presses the different Biblical passages for new revelation.” He said that Christ’s parabolic explications of Scriptural truth are very much like this. But, I’m thinking, Christ can do what he wants with Scriptures because, well, He’s the Son of God, right? But for mere mortals to mess with God’s word in this way…. I’m not sure how I feel about it. But I listened with an open mind as he continued.

“Language not only operates retrospectively, but also operates prospectively.” He talked about how we “write to discover—we collaborate with God for the future.” Using the modern day image of computer links that we click on to open another page, he said: “Opening the Scriptures, opening the Word, is like pre-historic hypertext, where each word has that kind of agency, to open another page.”

The concept of “opening” intrigues me. Cairns spoke of its use in Scriptures, like in the Gospel of Luke (24) when Jesus encounters two disciplines on the road to Emmaus and later one of the disciples says, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

He “opened the Scriptures to them.” In the Orthodox Church, only a priest can preach the homily (sermon) in the Divine Liturgy. I once asked why, and was told that since the homily is supposed to be about the Gospel reading for the day, only a priest can preach on the Gospel. It’s a sacramental aspect of the Liturgy, I think, and this reading and preaching on the Gospel is called the “washing of the water with the Word” (Ephesians 5:25).

Remembering that Cairns is, like me, a convert to Orthodoxy, I couldn’t help but wonder how our Church would view some of his thinking. Sitting around a table with mostly (exclusively?) Episcopal writers, I thought about how the two Churches view art in different ways. I felt a sort of freedom in their company that I sometimes don’t feel in my own church. It’s not that I want to make a change—I love my church—it’s just that I felt such camaraderie there. I was sitting next to Taylor Moore, the rector of St. Peter’s. Taylor was dressed in blue jeans and a tweed-ish blazer, looking for all the world like an author at a book signing. (Orthodox priests, on the other hand, always wear either their black cassock or a black suit with a collar.) Next to Taylor was his wife, Nancy, whom I met at a Creative Nonfiction Conference in 2008, when we were both in Dinty Moore’s critique session together. Nancy and I had an immediate bond… and I don’t think it was just because we are married to ministers. We’re both artists, writing memoir. Her husband, Taylor, was given a Lily Foundation Grant to travel and read poetry. And some of the money from the grant enabled him to invited Cairns to lead a workshop at his parish. I love the way the Episcopal Church honors art.

As Cairns spoke, I thought about one of my favorite books, The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri Nouwen, in which Nouwen has a chance encounter with a reproduction of Rembrandt's The Return of the Prodigal Son, sending him on a long spiritual adventure. His reflections were in prose, rather than poetry, but I think his interactions with the art were ekphrastic.

In another of Nouwen’s books, Beyond the Beauty of the Lord: Praying With Icons, he chooses four famous Russian icons: the Holy Trinity, the Virgin of Vladimir, the Savior of Zvenigorod, and the Descent of the Holy Spirit, and spends time with each of them in an interactive way.

And so I posed the question that’s been on my mind for some time, to Scott, at the workshop: “As an iconographer, I’ve thought about trying to write prose reflections, or maybe even poetry, about my own personal encounter with icons. As Orthodox Christians, how should that be approached, or should it be?”

This is where Scott explained more about our interaction with art, and the importance of synergy—where we work together with the Church and Christ to bring about redemption. I was thrilled to learn that Cairns has written, and published, a poem about icons. “Two Icons,” which is in his volume Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected (which has icons on the cover.) “Two Icons” is his reflection on the icons of the Nativity of Christ and the Dormition of the Mother of God. I read the poem later, after purchasing the book at Square Books and getting Scott to sign it for me. “Two Icons” was truly a gift to me. It’s difficult to capture Cairns’ art with just an excerpt from this poem, but here’s a taste: (please get the book and read the entire poem… and all his poems!)

“…even here the radiant
compass of affection
is announced, that even here our several
histories converge and slip,

just briefly out of time. Which is much of what
an icon works as well,
and this one offers up a broad array

of separate narratives
whose temporal relations quite miss the point…."

I’m not sure how I will proceed in my own efforts at ekphrasis, but I will proceed.

I actually made a stab at this a few years ago, but I didn’t know it was ekphrasis. I had fallen in love with a painting at an art auction on a cruise boat. It was by an Armenian painter, Martiros Manoukian, who also did icons. The painting was an angel, with half of its face and body done very much in the style of a Byzantine icon, and the other half in abstract. The “iconic angel” is holding a paintbrush, and appears to be painting the abstract side of himself. The name of the painting was, “Yesterday, Tomorrow.” I asked the broker, who knew the artist, what Manoukian’s interpretation of the work might be. She said she thought Manoukian was trying to capture the spirit of art in Russia, and how it’s changing. While I found that interesting, it was not at all the same thing I felt as I gazed at the painting. Please indulge me here, as I share my “ekphrastic poem” about this painting. It’s not good writing (I have no training in poetry) but it will illustrate, I think, this idea of interacting with art in the way that Scott was teaching us on Saturday. I’m including a picture of the painting that I got off the internet later.

The Angel's Shadow
©Susan Cushman, 2005

Bodiless creatures without human form
Have never had shadows
Have always been bright
In the light
Of the Son.

Like Byzantine icons of angels and saints
Of Christ and His Mother
And others whose fight
For the right
Has been won.

Jungian wisdom has taught us to own
Our shadows, our dark sides
To help us delight
In our plight
'Til we're done.

Until we have faces, until we can see
We still need the contrast
To balance the light
It just might
Help us run.

Restoring the image that broke when we fell
Artists and poets must
Work through the night
And the blight
Of each one.

Martiros' angel did not feel complete
So he painted his shadow
And then he felt right
For his flight
Had begun.

Holding our opposites, loving both sides
Manoukian teaches us
To make it right
Not to fight
But be one.


At one point in the workshop, Scott made a reference to Rilke, whose poetry I love. In my research for this blog post, I ran across an article, ironically by a woman named Jenifer Cushman, called, “Beyond Ekphrasis: Logos and Eikon in Rilke’s Poetry.” Rainer Maria Rilke was greatly influenced by the Orthodox Church in Russia, and especially icons.

A brief excerpt from (Jenifer) Cushman’s article:

“The claim that Rilke’s poems can be read like Orthodox icons assumes a deeper kinship between the written and visual arts than simple ekphrasis…. The potential for art to impact life directly links theories of ekphrasis to Orthodox icon theology, for the function of the icon is to make the scriptural word palpable, to occasion a change in perception, and ultimately the behavior of the believer. It was this aspect of Orthodoxy in particular that appealed to the young Rilke, charged with enthusiasm for spirituality he attributed to the so-called ‘Slavic soul.’”

Cairns didn’t really talk much about music, but I was thinking about it as he spoke. Especially about one of my favorite CDs, Kris Delmhorst’s, “Strange Conversation.” This album seems to me an ekphrasis-in-reverse, in that she takes the works of well-known poets like Herman Broch, e.e. Cummings and George Eliot, and interprets them as song. When Cairns spoke about ekphrastic poetry as “listening in on the prior conversation and then joining it,” I immediately thought about Delmorst’s song, “The Invisible Choir,” adapted from George Eliot’s poem, “The Choir Invisible. First, I’ll give you an ecerpt from the Eliot poem:

“This is life to come,
Which martyr’d men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffus’d,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose magic is the gladness of the world.”

-George Eliot (1867)

And now, here are the lyrics to Delmhorst’s adaptation:

Invisible Choir
lyrics adapted from: George Eliot, "The Choir Invisible"

Oh may I join that invisible choir
I want to join that invisible choir
Made of those sweet immortal voices
That lift our hearts up higher
I want to live after I die
I want to live after I die
I want to make a bit of beauty
And leave a little light behind
Or be the balm to someone’s sadness, the song for someone’s gladness,
A cup of strength to someone in their fight
Or maybe sweeten an existence, inspire a persistence,
Or breathe the breath that makes the spark of love burn bright
Oh may I reach the heaven most high
I want to reach that heaven most high
And be a little star a shining
In someone’s darkest night.


I have these lyrics printed off and taped to the wall by my computer. I read them almost every day, kind of like a prayer. They are a reminder to myself that my life, and more specifically my writing, can be, as Delmhorst says, “the balm to someone’s sadness, the song for someone’s gladness, a cup of strength to someone in their fight.”

Scott Cairns and the dear group of writers at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Oxford, Mississippi, were that for me on Saturday. They were indeed “the song for someone’s gladness,” and they did, indeed, “sweeten an existence” and “inspire a persistence.”

And let me not forget to thank my dear friend, Neil White, for inviting me to this intimate gathering. The workshop wasn’t really open to the public, but Neil said he invited me “because you’re Orthodox and you’re a good writer.” I’m humbled by Neil’s words, and grateful for his friendship. It was great being with him and his wife, Debbie on Saturday. We enjoyed a stroll around the square after the workshop, and I am re-charged for the work at hand, whether it be the next chapter of my memoir-in-progress, another essay, or…. Maybe an ephrastic poem about one of my favorite icons. Hmmmm

And now for a postscript to this (already long) post: at The Maker's Market in front of the Lyric Theater, I met Dawn Delatte (yes, that's her real name!) and purchased the lovely "cityscape" votive holders from her. Here we are at the Market. We became Facebook "friends" and I learned that Dawn and her husband have been visiting Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Clinton, Mississippi. What a small world. I felt a bond with Dawn, instantly. I'm sure her art was part of it, but a big part, I believe, was her spirit. Maybe those are the same thing. Anyway, It was a gorgeous day in Oxford, and I'm thankful for the writing workshop and friends, both old and new.

And here are the cityscape votives on our mantle.

Until the Real Thing Comes Along

I've been struggling with what to write today. There are lots of reasons for my hesitancy—traveling, house renovations, depression—and honestly, I think I’m just bored with my own words. And so I think, if I don’t like my writing, why would anyone else want to read it?

But there’s more to it than that. At the bottom of my emptiness is a beast roaring to be fed, and I think his name is Ego. Ego is always starving for something—attention, food, drink, praise. And Ego has found a new drug. It’s name is Facebook.

All this came strongly to mind during a conversation I had with two friends his past Saturday. We were talking about the social media. Here’s how it went:

Friend 1: I think you should write shorter status updates on Facebook and save your energy for your blog posts.

Me: That’s probably true… in fact, I should probably write shorter blog posts and save my energy for my essays and memoir-in-progress. But writing is such a lonely task, and I crave the instant gratification I get from Facebook.

Friend 2: But does it isolate you even more from friends? How many people that you correspond with on Facebook are people you talk with on the phone or see in person regularly?

Me: Very few. In fact, my phone rarely rings, unless it’s a salesman or repairman, or an out of town friend or relative. And almost all of my personal interactions with people are initiated by me. So, basically I’m lonely and feel unloved and so I reach out on FB because it gives a sense of intimacy.

Friend 2: But is it real?

Me: Sometimes. Like when people I would never see in person (because they have lots of little kids and live far away, for example) and I have chats on FB… that’s kinda nice.

Friend 1: I like it for that reason, too. I’m not saying not to do FB, but not to write such long posts or so many. I’d rather read your longer pieces on your blog.

Friend 2: But do you think people spend all this time on FB instead of having personal encounters?

Me: Hmmm. Possibly. But I think the greater question is still one of real vs. false intimacy. Of course you can have false intimacy in person as well, but I’m wondering if an imperfect personal relationship isn’t better than the isolation that internet addiction can bring. I mean, after I spend hours on email and FB (and sometimes Twitter) I don’t come away feeling better. The “feel good” only lasts briefly, kind of like a sugar or carbohydrate high.

Now, if Friend 1 and Friend 2 are reading this, they might be thinking that’s not exactly what they said, but I think I’ve captured the gist of the conversation. And their words have been in my mind all week. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make a clean break with the sugar and carbs. I might have to come down gradually… setting limits on how many times a day I get on FB, or how long I spend each time. And get back to writing a serious blog three times a week. And I want to write two more essays for publications with due dates at the end of November and December. And then there’s the book, the most difficult task at hand. Well, next to personal relationships of course, including my relationship with God.

As I was starting this post, for some reason the old song, Until the Real Thing Comes Along,” came to mind. I love the way Billie Holiday sings it. I wonder if the way I feel about the social media isn’t a bit like her words:

“If that ain’t love, it’ll have to do, until the real thing comes along.”

Traveling With Pomegrantes

“Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds that Hades offered her in the underworld; this guaranteed she and her mother would be separated a third of every year; and that was how winter came into the world.”

If you’re not into mythology, these words of Sue Monk Kidd’s in her latest book, Traveling With Pomegranates, might be a turn off for you, but I’m finding diverse treasures in this wonderful volume which she penned with her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor.

I’ve been a fan of Kidd (the mother) for several years now, finding inspiration, even if I didn’t agree with everything she wrote, in The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. And her novels, The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair are both favorites of mine. And then I read an essay she wrote for All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality, in 2006 and I continued to feel a strong connection with her.

So when I heard that she and her daughter, Ann Kidd Taylor, had written a book together, I was intrigued. They traveled to Greece and later to Paris together, but the book is more than a travelogue… it’s a candid journal of their spiritual lives and their relationship as mother and daughter.

Sue writes about her struggles with moving into middle age, concerns about her future, her writing, her changing place in the world as an “older woman,” in mythological and spiritual terms:

“As I contemplate the fertility I hope for in my fifties and beyond—the regeneration of my creativity, the refinement of my spirituality, a new relationship with my body, the rediscovery of my daughter, indeed an inner culmination I cannot fully articulate to myself—I realize it cannot be plotted, orchestrated, controlled, and forced to bloom.”

How many middle-aged women (like me!) have felt this same way. Feel this same way right now? But who would think to tie it into a piece of fruit?

“The pomegranate in the myth symbolizes both death and life…. Maybe it is a feminine thing, I don’t know—but whenever I’ve managed to find new consciousness and renewals of my work, my relationships, and myself, it has been by going down into what seemed like a holy dark.”

A holy dark. The prophet Moses met God in a cloud of darkness. He doesn’t always appear to us in shining light. And He often appears to Sue in symbols…in peacocks and pomegranates and old women and green journals.

While reading the book, I began to be drawn to pomegranates, and bought some at the grocery store, along with a little pamphlet that shows how to “open” them. My friend Caitlyn cut them open and carefully removed the seeds from the membrane, and rinsed them for me. I sprinkled a little sugar on them and devoured them over the next couple of days. Tart and sweet at the same time. And, they have three times the antioxidant ability of green tea or red wine! (Here’s a little more about the history of pomegranates if you’re really curious.)

I even bought a pair of earrings when I was in Oxford this past Tuesday because they reminded me of pomegrantes, and of the necklace that Ann bought in Greece, which she writes about in the book. (The earrings are hanging on the side of the cup of pomegranate seeds in the picture on my kitchen counter.)

And maybe I’m taking this too far, but on Friday when I chose my Christmas cards for this year, I noticed that they come from a publisher named Pomegranate!


It was fun to read that Ann worked for skirt! Magazine in Charleston at one point, since skirt! has published three of my essays, my favorite of the three being “Super-Sized Enightenment.”

I’m intrigued by Sue’s relationship with the Mother of God, and how it has changed and grown throughout her writing. In her travels she visits the house in Ephesus where Mary, the Mother of God, is said to have lived after Christ’s crucifixion and ascension. She writes about the “human Mary” and the “divine Mary” and how she has been coming to “understand her not only within a biblical and human context, but also as … a spiritual presence able to hold large archetypal mysteries.” Gazing at paintings of the various stages of Mary’s life on in the Louvre, she makes parallels between those stages and the stages of all women’s lives, and of her life as a writer. I love the meaning she draws from everything… it’s like she experiences life through an amplifier or a magnifying glass, hearing and seeing it louder and larger than most of us do, and bringing that vision to her work as a writer for all of us to enjoy.

And her spiritual journey encourages me to be open to the different ways in which God works in our lives. Watching others approach an altar, make the sign of the cross and pray in the “Mary house” in Ephesus, Sue writes:

“It has been a long while since I’ve made a concrete petition, but as I linger, waiting for my own moment with Mary, it is faith I wish for. I wish to shape my needs into specific, well-considered words and offer them to my own particular image of the Loving Mystery, believing like a wise child.” She’s struggling with a desire to learn to be still, to just “be,” and yet an almost manic need to always be writing, always be “doing.” But there in “Mary’s house” her opposites come together and she prays for courage to find a new creative voice: “the words contemplative writer form in a slow, measured way….they give me the barest glimpse of a wholeness shining behind my divisiveness, the possibility of union.”

There it is again… that wholeness that I also desire, that Madeleine L’Engle wrote about so eloquently.

Joy. Depression. Darkness. Light. Mystery. Intimacy. Boundaries. Dreams. Poetry. Creativity. Spirituality. It’s all in there.

Oh, and Sue also talks about certain things that inspired her novel, The Secret Life of Bees, and I was fascinated by that… by the way the bees and the Black Madonna and the story of the little girl and the three strong Black women in the house and all that came together. She sees symbols in every day life and brilliantly turns them into stories. Great reading for writers. Great reading for anyone. Enjoy.

What Kind of Children Do You Have?

I fell in love with Três Taylor’s work about ten minutes before I met him. I was at the River Arts Fest in the South Main district of downtown Memphis on Sunday, with my friends Caitlyn Manning and Brandon Maas. Cruising up and down South Main, enjoying the music and wine and gorgeous weather, I was drawn to Três’s booth by the colorful panels on the outside of his tent. Tall, skinny, primitive images of men, women, and monks. Yes, monks. Some were painted on boards and others on roofing paper.

Once inside the booth I met Três and his lovely wife, Helene, and that sealed the deal for me. Helene was beautiful, gentle and energetic at the same time, and began to pull panels from here and there and arrange them on the ground to help me with my selection. And then Três appeared and smiled at me and I felt like I had stepped onto a stage where the musical “Godspell” was being produced and Três played the part of Jesus.

You can read his story on his website, but let me just say that he was a biochemist for twenty years before a spiritual experience moved him to become an artist. His works show all over the world, but I love that he and his wife give back to the community by organizing group mural projects in some of the poorest communities in the country, in rural Alabama. You can read about them here. I just had this soul connection with the Taylors immediately.



I’ve been looking for some sort of “representational family portrait” for a long time, and these panels are the closest thing I’ve found. I chose one to represent each member of our family, which was so much fun.




When I explained my quest to the Taylors, Helene asked, “what kind of children do you have?” and I said, “two Asian and one white,” which seemed to double everyone over with laughter. I didn’t get it, until Helene caught her breath and said, “I meant how many girls and how many boys! I’ve never had anyone give an answer like yours before… it just never occurred to me!”

I guess I don’t think of gender as a “kind” of child, or adult for that matter. But maybe race isn’t a “kind” of person, either.

So what kind of children do I have? Hmmm….

I have a beautiful, smart, generous, intuitive, artistic, athletic daughter who happens to be South Korean in race and female in gender. But even as I write these words, I’m thinking that being Korean and female are part of what “kind” of person she is. It’s just that those aren’t the aspects of Beth that come to mind when I first think of her. If someone says, “Beth,” I don’t think: “Asian” or “girl” …. I think beautiful, smart, generous, etc. Beth is in her final year of architecture grad school, having majored in biomedical engineering in undergrad….

One of my sons, Jason, is charming, witty, loyal, kind, protective, loving, spiritual, artistic, athletic… and he also happens to be Korean in race but is male in gender. Jason is married to a beautiful woman named See, and has a precious three-month-old daughter, Grace.

My oldest son, Jonathan, is handsome, intelligent, literary, athletic, strong, and affectionate, and he happens to be white and male. (And on his way to Afghanastan soon… he flies helicopters for the Army… please keep him in your prayers this next year!)

I didn’t start out this blog post thinking I would write so much about my kids, but it just sort of happened organically☺

After the selection of my five art panels was complete, Caitlyn found another artist she was drawn to, so Brandon and I helped her select a painting for her new apartment. I didn’t really get a picture of it, just a shot of the artist showing her several options…

And Brandon looking on.







It was just a joy to be out in the sunshine watching the people on sidewalk cafes and looking down from their warehouse condo windows or riding the trolley or horse-drawn carriages. Musicians and artists and food vendors and neighbors and visitors.... a delightful festival!

The children’s activities were also wonderful.

Several artists were demonstrating their work, like Brad Troxel, whose paintings I really liked.








When I got home with the panels it took a while for my husband and I to figure out how to hang them… our headboard is curved, so I bought two long panels and three short panels with that in mind. We even hung the one that represents him (in the monk’s robe, since he’s a priest) over his side of the bed, and the one that represents me (woman with the red dress on!) over my side. The “little monk” is Jason because it reminds me of when he visited Korea and came back with a ceremonial robe. He put it on and made a customary bow to his father and I. The tall guy in the hat is Jon because it reminds me of his “cavalry” hat the helicopter pilots wear with their dress uniforms, and the body language looks like the playboy he sometimes can be. And then there’s the dark-haired mysterious beauty, Beth.


I’m thrilled with how they look in our newly painted bedroom. Can’t wait to get the bedspread made and it will all come together.







Like the bathroom, which is now complete with shower curtain ...










and art work. (This painting is by a Vietnamese artist. I bought it in Little Rock a couple of years ago.) Yep, this house is definitely getting some soul. And all kinds of people.







Here are a few more photos from the River Arts Fest. Enjoy!

The Soul of a House

We bought our current home in 2001, three years after my father’s untimely death at age 68. My mother was already showing signs of Alzheimer’s, and I knew it was time to move her out of her home. Remembering how I felt twenty years earlier, when my folks moved my grandmother into a nursing home—I protested loudly that they should move her in with them—I told Mom I wanted her to live with us. I didn’t ask, I just told her. And then we bought a house with a mother-in-law suite for her, on the ground level and everything. Only problem was, she refused to move in with us.

Turned out to be a good thing for her and us… she lived happily in an assisted living facility for three years, making new friends as she was gradually forgetting old acquaintances. And then she fell and broke her hip and we had to move her to a nursing home, one year ago. This is old news… if any of you haven’t been keeping up with my blog for very long, there are lots of posts about “Granny Effie,” that you might enjoy… I think they are kind of summarized here.

That was a long introduction to what I started out to write about in this post…. our house. I’ve never liked it. At all. It’s well-built, in a nice neighborhood, a nice size, but… something’s missing. When I was trying to describe this to a friend once, I said, “it has no soul.” The architectural design (or lack thereof) is part of the problem. But I think over the eight years that we’ve lived here, my attitude of dislike has rubbed off on the house.

About two years ago we found another house in the same neighborhood with lots of soul and tried to buy it, but we couldn’t sell this one, so we had to let it go.We decided to watch the market for a while, and eventually do some upgrades to make it competitive with other houses for sale in its price rang and try again.

So here we are…. Replacing formica countertops with granite (it’s called “Verde Peacock”) and the old sink with a single under-counter stainless sink and brushed nickel faucet. The old electric oven was replaced with a new GE Profile Convection oven and gas stove top and ta-da! New kitchen.

The master bathroom only had a shower, so we had a jetted tub installed, new tile floor and shower wall, old brown vanity cabinets painted white, all fixtures replaced with brushed nickel, and again, ta-da! New bathroom. (Not finished yet, so pictures will come later. Here's a "before." Notice the brown cabinets, no cabinet above toilet, and the shower which you can see in the mirror.)

Oh, and we had the walls painted in the bath, bedroom, den, kitchen and below the chair rail in the dining room and front hall. The colors have cheered my heart as much as the new countertops and appliances… most of the walls were off white for eight years, and I LOVE COLOR!

In the den we chose “Dusty Miller” and in the kitchen a lighter but similar shade… sometimes looks grey, sometimes green, sometimes blue.
For the bedroom we chose “Palomino Gold” and for the master bathroom, “Island Sand.” It all flows together beautifully! Tomorrow they’re painting the front door a deep green… the exterior is red brick and the door has a glass panel, so the green will frame it. It’s in the same family as the green beneath the chair rail in the front hall, so the door “introduces the interior of the house” as you enter. That’s what Bob Graham, one of our builders told me, when he helped me choose the color.

Bob and his partner, Barry Cantrell, have been fabulous. They did the “demolition” work and most of the “heavy work” while we were in Florida last week. At the end of every day, Bob sent me an email with an update of the day’s work. He always included a line or two about Oreo, our 20-year-old cat, and how she greeted them at the door, followed them from room to room checking on the work in progress, and then finally settled for a nap in my yellow chair in the den or up front on the guest bed. I had been worried how she’d do with all the construction and us being gone, even with Caitlyn “house-sitting” … she dropped by every morning and evening to give her food, water, clean litter box, brush her, bring in mail and paper, etc. It takes a village.

So when we got home from Florida Monday night we were blown away by the dramatic difference the work was making. The next day when Bob came over with paint samples for us to choose for the bathroom, we did a walk through together and he smiled gently and said, “It’s getting some soul, don’t’ you think?”

I smiled back and nodded.

It’s not that I think we’ll want to stay here instead of looking for a different house with more office and living space and less bedrooms, on a different street, with an attached garage, etc… it’s just that I’m through putting the house down. It’s like the Skin Horse said when the Velveteen Rabbit asked him about being real:

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

Maybe that’s also how houses get souls. I think I’m starting to love my house.

Yesterday and today I was out shopping for new towels, bath mats, kitchen stuff, and fabric samples for a custom-made bedspread. Came home with over a dozen samples! Oreo is helping us decide.

I think her favorite is the same as Bob's. Husband hasn't weighed in yet.

Found this precious canvas painting of a cat that matches all our colors... she'll probably end up in the bathroom, right over Oreo's water bowl.

Here are a couple more shots of the kitchen and front hallway. Will add the bedroom and bath later. Thanks for reading!

Attention Walmart Shoppers

“People don’t want to pay $25 for something they know.” David Magee, author of 12 published books (in just 8 years) and owner of Rock Point Bookstore in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was speaking at the Escape to Create Fall Writers Conference at Seaside, Florida October 14-16. His point was that it’s important to find the angle (about a story, person, or event) that no one else saw coming and then understand and frame the story in a simple and clear manner. David is “in love with the romance of a small book package,” adding that “you don’t have to be clever—it’s so clear.” That was on Thursday.

On Friday morning, David joined the five other speakers at the morning session and shared the news he had just heard: Wal-Mart is going to start selling $25 hardbacks for $9. Silence fell over the room of writers, readers, and booksellers gathered in the lovely home in Seaside for the two-day conference. This could be a death-knoll for so many in the writing and publishing business. The news cast a dark shadow over David’s otherwise outgoing countenance. I immediately thought about Richard and Lisa Howorth, owners of Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, and Corey and Cheryl Mesler, owners of Burke’s Books in Memphis.


Cheryl’s brother-in-law (the world of Southern literature is small) is Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts and another of the presenters as the E2C Conference. Neil is also an excellent teacher, and his talk on the art and craft of memoir was worth the price of the conference fee on its own. (At the bargain price of $125, each presentation was worth the ticket.) I could write pages about his talk, but I’ll try to condense the best parts for you:

The difference in memoir and biography is that memoir is “a glimpse into a life,” whereas biography usually starts at birth and follows ‘til the end. Neil says to “start your memoir where your inspiration is.” What makes memoir work (it’s selling like hotcakes while literary fiction is struggling) is a many-faceted discipline. At the top of Neil’s list is “intimacy,”—“it’s as if you are whispering in the ear of the reader.” Following close on the heels of intimacy is conflict—“where the protagonist wants something desperately and there’s something in the way.” Neil’s third nugget is “the creation of scene”—and he expounds on the age-old “show, don’t tell” tenet by saying, “don’t tell the reader what to think.” He wrote 150 scenes for his book, and then “strung them together with exposition.”

Details was next on his list, and he emphasized the importance of using concrete language instead of “universal” language.” So, instead of saying, of the leprosy patients living in the same facility in which he was incarcerated, that “they were shunned by the outside world,” he gave specific instances of how that happened in their lives. Next on his list was vulnerability—the importance of the writer examining his own prejudices, with help from a friend, therapist, or even group therapy. Creating a sense of urgency, even when writing about the past, is also crucial in memoir. So, instead of saying, “I remember feeling this way,” show how you felt by writing as though it’s happening right now. He spoke about not writing for revenge or out of anger at those who might have hurt you. “It’s not about others—it’s about you.” Which leads to credibility—how do you gain this with you readers? Confession. Which is tied to the search for meaning—why are you writing this?

Neil spoke as eloquently about the “Art and Craft” of Memoir next. This was, in some ways, the most valuable part of his talk for me, because he separated the “art” from the “craft” for us in specific ways that I hope to try to emulate when I get home and back to work. The “art” part should happen in a free, childlike manner, where the writer leaves the inner critic behind and let’s the imagination go.. ranting and raving, not worrying about how it looks. “It should be messy.” I think I struggle with this process because I don’t like things to be messy. I tend to edit as I go, and it stifles my work.

Once the “art” is done (one page, one chapter, or the entire book) let it sit for a while and then pick it back up and do the “craft” part—the critiquing, the shaping, the analysis. This is where you “gain clarity that throw you back in the artistic realm,” according to Neil. At this point you “find balance—if you were angry, find peace. If you hate a character, find a redeeming aspect….” You should still keep it to yourself for a while, telling yourself, “I may never show this to anyone.” The puzzle starts to fit together and the work of revision begins.

I’ve only touched on the gems Neil shared with us, and I’ll add his encouragement to “know you genre—read great memoir and personal essays,” which I devour regularly; and his words about practicing the art and craft of writing every day, even when you don’t feel like it. “If you don’t show up every day, you have no idea what you might have missed.”


Returning to David Magee, it was fun to learn that his father, Dr. Lyman Magee, was one of my husband’s professors at Ole Miss (biology) in the 1960s. But also that David was adopted, and his search for his birth parents is the topic of a story that he actually got a book deal for but backed out because “the time wasn’t right.” Instead, he wrote a business book (How Toyota Became Number One) and it started his career. None of his 12 published books are his “soul story,” but he says “you can drive what’s in your soul with stories other than memoir—you can immerse yourself in any subject, golf, business, etc., ad bring what drives your memoir-to-be to another topic by putting a piece of yourself into it.” Great advice for struggling memoirists who aren’t ready to put all the personal stuff out there yet.

Growing up in Oxford, David was always intrigued with the racial issues, and asked himself, “how does this division of people bubble to the surface?....” His latest work, The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss, is a 230-page jewel that has a lot going on, “candy in a wrapper,” as David says. Mayfield is a gay, black artist in Mississippi who is invited to work as a janitor in the art department by art professor, Stuart Percy, ends up studying under Percy in secret and eventually becomes a successful artist. David always wanted to write a civil rights book, but he wrote 11 other books first and he’s glad he waited because he found himself “at the right place” to right this story six years later. “The story of Mayfield and Percy isn’t really the story—it’s a device through which to tell the story.” My mind is still spinning with ideas of different ways to spin the stories I’m trying to write, personal, spiritual or regional.


I was equally blessed by the talks given by the playwright, Rich Orloff, the poet, Erin Belieu, and the musician and songwriter, Melanie Hammet, although their genres are different from my own. Good story telling is good story telling, and good writing crosses all genres. Erin’s words about poetry are so true of fiction and nonfiction: “A good poem should have mystery, and intelligent and emotional authority.” Maybe a difference is in the reader’s understanding: “You can read a poem and say, ‘that’s awesome” even if you don’t ‘get it.’” Even though Erin believes that anyone can write a great poem, I still feel that poetry it a gift. (One that I don’t have, by the way.)


Melanie Hammet is a songwriter, but she also served as a city council person. She’s written songs about urban planning, which she defines as “how we live on the land with each other,” that are priceless. I loved hearing Melanie sing outside Sundog Books as well as during the Conference sessions. She talked about synesthesia—combining acoustic guitar with urban planning, or with songs for children ages 7-12 who are grieving the loss of a loved one.

She contends that songwriting is not all that different than nonfiction writing, in which cross pollination, or unusual collaboration infuses the work. “You see blue and you know what it tastes like.” Her emphasis on commitment to the work mirrored the other writers’ encouragement, with the added challenge to “make a vow with your work: we torment our relationship with our writing…. We nag it, saying, ‘why don’t you put the toilet seat down, writing?’”

Fiction writer Scott Morris who has led two of the three Yoknapatawpha Writers Workshops I’ve attended at Ole Miss, gave a wonderful reading during his session, a short story called, “Watching Homer,” about a pair of special needs kids in high school. Scott’s writing is beautiful, literary, like poetry and music and fiction all rolled into one. It was a joy to listen to him read. Scott is a true artist, as unaffected by all the “issues” that drive so much that’s out there today. I love what he said during the panel that all six writers led, “The Art and Realities of the Writer,” when the discussion drifted into how hard the writer’s life is: “There’s a rumor going around that all these problems can be cured with medication,” which drew lots of laughs.



Rich quoted Hemingway as saying, “with each novel I write, I die a little,” and
then Erin said, “bring the pain.” Neil’s experience was different: “I absolutely loved writing the story…. You got to find some redemption in the story.” And Melanie summed it all up with her wit: “Let’s not take ourselves so seriously—just write a piece of shit and get on with your life.”
















I’m leaving the beach tomorrow with all this inspiration and information spinning around in my head. With several writing projects on front and back burners, I’m going to try to look at them through the prism of the wisdom I gained from these incredible three days at the Seaside Writers Conference.

It’s always hard to leave the beach, with its pristine beauty, even when it’s 50-something degrees!

What a joy it was to have my writing group buddies, Doug McLain and Michael Risely and their wives, Charmaine and Jennie here with me and my husband in this amazing house on Seagrove Beach. We’ve had a great time at local hang-outs, like the Tarpon Club (Bud and Alley’s) where we enjoyed music and dancing with Neil, Scott, David, and new friends from Seaside.

We ate delicious fish at Lake Place and Café 30-A and the best wine and sushi anywhere at the Café Rendezvous.

And yes, I added to my collection of leather and pearls made by Wendy and Jean Noel Mignot. Loved that Wendy stopped at my table (they also own Café Rendezvous) to make some adjustments to the earrings I bought on my last visit, just before she hurried away to pick her up daughter from cheerleader practice. She returned with her son, who had been catching redfish. Yes, they live a charmed life, but they work hard at their crafts.

Also found some funky boots at the Perspicasity shops in Seaside.

As I finish this post, hubby and I are watching the Giants (go Eli!) and Saints game with a view that’s to die for. It’s half time, so I’m going to take a book and head down to the water’s edge. Hope to get into Seaside to some wi-fi to post later today. If not… Monday night back in Memphis. So, here we are again at the Rendezvous Wine Bar (which has wi-fi)....

Can't get many photos posted here... go to my Facebook Page to see more pics....

Alzheimer's and the Jesus Prayer

Three hours into my nine-hour drive down to Seagrove Beach on Monday, I stopped at Lakeland Nursing Home in Jackson, Mississippi, to visit my mother. I took her a couple of her blouses which I had taken home from my last visit to wash and iron. They do her laundry at Lakeland, but they don’t iron, and sometimes I just want to see her looking the way she looked most of my life—well groomed. She resists their efforts to cut and set her hair in the beauty parlor, so it’s longer on each visit, and Monday it was pulled back in a pony tail, which actually reminded me of her younger days. They had applied a little blush and lipstick, and she looked pretty.

She was already in the dining room, waiting for lunch, when I arrived at 11 a.m. She was sitting at a table with three other women, but they weren’t talking with each other, and Mother seemed to be staring into the distance, the way old married couples do sometimes, when they fall into a comfortable silence. I broke the spell when I touched her shoulder and she burst into a grin.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Well, hi, Susan!” (I breathed an inward sigh of relief. On each visit I wonder if she’ll know me.)

We kissed on the lips. She is one of only about five people that I kiss on the lips. Three are girlfriends. One is my husband. Like Julia Roberts said in “Pretty Woman,” it’s intimate.

I told her about the blouses, which I had put in the closet (really an armoire) in her room, and she said, “blouses?” I touched her sleeve and said, “blouses, Mom, you know, shirts. I washed and ironed a couple for you.”

“I haven’t been able to find the closet for a long while. Are you sure it’s there?”

“It’s in your room, Mom. The ladies who help you get dressed know where it is.”

“Oh…” her voice trailed off and she looked away from me, at the woman sitting to her left. “Have you been here long?”

“Forever!” the woman answered.

“But have you met my daughter?”

I made conversation with the other three women for a few minutes, and then returned my attention to mother. “I brought you some of those cookies you like so much.”

“Oh?” Her face brightened. “Where are they?”

“I put the in your room.”

“Give them to me now!”

“But, Mom, you’re about to eat lunch. You can have them for dessert after lunch. Will that be okay?”

“Have what for dessert?”

“The cookies, Mom.”

“Oh, are there cookies?” She looked around the table for cookies. I just smiled at the other ladies, and re-explained about the cookies to Mom.

But as I was continuing my drive to Seagrove, I thought about how I would feel some day, if I’m in her shoes. Her mother had Alzheimer’s, so I’m thinking it wouldn’t be unlikely. It’s one of those things that keep me up at night some times. Is there something I can do that will ease the transition, the pain of loss of a mind? Suddenly it hit me—the Jesus Prayer.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”

Short version, “Lord have mercy.”

I taught it to my father when he was dying with lung cancer.

I watched my friend Urania say it at numerous visits to the cancer clinic, and again during her final days at home before her death two years ago. If it can bring peace during physical illness and impending death, can it also bring peace as Alzheimer’s wages war with the brain?

Known as the “prayer of the heart,” ascetics have practiced it for centuries, the most skilled amongst them attaining a level of spirituality in which the prayer goes on “on its own” in the heart, almost automatically. Even if the lips aren’t saying it aloud.

About fifteen years ago, when I was in a particularly intense period of my life, spiritually, I “practiced” the Jesus Prayer fairly regularly during the day for a number of months, and I found it did bring peace. But then I got lazy and left it behind for a while, picking it back up for a few weeks in 2001 when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had to have numerous tests and surgery. I’m a real wimp about pain, and it really helped.

And this afternoon, at times when it was pouring down rain on the highway, so much that I could barely see the cars and trucks in front of me, I found the words returning to my lips… and hopefully, to my heart.

So now I’m thinking if there was ever a case for making the Jesus Prayer a part of my heart forever, it’s the thought of Alzheimer’s eventually grabbing hold of my brain and gradually shutting it down, trying to steal my soul in the process.

Not the blog post you were expecting from me at the beach, huh? But I’m penning this at 11 pm on my first night here, alone in a beach house, waiting for four friends and my husband to join me, two on Tuesday, two more on Wednesday, and hubby on Thursday. Tomorrow I’ll get out for a walk on the beach, and hopefully spend some time relaxing under an umbrella. We don’t have wi-fi at the beach house, but I’ll find my way to a coffee shop Tuesday afternoon and post this and check on Facebook and emails. I’ve got a Blackberry, but I don’t like to use it for “large format” activities☺

There are four televisions in this beach house, but I have all “noises off” now… and even with the French doors to the deck closed, I can hear the waves. The rhythm of the ebb and flow of the tide is a perfect accompaniment:

Lord Jesus Christ… Son of God… have mercy on me… a sinner.

Postscript: Instead of the coffee shop, I’m posting from Rendezvou Wine Bar in Seaside, Florida, one of my favorite places in the world. The beach photos from Day 1 are on my Facebook page… but maybe more will appear him in a few days. Just didn’t seem to fit with this post. Except for maybe this one, as I post... after a lunch of spinach salad and Savignon Blanc....

Dare We All Die?

About once or twice a month I have a restless, almost sleepless night. It seems I can sustain some minimal degree of emotional health for a few weeks at a time and then it catches up with me. Wednesday night was my most recent bout of toss and turn. And, as usual, I can tie it to at least one practice that probably leads to this exhausting cycle: I was on the computer and/or watching television late at night. Even reading some books right before bed can trigger it. When I was a child my parents gave me tranquilizers for a period of time, and the doctor told my mother not to let me watch television, read, or “do anything mentally stimulating” for an hour before bed. So… what’s a person to do for that final hour of the evening? I think even if I was into knitting or some other such craft and tried to sit and do that for an hour, my mind would still be racing with Soul Chatter.

I have thought about the fact that on Wednesday night, just a few hours before bedtime, I listened to a talk given by Joshua Armitage at St. John Orthodox Church on “The Unseen World,” with special emphasis on guardian angels. Joshua reminded us of the importance of praying to our guardian angel just before sleep, because of the increased activity level of the demons during the night. And so, yes, I remembered to include the prayer to my guardian angel in my evening prayers that night. But something was already stirring.

It was still stirring the next morning at our monthly women’s meeting, where Father John Troy shared some letters of St. Nicolai Velimirovich. (Side note: Watch this brief video on Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog, for a few lines of St. Nicolai’s poetry. I love this line, from his Poems By the Lake: “Only someone who sleeps in Your heart knows rest.” Fr. Stephen will be speaking at our next women’s retreat at St. John, November 13 and 14. More on that later.)

One of the letters was about suicide. We talked a little about how suicide is a rejection of the life God gives us. But I was wondering about the “little suicides” we commit every day—like eating too much, which can cause death from obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, and a plethora of other things. And drinking too much, which kills the liver and other parts of the body. And smoking, which has taken the lives of five close family members through lung cancer.

At lunch with two of the women from the morning study group, I continued to explore these thoughts, and to try to figure out what I was anxious about, what might have contributed to my sleepless night. As I talked with these two dear friends, I gave voice to the soul chatter from the night before: aging, pain, fear of failure, lack of fulfillment in my creative endeavors, scattered family members (children and grandchild in three states, son going to Afghanastan next month, mother in nursing home with Alzheimer’s.) Trying to balance my life as a wife, mother, friend, “Church lady,” daughter… and (it seems to always come last) writer, continues to be a challenge. And it seems the harder I try to write, the louder the negative voices scream in my head: “You’re wasting your time. Why don’t you do something more valuable, like volunteer work?” I have backed off from so much of the “volunteer work” I’ve done most of my adult life, in order to try to write, but then I feel guilty about the “good things” I’m not doing for others. My wise friends suggested a balance… write and do volunteer work. If I can organize my time wisely maybe that would work. I think what’s at the core of all of this, though, is my struggle to embrace the art as something valuable, something worth offering to others.

Later that day, I found myself returning to the wisdom of one of my heroes—Madeleine L’Engle. L’Engle died two years ago, September 6, 2007. (I posted about her death here.) One of her books, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, often sits atop the leaning tower of books on my bedside table. Yesterday I returned to the wisdom between its covers.

L’Engle was a gifted writer but also a woman of faith. Like Flannery O’Connor, she had no desire to be cast as a “Christian writer,” but rather as an artist, a writer, who is also a Christian. Her spirituality, her faith, infused all her work. She often turned to the wisdom of the ancient Church Fathers and the mystics and the monastics for help. And from her faith comes these words that are helping me today:

“The creative process has a lot to do with faith and nothing to do with virtue, which may explain why so many artists are far from virtuous—are, indeed, great sinners. And yet, at the moment of creation, they must have complete faith, faith in their vision, faith in their work.”

So, I don’t have to be good, or virtuous, to have faith in my work. This helps. But then she raises the bar when she writes about life… and death:

“Art is an affirmation of life, a rebuttal of death. And here we blunder into paradox again, for during the creation of any form of art, art which affirms the value and the holiness of life, the artist must die. To serve a work of art, great or small, is to die, to die to self…. That is our calling, the calling of all of us, but perhaps it is simplest for the artist (at work, at prayer) to understand, for nothing is created without this terrible entering into death. It takes great faith, faith in the work if not conscious faith in God for dying is fearful. But without this death, nothing is born…. Dare we all die? Willingly or unwillingly, we must, and the great artists go further into this unknown county. Great art. Great artists. What about the rest of us little people, struggling with our typewriters and tubes of paint? The great ones are still the best mirrors for us all because the degree of the gift isn’t what it’s all about…. The important thing is to recognize that our gift, no matter what the size, is indeed something given us, for which we can take no credit, but which we may humbly serve, and, in serving, learn more wholeness, be offered newness…. We all feed the lake.”

I believe that a desire for wholeness is at the bottom of my aching, of my longing. And I believe my own dividedness, brokenness, is at the bottom of my pain. And I believe, at some level, that the way to heal that brokenness and find wholeness is in the sacraments of the Church. But I also cling to L’Engle’s assertion that our work, as artists, can be part of that healing:

“To be in a healthy state of mind means to be whole (not divided into left and right), and if to be whole means to be holy, then wholeness is what the Christian artists seeks. It is what the Christian seeks. It is what any artist seeks.”

Why Does Sobriety Have to Come With Feeings?

That’s the question Augusten Burroughs asked in his 2003 memoir, Dry. It’s a gritty description of his life before and after sobriety. And the recovery part(s). His descriptions of each stage are graphic:

“I take the first sip of my martini. It feels exactly right, like part of my own physiology.”

Juggling a successful career in advertising with a love for friends that keeps on giving, Augusten is finally forced to face down his demons or lose his job. In rehab, his roommate tells him on the first day, “It’ll take a few days, but you’ll see. You’ll get it.” And Augusten is thinking, “This is probably exactly what the Reverend Jim Jones said to his followers as he stirred the Kool-Aid.”

I agree with critics who say Dry is better, deeper, than Running With Scissors. Others call his work “darkly comic” and “funny-sad,” and those are apt descriptions. He’s also scathingly honest, a trait I appreciate in memoirists.

“Sober. So that’s what I’m here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven’t felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plants are wilted, weary from being so green…. It’s the feeling of something dying.”

I think creative types fear sobriety the most. Or anything that might dull their creative edge. As I continue reading Kathleen Norris’ book, Acedia and Me, I discover that she and her husband, both poets, shared that fear:

“If writers are often stymied by depression or addiction, many are also wary of psychoanalysis, psychotropics, and twelve-step programs as potentially detrimental to their art. Therapists find that some writers use treatment as an excuse to procrastinate, while others fear that the sessions will drain them of material they should be using in their work.”

(By the way, if you haven't been reading my blog, I have an earier post in which I began my reflections on Acedia and Me, here.)

Granted Norris and Burroughs have different stories to tell, but there are common threads running through both writers’ works, although they search for answers in very different places.

Burroughs search invariably leads him from relationship to relationship. His best friend is dying of AIDS. His latest love interest is from his rehab group, which isn’t allowed. In his struggle to find peace in the early days of sobriety, Burroughs admits:

“I’m worried that all of the inner mess that was channeled into alcoholism is now channeled into other disturbing rivers. That I’ve drained the lake to flood the city.”

That’s how I’ve felt my whole life, as I’ve watched the various vices take turns with my soul, flinging me from the depths of despair to the giddy heights of temporal pleasure and back, sometimes in less than twenty four hours. But like Connie May Fowler and several other writers said at the Southern Women Writers Conference, writing can be our salvation. It can literally save lives. Norris says, “Storytelling itself can be a redemptive act for the writer.”

But then Norris talks less encouragingly about poets, asserting that she has learned from her reading of Aldous Huxley’s “Accidie” that “poets had not been well for some time.” I know the same can be said for many artists and musicians, but her words about the poets—the prophets of our world—are disturbing:

“Two poets idolized by many young woman of my generation, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, had, shortly before their suicides, churned out four to six poems a day. In the posthumously published Winter Trees, Plat described her brain as ‘a gray wall… clawed and bloody,’ and asked, ‘Is there no way out of the mind?”

Her words reminded me of how Burroughs felt near the end of his book, one year into his sobriety: “Sometimes I feel like I have hives in my brain that I can’t scratch.”

See, that’s how I feel almost every day… until I have a drink. Sometimes a creative project can scratch the itch, or a trip to the beach, or a beautiful liturgy at Church, or news that I’m having another essay published… it’s the butt-in-chair-stare-at-computer-screen-and-write stuff that’s hard. And of course the laundry and errands and household stuff. And even prayer--especially prayer. And the rejections, the failures, the watcher shouting in our ear, “You can’t write. Just quit and do volunteer work.” (Nothing wrong with volunteer work, by the way. It’s possibly a higher calling.)

Anyway, Norris returns to the poets’ demise:

“What Plath and Sexton demonstrate is not that writers must nobly endure self-destructive compulsions, but that no artist can maintain such a high level of creative intensity. When one has bee writing in the heights of what Sexton termed ‘a fugitive frenzy,’ one needs a way to come down safely. Taking a walk may work, but other means can be more tempting: tranquilizers, marijuana, and above all, booze…..Going up, coming down, and paying a steep price.”

As Norris’ poet-husband, David, struggled with health problems, mental and physical, he used alcohol to fuel his endeavors, and “panicked at the thought of having to give up drinking—he felt he would then lose his creativity.” And both David and Kathleen opted not to use psychotropic drugs to ward off depression. “We believed that our ups and downs were part of the creative process, and we didn’t want to risk being flattened emotionally, which could stunt our work.”

I have bi-polar friends who must face that same fear daily—the risk of being flattened emotionally—until their meds can be balanced, along with their emotions. My father-in-law had this struggle, finding more misery in the middle, where everything was gray, than in the ups or the downs, where he felt more alive.

A big difference in Burroughs and Norris is that Norris tried to reconcile her writing with faith, whereas Buroughs pretty much left God out of the picture. He did recognize the “plain, almost monastic process of waking up, taking a shower, going to an AA meeting and then doing this again and again, day after day until an amount of time had passed it became not a struggle, but a routine.” It’s a little sad to me that at the end of the day he didn’t have something bright to hold onto, and I wonder how’s he doing now, six years later. I’m not sure that AA meetings alone would sustain me. In fact, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t.

Norris, on the other hand, greets a crisis as “a gifting” and follows a wise physician’s advice: physical exercise and spiritual direction. A Benedictine monk once encouraged her to read the Letters of Flannery O’Connor, so she’s seems to be finding her way with spirituality and art. And she doesn’t claim that there’s only one way—quite the contrary:

“Depression has many causes: genetic disposition and chemical imbalance in the brain, as well as unwelcome change, notably loss in all its forms. Can we agree that there are many treatments as well? My husband thought himself incapable of prayer; at the crisis points of his life, Freudian psychiatry brought healing. One might say he had faith in it. For me, a measure of healing has come less from psychology than from religion, specifically the ancient practices of prayer and psalmody.”

When I read her words, I instantly went to my Psalter and began reading and remembered the joy found in those pages.

What Burroughs and Norris have in common is their understanding of the necessity of somehow embracing the monotony of daily life, whether it be living without alcohol or without something else exciting to diffuse the boredom. Norris didn’t battle alcohol (at least not by page 112, which is as far as I’ve gotten) but the demon of noonday is an equal match.

When her husband was in a crisis a friend called and asked if she had something to take, herself, and she said, “I have the Psalms,” and the friend said, “And they’re enough?” “Yes,” I replied… I felt that I needed my wits about me, and needed to feel whatever I was to feel.”

Reminds me of one of my favorite Iris Dement songs, “I’ll Take My Sorrow Straight.”

At one point when Norris’ husband agreed to a low dose of Prozac (he felt it “took the edge off his despair”) Norris shared a passage with him from Louise Bogan’s memoirs, which she writes from the window of a psychiatric ward…. She found a rare peace when she left the hospital, and wrote:

“I don’t know where it comes from. Jung states that such serenity is always a miracle . . . . . I am so glad that the therapists of my maturity and the saints of my childhood agree on one thing.” I like that.

I know this is long-I’m almost finished for today. But I think it’s important to say that in the next chapter I read, Norris is moving in the direction of hope, on several levels, and I can’t wait to keep reading. She learns that “there is an existential monastic view that the opposite of acedia is an energetic devotion,” and that she (like me) is “especially susceptible to acedia… because I harbor within myself the virtue of zeal.” I understand her battles with what she calls “the devil I know,” and how she at some times “prefers slavery to freedom.” She quotes the stoic, Seneca, who observed that people “love their vices with a sort of despair, and hate them at the same time.”

So, how I am finding hope in her words? I’ll close with a long quote, but it’s worth it, so hang in there:

“Both ancient and modern writers speak of the profound serenity that can come after a period of torment and trial…. Depression at its worst is the most horrifying loneliness, and from it I learned the value of intimacy. The pain is real, but remedy may yet be found. For Evagrius, the struggle with acedia is worthy because it leads not only to peace but also to joy. If, as the scholar Christoph Joest has written, acedia for Evagrius was the culmination of all the temptations, then its absence is the fulfillment of all the virtues which find their ultimate expression in love. That is why the struggle is worth our while.”

Postscript: I just found out that Jill McCorkle is reading and signing her new book of short stories, Going Away Shoes, at Burke’s Books here in Memphis at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, October 19. I’ll be driving home from Seagrove that day, so it’s doubtful I can make it, but if you’re in the area, GO. And buy her book. She’s a great writer and reader. I met Jill at the Conference on Southern Literature in Chattanooga in April. (near the end of the post) Just wanted to give everyone in the area a heads up!

I Feel a Personal Essay Coming On...

One week after the Southern Women Writers Conference, I'm home and inspired. But not ready to draft the next chapter of my memoir right now. Instead, I'm trying to listen to my muse and follow its lead, and right now it's saying, "It's time to write another personal essay!"

Maybe it's the instant gratification that essays provide, as opposed to slugging away at a longer format, like a book. But I think I'm also finding the genre a good fit for my creative efforts. If you haven't read any of my published essays, look at the left-hand column of this blog and you'll see a list of them. You can click on most of them to read them online, even the ones published in print, except for one, "The Other Woman," published in Mom Writers Literary Magazine, print only. I think my favorite one is "Blocked," which was a finalist in the 2007 Santa Fe Literary Awards. Oh, yes, as I look at these I can tell... I feel a personal essay coming on! But which muse to follow? Here are the options I'm considering:

The College English Association invites papers and creative works-in-progress on the theme of voices in Creative Nonfiction Writing for the Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, March 25-27, 2010. They seem to be wanting a personal essay, literary or "new" journalism, or oral histories and ethnographic essays, as well as essays that experiment with form through double and polyphonous voices. If I follow this muse, I need to submit a proposal that falls under one of these categories... by November 1.

Or... I could enter the Creative Nonfiction contest, "End of Life Stories," and submit an essay that explores death, dying, and end of life care, for a collection to be published by Southern Methodist University Press. I've already done the research and penned a lengthy piece, "Watching," which came together from blog posts during the last days of my dear friend, Urania's, life, as she was dying from cancer. The piece flashes back to my father's death in 1998, in which I helped nurse him through his final days. This piece may be calling me the loudest, as I have been with four close relatives and a close friend during their death. Hmmmm, and this one isn't due until December 31. (Note: I met CNF Director, Lee Gutkind, in October, 2007, at a CNF workshop in Oxford, and again at a CNF Conference in March, 2008, also in Oxford. These are good people.)

And then there's the new journal, Southern Women's Review, which is seeking more creative nonfiction pieces right now. I met their managing editor, Helen Silverstein, at the Southern Women Writers Conference last week, where I picked up a copy of their premiere issue. Lots of poetry and a few stories, essays and photographs. I especially liked Danita Berg's essay, "Letting Go by Beginning Again." You can read it online by clicking on the cover image of the premiere issue and then scrolling down to page 44. I'll have to get really busy to make their October 31 deadline for their January 2010 issue....










On a lighter note, I could submit another essay to skirt! Magazine (they've published three of my essays in the past) for their December issue, which they are calling "The Inspiration Issue." They expand the theme: braindchild, epiphanies, Eureka moments, innovation, intuition, imagination, what inspires you, talent, originality, Muses, thinking outside the box, unexpected results, when lightning strikes, fostering creativity, method or magic, problem-solving. Due November 1 with quick gratification--to be published in December. That one's tempting.... especially after success getting these three essays published by skirt!:

"myPod" in October, 2007.



"Burying Saint Joseph" in January, 2008.





"Super-Sized Enlightenment," in November, 2008.















skirt! won five GAMMA awards at the 2009 Magazine Association of the Southeast’s GAMMA Awards in Atlanta, GA on April 30, 2009. Just saying, in case anyone thinks that just because it's free and is called, "skirt!" that it isn't a serious rag. Think again.

So, looks like I've got my work cut out for me, especially for October and November. Better get to work soon, since I'll be gone October 12-19 to Seagrove Beach, Florida (my favorite destination) for the first Seaside Writer's Conference and a few extra days at the beach! And for those waiting for my next installment of the continuing review of Acedia and Me, it might be a while. It's not that I'm not still struggling with acedia, because I definitely am, but now that I've outlined these writing projects that I want to tackle, the demon seems to be running away again.... seems like work is a good antidote. And fresh air! What a gorgeous day... must get out for another walk today. And then back to the computer....

The Obedient Imagination

It was my good fortune/fate to serve on one of seven panels scheduled for the first “slot” (9:00 – 10:30 a.m.) on the first morning of the 2009 Southern Women Writers’ Conference in Berry, Georgia, September 24-26. I say “fate” because there were lots of folks still arriving, finding their way (on this 26,000-acre campus!) and registering on Thursday morning. The early birds were then dispersed amongst these seven panels, with only a small handful landing in the “Multimedia Room,” Ford 128.

The small “audience” lost significance as Tom Dasher of Berry College met the three of us—myself, Amy Pardo from Mississippi University for Women, and Eleanor Hershey Nickel from Fresno Pacific University in California—and we began to exchange stories. I laughed as Tom told us that he got caught up in reading my blog in preparation for introducing me, and accidently pushed something that began to print it… and only after 50 pages or more soaked up and wasted his ink did he, in frustration, unplug his printer.

Amy, Eleanor and I had corresponded by email prior to the conference, and it was really fun to participate with them on this panel. Amy is quite the techy, so when the audio-visual guy (who was very nice) could make our jump drives connect to the system (we both had Power Points slides) tiny little Amy—in her shiny polished cotton pants, heels, and sleeveless ruffled blouse—just pulled the equipment out of the cabinet, got down on the floor and found the right ports for our jumps and voila! We were good to go.

Amy presented an academic paper about Sarah Ann Ellis Dorsey, a 19th century Natchez, Mississippi, writer. I thought about Barry Hannah’s critiques of our writing during our Wednesday afternoon sessions in Oxford this summer, when he would say, “Who cares?” and try to teach us that we have to make our readers care about the characters I our stories. Amy asked, “Why care?” about the privileged society of the 19th century south, noting that Dorsey was the first woman in the Academy of Science and was a model in breaking with privilege I order to create community… in order to actually help the oppressed.

Eleanor, a pop culture specialist, became interested in Jan Karon’s “Mitford novels” and the way she represents the South. Her comments on the “ambivalent regionalism” in Karon’s novels reflects, in my opinion, her lack of actually experience living as a Southerner. Or maybe there are actually sub-cultures in the South, because my experience growing up in Mississippi is completely different from the community Karon describes in her Mitford series, set in North Carolina. I did love one of her comments: “The South is diminishing due to consumerism, bad taste, and urban sprawl.” Lord, save us!

I followed Amy and Eleanor’s presentations, and the small group listening seemed to appreciate my essay, “Are These My People?” and I even ran into some of them at other venues throughout the weekend and they had told others about it, so that was a good sign.

One of my favorite keynote speaker of the weekend followed close on the heels of my panel. Just before lunch on Thursday, Allison Hedge Coke, mixed-blood (native American Indian) poet and memoirist, gave what would end up being my favorite presentation of the entire conference. I loved her poetry, but purchased her courageous memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer: A Story of Survival, and have only had time to read the first few pages, but I’m so hooked. Allison and her sister were raped and otherwise abused as children, and learned to dissociate. Their mom was schizophrenic. Allison said writing memoir is like shadow-boxing. I get that.

Next, at the Thursday lunch session, Melissa Fay Greene spoke. This is a woman who has adopted five children in addition to having four biological children. One of her adopted sons, Jesse, is from Bulgaria. The other four are Ethiopian orphans who lost their parents to AIDS. Her book, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Her Country’s Children (2007) is the story of Haregewoin, Teferra, an Orthodox Ethiopia woman who lost her own children but opened her home to over 300 foster children over the years.

One of the afternoon panels that I chose to attend was “The Violent South,” and included Liz Thompson from the University of Memphis, presenting her thesis-in-progress: “Some Unheard of Thing: How Incest Became Convention in Southern Women’s Writing.” Liz and I hooked up later for lunch (panelist Casey Kayser from LSU and a friend of hers who studied at Rhodes in Memphis (sorry I can’t remember her name) and I was intrigued with her journey researching fiction and nonfiction writers who were abused. That seemed to be a theme all weekend.

Another panel, “Writing and Sustaining Domestic Arts,” included a presentation by Laura Sloan Patterson from Seton Hall, “Fashioning Another South and Another Self: O’Connor, Welty, Walker and the Creation of Clothing.” Her insightful comments about Flannery O’Connor’s dressing habits made me want to revisit my first effort at memoir (Dressing the Part) ... maybe some day….

During a coffee break Friday morning I got together with Jackson, Mississippi, native, Ellen Ann Fentress. We both grew up in Jackson (she still lives there) but she’s about five years younger, so we never met until the conference. Ellen Ann won the Emerging Writers Award for Creative Nonfiction (yep, the one I entered, but didn’t win, so I was happy a fellow Jacksonian won!) and we had a great time sharing our journeys.





Another encounter outside the official conference schedule was coffee later Friday night with Rebecca Phillips. I’ve known Rebecca’s parents and grandparents for years—her grandfather, Fr. Andrw Moore, is an Orthodox priest, and his wife, Dannie, and I have been friends for many years. Rebecca is a sophomore at Berry College, so it was fun to hear about her life and about the school from a student’s point of view. What a great school! Now I’m promoting it for friends who have teenagers who are beginning to look at colleges.

Friday’s luncheon speaker, Judith Ortiz Cofer, brought yet another element to the table. As a native Puerto Rican now living in Georgia, Judith has published lyrical prose and poetry as well as a book about writing. Her presentation was full of humor and inspiration. “Our journey towards ‘casa,’—home—defines us, and we are not whole and complete until we find that home.” Her words confirmed the importance of my current search for “my people.”


Another panel I enjoyed was “Flannery O’Connor’s South: Race and Religion.” Sara Gordon, an expert on O’Connor, brought a lot to the table at the panel, as well as giving a plenary session just before dinner on Friday. I was happy to sit with Sarah at lunch on Friday, where she autographed my copy of her scholarly work, Flannery O’Connor: The Obedient Imagination.






One of Sarah's comments really hit a chord with me: “We must recognize that we are broken if we are going to be fixed—there must be an element of the physical present—which is true in all of O’Connor’s works. She rejects the Manichean heresy, that material things are sinful.” I also love this about O’Connor… the way she infuses her art—her fiction—with her very physical faith, which is what I’m trying to do with my own writing. She has set the bar high.





At dinner Friday night I was blown away by keynote speaker Connie May Fowler. I’d been chatting with Connie May on Facebook for a while, but had no idea how dynamic she would be as a speaker. I haven’t read her work yet, but she’s now on my list—especially her memoir, When Katie Wakes. Another battered/abused woman, Connie May founded Women With Wings Foundation, and has done much to help educate and heal this epidemic in our world. In her fictionalized memoir, Before Women Had Wings, she talks about how her craving for sugar is bred by the sadness in her life.

She talked about how she learned to dissociate when violence was happening, but also to pay attention to the details, so that she could write them. Her writing—her art—has been her healing. But as a child she disappeared into books. The world of books provided not only an escape but a role model and hope. One of her favorites was Strawberry Girl by Lois Linsky, about a poor family in Florida who, although they were poor, had love. She imagined herself in that family. Her sister, on the other hand, has chosen to block out her childhood memories, and has starved herself with anorexia.

One affect of abuse is to make a woman feel worthless, and even guilty when we experience success. When Connie May’s book, Before Women Had Wings, was made into a movie by Oprah (and Connie May was asked to write the screen version) she thought, “I don’t deserve to be there… to get to do this.”



Connie May encouraged us, as women and as writers, to “operate as an artist first” or your story won’t be successful.” Her words reminded me of Scott Morris, who told us at the Yoknapatawpha Writers Workshops in Oxford, Mississippi in 2008 that we have to “get up and above our lives” in order to write them as art. She said that “stories save lives and we must keep writing but do it as artists and not as confessors.”

She also told us that “your abuser tries to steal your voice, but speaking or writing is the way to find your voice.”

One more concept that she shared is that of having a “shadow book”—someone else’s book that puts you into the river of shared life with others on the journey. I really identified with that, and now Connie May’s memoirs will join my growing stack of “shadow books.”

Open Mic at 333 on Broad on Friday night was so much fun… about two dozen writers read from their work while we enjoyed drinks and the ambience of this quaint little bar. Afterwards some of us enjoyed the music and dancing upstairs, a perfect break from the intensity of an incredible but “heavy” weekend. I’ll post about our overnight visit with relatives in Atlanta and our time in Savannah (where I’m posting from now) with our son, Jonathan, soon… but for now I’ll end with my renewed resolve to do as my heroine, Flannery O’Connor said: “You have got to learn to paint with words.” And I think Sarah Gordon would add... to do it with an obedient imagination.

When in Rome

I had never heard of Rome, Georgia until a few months ago when Jennifer Horne and Wendy Reed, editors of All Out of Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality,encouraged me to submit an essay to the Southern Women’s Writers Conference at Berry College… in Rome, Georgia. Jennifer and Wendy are the editors who have accepted my essay, “Jesus Freaks, Belly Dancers and Nuns,” for their second anthology of All Out of Faith, and I had met them at the Southern Festival of Books in 2006 and again at Southern Writers Reading in Fairhope, Alabama, in 2008. Did anyone notice that the word, “Southern,” appeared 5 times in this paragraph? There’s a theme here….

My essay—“Are These My People?”—was accepted for the SWWC and here I am, reading on a panel Thursday morning and moderating another panel tomorrow afternoon. And looking forward to hooking up with Phyllis Nobles of Oxford, whom I met at a Creative Nonfiction Conference
in March of 2008. Phyllis is reading a creative nonfiction piece on the panel I’m moderating tomorrow afternoon.

So, this morning I started driving from Memphis, in the rain, but the closer I got to Georgia, the more beautiful the scenery got… mountains and lakes and rivers and green everywhere. And then I saw it… around 5 p.m. I drove over a little bridge into the quaint, historic town of Rome, Georgia, and checked into the Hawthorne Suites at River Crossing and found the perfect marriage of old and new. The architecture of the old warehouses and storefronts have been preserved and converted into cute shops and restaurants, and in the case of the Hawthorne Suites, a classy little boutique hotel. My suite has exterior brick walls on two sides, extra wide 24-pane windows, and a view of the river from the bedroom. Downstairs the “lobby” is really part of a lovely indoor mall, with art galleries and shops, which I can't wait to explore in the next few days!

A half block away is Broad Street, where I ate dinner at Harvest Moon Café tonight and met Helen Silverstein, Managing Editor of a new online literary journal, Southern Women’s Review. They’re looking for creative nonfiction submissions, so you can bet I’ll be sending an essay their way soon.

Just behind the hotel is the Coosa River, where the Etowah and Oostanaula Rivers converge. This is the site where travelers settled the town in 1834, although some believe that Hernando De Soto came here in the 1500s. Anyway, it’s beautiful on the bridge.

And looking back at the fountain in the plaza behind the main street, where children run and play in the water.

The people of Rome are proud of their little town, which was given the distinction of “The Most Livable Small Town in the Southeast” by the New Rating Guide to Life in America’s Small Cities in 1997. It received a Great American Main Street Award in 2003 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I think I could live in this suite. The living/dining room, kitchen and (huge) bath are on one level, and the bedroom is up three steps to enhance the view from the windows which line two sides of the room. Yep, I’m happy here.

I stopped by Berry College (3 miles from the hotel) to register and the campus is also beautiful. It reminds me of Rhodes College (in Memphis) with the stone castle-like buildings, but on rolling hills.

Driving up I was welcomed by this sign…










And then these boys, who must be the Berry College Track Team. (Reminds me of a poem by Beth Ann Fennelly, who teaches at the University of Mississippi, about the time she first saw the young male students at Ole Miss out jogging…. ) When I told my hubby about seeing them today, he reminded me that he competed on the Berry College Campus back in the 1960s when he ran cross country track for Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Georgia. The campus was the sight for regional cross country meets. I can see why—it’s beautiful.

In the morning I’ll pick up a Latte around the corner at The Nest Coffee shop, which gives 100% of its profits back to the community. Yes. It’s a 501c3 non profit corporation, and has about 53 volunteers who work there. How’s that for a shot in the arm for the economy? I’ll be stopping by the Nest as often as possible for the next few days. When in Rome....

Check back in a couple of days for a post about my experiences at the Southern Women Writers Conference.

There's an App for That

You know the commercial for the I Phone that says, “There’s an app for that”? For some reason that ad was on my mind this weekend, when there were so many activities going on at our church, St. John Orthodox, in midtown Memphis. Please forgive me if this comes across as sacrilegious, but I couldn’t help it. Each time one of the events was happening, or about to happen, I heard this phrase in my head.

Need your baby blessed? There’s an app for that—it’s called Baptism. In the Orthodox Church, we baptize newborns by immersion, and that’s what happened to Brooke Elizabeth White on Saturday night.

Her Godmother, Anne Dugan, participated in the sacrament with Brooke, who was baptized by our pastor, Father John Troy Mashburn. Many years, Brooke Elizabeth!







Sorry I didn’t get any pics of Brooke being immersed, but I only had my cell phone with me, which is why this pic is so grainy.

But here’s a couple of pictures of other infant baptisms, so you can get the full image.












Need your relationship blessed? There’s an app for that—it’s called Marriage. We had two

weddings at St. John this summer, Sally and Jason’s (the first picture was taken during the betrothal part of the ceremony, in this case, in the back of the nave)…









And this one was taken from the balcony, of the entire wedding party.














… and just a couple of weeks ago, Barbara and Mikael’s wedding. (again, I only have pics from a cell phone, but you get the idea.) This morning Mikael and Barbara had the "removal of the wedding crowns" ceremony, which happens when the newlyweds return to church after their honeymoon. Marriage is held in high esteem in the Orthodox Christian Church, and a cause for great celebration, whether the bride and groom are young and just starting out, like Jason and Sally, or uniting later in life, like Mikael and Barbara. Many years to both couples!


Need your relationship with God blessed, as an adult convert to Orthodoxy? There’s an app for that—Chrismation.

This morning two women who have completed Catechism classes at St. John were Chrismated—Priscilla and Jill. Here they are with their sponsors, Alexandra and Laura, and with Father John Troy, our pastor. The term comes from Holy Chrism, or oil, that is used by the priest to anoint the different parts of the body, making the sign of the cross as he says, The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and the people respond, “Seal!” The meaning of this is described by Father Michael Buben:

The anointing of the forehead signifies the sanctification of the mind, or thoughts.
The anointing of the chest signifies the sanctification of the heart, or desires.
The anointing of the eyes, ears, lips signifies the sanctification of the senses.
The anointing of the hands and feet signifies their sanctification to good works and the walk in the way of His commandments.

Other sacraments are available in the Orthodox Church.

Need a funeral and burial service for a loved one? There’s an app for that—the Orthodox funeral and burial service is one of the most beautiful and moving services in all of Orthodoxy. But it’s not the end of services for the departed. We also pray Memorial Prayers at various intervals following the death of a loved one—3 days, 40 days, monthly, yearly. So, this morning we said prayers for my Goddaughter, Mary Allison Callaway, who died eleven years ago Friday. You can read more about her death here.

Preparing the kolliva (boiled wheat) for the memorial prayers is something I love to do. Here’s a Greek recipe that’s similar to the one I use.

I’ve only found one grocery in all of Memphis that sells pelted wheat berries, like these.

The other main ingredients are raisins, nuts, honey, graham cracker crumbs, and powdered sugar.

After cooking the kolliva I took it to the church and covered it with graham cracker crumbs and powdered sugar, and placed it on a table on the solea, with three candles, representing the Holy Trinity.



Since we are still in the season of the Holy Cross, the cross (with a piece of the actually cross on which our Lord was crucified) remains in the middle of the nave, in front of the solea, where I placed the kolliva. The juxtaposition of the instrument of Christ’s death with the memory of Mary Allison’s was somehow comforting to me this morning. As we ate the kolliva during coffee hour, and tasted its sweetness (honey and sugar) I thought, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55)

Need help with your struggles with destructive addictive or sinful behaviors, passions out of control, envy, lust, anger? There’s an app for that—the sacrament of Confession. Every Saturday night after Great Vespers (and any time during the week by appointment with the priest) Orthodox Christians may offer their brokenness and pain to God in the healing sacrament of Forgiveness, also known as Confession. This morning when Father John Troy covered the baptismal candidates with his Epitrachelion (Stole) my six-year-old Goddaughter, Sophie, asked me what he was doing. I explained that the ladies preparing for Chrismation had said their first Confession and Father John Troy was praying the prayers of Absolution for them:

"Whatever you have said to my humble person, and whatever you have failed to say, whether through ignorance or forgetfulness, whatever it may be, may God forgive you in this world and the next.... Have no further anxiety; go in peace."

Every time I hear those words from my Father Confessor's lips, standing before the icon of Christ, having just poured out as much of my darkness and brokenness as I have the courage to bear, I feel the air returning to my lungs and the light of Christ beginning to shine into the dark crevices of my heart. What's that feeling? I guess it's hope. And sometimes I actually do "go in peace" from that place.

So, why do I return again to my sins? Because, as Father John Troy reminded us in his homily on the Cross this morning, since we are created in God's image, we have a will. We choose whether to take the easy way or the way of the Cross. We make this choice many times a day. And, as Father John said, "without the cross, we are like dead men walking."

I guess that means that the Cross itself is an "App," especially if you consider one of many definitions of "application": "the act of bringing something to bear," or this one: "a healing or curative agent."

Still think you need an I-Phone?

Glory to God For All Things

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the death of my Goddaughter, Mary Allison
Callaway. I did a post about Mary Allison last year, which you can read here. This coming Sunday we’ll be praying the Memorial Prayers for the Dead at St. John Orthodox Church here in Memphis. I’ll be making kolliva—the boiled wheat that Orthodox Christians share following memorial services. The wheat reminds us of Christ’s words: “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” (John 12:24)

Instead of writing new thoughts about Mary today, I’m going to share an article I wrote for our parish newsletter, the Evangelist, back in 1998.


Glory to God For All Things

April 5, 1998, the Sunday of Saint Mary of Egypt, was a special day for Mary Allison Callaway, the twenty-year-old daughter of my close friend, Deborah Callaway, from St. Peter in Jackson, Mississippi. Mary had moved in with our family in January, and was working full time at UT Medical Group Call Center while taking classes at the University of Memphis. She planned to enter Occupational Therapy School next year after she completed her prerequisites. Having been Chrismated in March of 1987 together with the entire congregations of St. Peter (Jackson) and St. John (Memphis), Mary, like many of us, gradually learned about Orthodox traditions which help us in our spiritual growth. And so, eleven years later, she “chose” a patron saint—a fourth century ascetic named Mary of Egypt—who is also my patron.

During the nine months that Mary lived with us, we talked a few times about what the Church Fathers say about death—to live each day “with our death before us.” When my own father passed away in July, she joined with our family as we embraced the 40 days of mourning prescribed by the Orthodox Church for family and friends of the departed. We read the Psalter every day and prayed the Prayer for the Departed, both of which brought much comfort. What we didn’t know was that we would very soon have another opportunity to participate in this period of mourning.

On September 18, Mary was killed in a car wreck in Mississippi. She was on her way to visit her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother in Indianola. It was her mother and grandmother’s birthdays. I stayed up most of that night, selecting clothes for her burial and packing up her icons and personal items from her room in our home to take to Jackson the next morning. God’s mercy was poured out on all of us from both St. John and St. Peter over the next three days, as we participated in the preparations for Mary’s burial, in the visitation, the vigil, the Trisagion Prayers and Last Kiss, and finally, on Monday morning, the funeral itself. Both Father John Henderson (St. Peter) and Father John Troy (Memphis) gave homilies that day, which, among other things, addressed the question most often asked when a young person dies: “Why Mary?” Those who were close to Mary knew the answer: “She was ready.” Mary had worked very hard for a brief but intense period of time to turn away from influences in the world which had tried to draw her away from the Kingdom of Heaven. Because of her struggles for godliness, I believe her heart was pure before God, even as St. Mary of Egypt and her Guardian Angel accompanied her before the throne of God. St. Theophan, in a book of letters written to a spiritual daughter who was about Mary’s age, gives a beautiful description of the soul of one who prepares to meet God: [quote abbreviated here]

The state of the soul is accurately reflected by its covering…. If within the soul are holy thoughts and feelings, then its covering is bright…. Allow me to ask you how the saint whose name you bear sees you, especially at present, when she is looking after you more attentively, because you turn to her more frequently? How does your guardian angel see you, and the Lord Himself?... How they see you in what you are in fact. For I cannot imagine that you are viewed from heaven as murky or gloomy…. You have a bright appearance. My sincere wish is that you always be that way, so that the inhabitants of heaven see you as being bright. Then from this life you will go directly to them…. What better example is there of a soul so bright than when it is Christian, pure I conscience and devoted to the Lord? When the conscience is pure, the fear of God fills the soul and keeps it inviolable. Then the Lord Himself, Who is everywhere and fills all things, visits that soul, and it becomes a light and shines like a small star.

I miss Mary very much. I miss her bubbly enthusiasm and her beautiful smile. I miss our late night talks. Most of all, I miss her presence in our home, where she was like a sister to my own children. I think that Father Bill will never forget the joy of her daily evening ritual before bedtime. If she could find Jason and Beth, she would bring them along with her and stand, smiling, in front of him and say, “May we have a blessing?” And after his blessing, she always wanted a “group hug” . . . . bringing our family together for a kiss of peace most evenings. Thank God for Mary, and the time God “loaned” her to our family.

So what about the pain? Yes, it’s still there . . . but rather than looking for ways to escape the pain, it seems that God grants us consolation through our suffering. During the final days before my father’s death this summer, I read a book by Matthew “the Poor,” who lived in the Monastery of St. Macarius in the desert in the late 1940s through the 1970s. The Communion of Love is a collection of his writings which was published in 1984. It is from one of these essays that I found some of the answers for which my soul hungered—specifically from his chapter, “Gethsemane and the Problem of Suffering.”

. . .there is no meeting more meaningful than that which takes place in the sharing of suffering, unless it be in the sharing of death itself when we touch immortality. The suffering that oppresses us in this life, whether in body or in spirit, was plumbed to the depths by Jesus . . . . it was in Gethsemane that Jesus made the irrevocable decision to accept the shame of humanity . . . . We meet together in Gethsemane and with that the problem of suffering, which has bowed our back and crushed our soul, comes to an end forever…. All you who suffer, be comforted, for your pain is no longer a result of sin, but of participation in love and in the sufferings of Gethsemane. All you who sorrow and weep, rejoice, for your grief is not unto death; in the sorrow of Christ it is reserved for the resurrection.

God’s grace was again abundant a few weeks after Mary’s death, as women from several different parishes gathered in Florence, Mississippi, for a retreat at which Mother Nektaria from St. Paul Skete in Memphis was the speaker. On Saturday morning we gathered at Twin Lakes Lodge to join Mother in an Akathist Payer, “Glory to God For All Things.” It is a hymn of praise written by a Russian priest, Gregory Petrov, while he was in prison camp in 1940, shortly before his death. The title is from the words of St. John Chrysostom as he was dying in exile. It is a “song of praise from amidst the most terrible sufferings.” I’ll close with a few lines from this beautiful hymn, which brings comfort to those who suffer:

In the throes of sorrow and suffering, you bring peace, you bring unexpected consolation. You are the comforter. You are the love which watches over and heals us. To you we sing the song: Alleluia!
Glory to You, curing affliction and emptiness with the healing flow of time.
Glory to You, no loss is irreparable in you, give of eternal life to all.
Glory to You, promising us the longed for meeting with our loved ones who have died.
Glory to You, O God, from age to age!

Unblocked

In July of 2008, my essay, "Blocked," was a finalist in the Santa Fe Writers Project's Literary Awards and published in their journal, sfWP. You can read it here. I did a blog post about it last July and inserted the essay in the text of the post, so you could also read it here.

And while I'm at it, I'll just go ahead and unabashedly toot my own horn by reprinting one of my favorite comments on that blog post, which I actually received as an email from "Gloria" on the west coast, and asked her permission to publish it:

I enjoy your blog and eagerly read it every time I receive it. I found you online when I was researching Mt Athos and you and your husband popped up. So I jumped on the wagon of your faithful blog readers!

It is hard to put into words the feelings and thoughts that I had when I read your essay "Blocked" but I'll try. I read it once last night and then talked my husband into letting me read it to him.

I was brought in with the first sentence. You captured my heart by the first paragraph. The more I read the more I wanted. I did not stop until the last word. I was inspired, convicted and relieved that I'm not the only one "out there" that fails during the week and then has to decline Eucharist when I so wanted to do what I needed to do to receive. I saw images as I read of the two icons in your studio. Your descriptions brought me into your home and I imagined the Archangel Michael's icon as you described. Your writing is my type of reading.

I kinda needed to read Gloria's comment today, because I was feeling down. Possibly more struggles with acedia. (Read my first two blog posts about acedia here, and here.)

OK, that's enough backstory. This morning, my dear friend and fellow iconographer, Kerry Sneed, came over to help me work on the icons of the Mother of God, Directress and Christ the Life Giver. I started these about two years ago. They are the ones that were interrupted when I got blocked. You can see the icon of the Mother of God in its early stages here. Kerry had done a good bit of the work with me, and I really wanted her to help me finish them. She's assisted me in teaching a few icon workshops at St. John, and she's really a gifted artist. The last workshop we held at St. John was in April of 2008. Here are several posts with photos:

Angels of the Lord, Finished!

Gold Leaf and Beyond

Preparing to Receive the Gold: The Beginning of Our Renewal

Gabriel's Day and Modest Copy Continued

When Kerry got here we sat and talked for over an hour, about our own spiritual journeys this past year. And then we prayed the iconographer's prayer together. And then we worked. I mixed pigments while Kerry studied the icon of Christ and the comments I had written on a sticky note over a year ago, about adjustments that needed to be made before I could continue the highlights.

Kerry's good with lines and tiny details, so she made some adjustments to the eyes and mouth of Christ so that I could come back later and finish the highlights. We didn't finish it today, but I'm ready to get back to work on it now that I've gotten unblocked.

While Kerry worked on the icon of Christ, I did an "egg wash" on the icon of the Mother of God, which will seal the egg tempera and make it receive the varnish more evenly. And we had my mother's recipe for homemade soup for lunch (prepared by our personal chef, Caitlyn) (aka The Ruffled Apron) and continued working on icons until she had to leave to pick up her daughter at school.

After she left, I went back upstairs to my studio and looked at the icons we had worked on. The Mother of God, Directress, is ready to be varnished. She points to Christ, Her Son, directing us to Him as our Lord and Savior. This is the icon we always use in the Orthodox services called the Paraclesis to the Mother of God and the Akathist to the Mother of God.









The icon of Christ needs more work, but I'm ready to embrace it now. You can see the details on the face aren't finished, and more highlights are needed on the face and hand.

As I stood there looking at the work God has blessed us to do today, I remembered the words to the Iconographer's Prayer that we had prayed at the beginning of our work, and I was humbled to think that my fellow parishioners at St. John would one day be reverencing these icons on the stands in the front of the nave. I'll close with that prayer:







O Divine Lord of all that exists, you have illumined the apostle and evangelist Luke with your Holy spirit, thereby enabling him to represent your most Holy Mother, the one who held you in her arms and said, “the Grace of Him who has been born of me is spread throughout the world.”

Enlighten and direct my soul, my heart and my spirit. Guide the hands of your unworthy servant so that I may worthily and perfectly portray your icon, that of your Mother and all the Saints, for the glory, joy and adornment of your Holy Church.

Forgive my sins and the sins of those who will venerate these icons and who, kneeling devoutly before them, give homage to those they represent. Protect them from all evil and instruct them with good counsel.

This I ask through the intercession of your most Holy Mother, the Apostle Luke and all the Saints. Amen.

Wolf Worms

I’m posting from Gulfport, Mississippi, where I’m visiting my precious Goddaughter, Katherine, and her family. They moved here from Memphis this summer, which is a return to her hometown for Katherine and a new adventure for Hardy and the kids. I can already see the benefits of the small town and closeness to the ocean, bayous, and just beauty of the outdoors. (It’s also a new adventure for Katherine, as she continues nursing school at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulfport branch.) The Thameses’ house is only a few blocks from the beach, and the tree-lined streets wind through cute little neighborhoods where kids are safe to ride their bikes and play with their friends ‘til their folks call them in for supper.

A brief aside: Hardy teaches at Gulfport High and sponsors the Key Club. He invited me to do a storytelling/writing workshop with his Key Club kids Wednesday afternoon. As their community service, they are going to produce an oral history project about Hurricane Katrina. They’ll be interviewing each other, family members and people out in the community, uncovering and giving voice to important stories.

It was fun to do a few writing exercises with these sharp high school seniors, and to listen to them read their three-minute paragraphs aloud. We discussed the writer’s intincts, like remembering, desiring and fearing, and the part they play in the work. Then we went over the basic elements of story, like plot, character, point of view, etc. I think they’ve got some great stories to tell and I can’t wait to read them.



All three of Hardy and Katherine’s kids attend the same elementary school. When we went to pick them up yesterday afternoon, Benji and a bunch of his friends had walked to the cute little park next door to the school to play football while waiting for their moms, who all pulled up and got out of their cars to visit with each other while the boys worked off some of their school day energy.












Those same pre-adolescent boys had been decked out in football pads and jerseys the night before for their 5th and 6th grade jamboree. Benji is Number 84.











Hardy’s mom and stepdad came over from Ocean Springs for the game, and Katherine reconnected with old friends from her childhood as we watched from the stands.












As the sun began to set and the stadium lights came on, I couldn’t help but enjoy the Gulf Coast’s very own “Wednesday Night Lights.” Later at a nearby Mexican restaurant, more childhood friends approached our table to speak to Katherine, as did Simon’s teacher’s aid. (He’s in kindergarden.) If it takes a village, they’ve got one here, and I like the way it looks and feels. (For more photos, check out my photo album, “Gulfport and Visit with Thameses” on Facebook.)

Mary has a new kitten, “Snickers,” that the Thameses are fostering and plan to adopt from the Human Society. She is so tiny and precious, but we had to take her to the vet yesterday because she had a sore behind her right ear that seemed to be getting worse. Turns out it’s a parasite called a “Wolf Worm.”

















They kept her overnight to give her a little anesthesia while they removed it, because Wolf Worms have little spikes and pulling them out feels kinda like pulling a fish hook out. Hopefully she’s coming home today, with a coarse of antibiotics working on the germs left behind.

The Wolf Worm and its spikes got me to thinking about the spiritual and emotional parasites that dig into our hearts and minds. Like acedia. I haven’t read much more in the book (see beginning of review in an earlier post, here) but even the next few pages offer a lot to think about.

In Chapter IV, “Psyche, Soul and Muse,” Norris explores Aldous Huxley’s “Accidie,” in which he “traces, in a brisk tour de force, ‘the progress of acedia’ through the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Considered a demon or a vice by early Christian monks, acedia in the Renaissance was thought of as a physical ailment…. By the early eighteenth century, ‘accidie was still, if not a sin, at least a disease.’ But, Huxley adds, ‘a change was at hand.’ What the poet Matthew Green termed ‘the sin of worldly sorrow in 1837 was becoming ‘a literary virtue, a spiritual mode…. Then came the nineteenth-century and romanticism; and with them the triumph of the meridian demon. Accidie in its most complicated and deadly form, a mixture of boredom, sorrow, and despair, was now an inspiration to the greatest poets and novelists, and it has remained so to this day.’”

I found this to be a bit contradictory to Norris’ words in the previous chapter, about acedia’s negative effect on the writer:

“Acedia is a danger to anyone’s whose work requires great concentration and discipline yet is considered by many to be of little practical value. The world does not care if I write another word, and if I am to care, I have to summon all my interior motivation and strength. But the demon of acedia is adept at striking when those resources are at a low ebb…. Acedia’s genius is to seize us precisely where our hope lies, to tear away at the heart of who we are, and mock that which sustains us.”

I have been in a war with inner voices who are mocking my work as a writer for some time now. Those negative voices have been boring their way into my subconscious just like a Wolf Worm, sending their spikes in deeper and deeper. As I continue to draft new chapters of my third effort at writing a book, I find myself bored with my own stories, and wondering why on earth anyone else would want to read them. Writing group buddies are a big help here, as they read and critique my work in progress and encourage me that I do have something worth saying and that I’m improving in my efforts to craft the words. But I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to have to endure painful “surgery” to remove the Wolf Worm’s spikes. Unlike the tiny little kitten, “Snickers,” I can’t be anesthetized for the procedure. It’s probably going to hurt. Maybe it will involve giving up some things I “want” in order to stay the course and get the book written. Maybe it will involve facing some painful things in my past without always turning to my favorite comforters—food, alcohol, busy-ness. Maybe I’m going to begin to learn to be still and just endure the natural human emotions that we are often so quick to try to fix: sadness, boredom, regret, anxiety.


As I continue reading Norris’ book, I’m adding a different story to the mix. I’m about a hundred pages in to Augusten Burroughs’ memoir, Dry, which chronicles his struggle with alcohol. When he checks into rehab because of the threat of losing his job in advertising, Burroughs comes face to face with his demons, and with something people without addictive struggles might find strange—his fear of sobriety:

“Sober. So that’s what I’m here to become. And suddenly, this word fills me with a brand of sadness I haven’t felt since childhood. The kind of sadness you feel at the end of summer. When the fireflies are gone, the ponds have dried up and the plans are wilted, weary from being so green. It’s no longer really summer but the air is still too warm and heavy to be fall. It’s the season between the seasons. It’s the feeling of something dying.”

That’s exactly how I feel today. Not just because it’s the week after Labor Day on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and the kids are playing football but it’s still hot and muggy. But also because I can identify with Burroughs’ words about it being the “season between the seasons” and the “feeling of something dying.” I remember having this same feeling about fifteen years ago when I let go of a demon I was fighting and turned to God for help. I was sitting on a pew at church talking with my Father Confessor and telling him that I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff and I was supposed to jump across a great chasm to the other side, leaving behind the harmful but comfortable world of my demon, and trying to trust that something on the other side would feel as good as this demon had made me feel. He held my hand and helped me make the leap, which was, of course, only the first step. But sometimes the first step is the hardest. Especially when dealing with something as insidious as a Wolf Worm.

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my last post about Acedia. I hope to hear from you again and from others who are kind and supportive enough to keep reading. Please leave a comment, whether or not you’ve read either of these books. It was one of your comments several weeks ago that sent me to the bookstore to purchase Norris’ book. It’s such a blessing to have fellow pilgrims on this journey.

I probably won't post again from the coast, as our weekend will be full of activities, like maybe the "Second Saturday" art walk in Bay St. Louis tomorrow, or the annual Biloxi Seafood Festival. The kids are going to a fishing rodeo in the morning with their grandparents, and the rest of the day is up for grabs. Every minute is a joy with the Thames family... like last night, when Hardy was playing his ukelele and all three kids got up and started dancing on the furniture and singing every word of "Eye of the Tiger." Yep.

So... I'll hit the road for Memphis on Sunday, stopping in Jackson to visit Mom at her nursing home. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Stories

This morning at 8:30 a.m. I was standing in line at the McDonalds on Poplar, near Cleveland, waiting to purchase two dozen sausage and biscuits to take for breakfast coffee hour at St. John Orthodox Church. We were celebrating the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos. Now there's a story for you. Click on the link to listen to Father Thomas Hopko tell it. I was on a mission, and really didn't want to interact with anyone else in line, but this little old man started talking to me, so I decided to be polite and listen, which I don't always do.

"Do you have a busy day at work ahead of you?" he asked.

"Not really. I'm picking up sausage and biscuits for a church breakfast. I'm not really doing much work today."

"What kind of work do you do?" (He obviously didn't take the bait and ask me about church.)

"I'm a writer."

"Really?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, which he handed to me as he continued. "I'm looking for someone to write my story. I'm convinced it would be a best seller."

I accepted the card, but dismissed his words with "Oh, I've got three books of my own to write. I'm really not interested in writing someone else's story."

I turned towards the counter, hoping that my order would be ready soon.

"Oh, but you'd love my story. The title would be 'Born in a Whore House.'"

I admit that got my attention.

He giggled and stepped closer, into my personal space, as he continued. "Yep. And then I was in foster care and finally adopted. At sixteen I went into the entertainment business."

I took a closer look at this short, balding, dumpy man with Spock-like ears and tried to imagine him as an entertainer, but I didn't ask. I just listened.

"Later I was CEO of a business, and now I'm a minister."

His business card has his name and phone number, with a Bible verse inscribed on top of a clip art sketch of praying hands:

"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Acts 2:38

The preacher and I were the only white people at the McDonalds, and as I looked around at the mostly black and Hispanic people working there and waiting in line for their food, I wondered what stories they had to tell. I don't usually stop long enough to ask. And this morning I really didn't have time to discuss the Reverend's story. But I've got his phone number, and it's tempting.

And speaking of stories... tomorrow I'm driving down to Gulfport, Mississippi to visit Hardy and Katherine Thames and their kids. Katherine is one of my Goddaughters, and they just moved to Gulfport from Memphis this summer. I miss them sooooo much, but I understand Katherine's desire to get back "home" (she's from Gulfport) and Hardy's desire to find a different work venue. He's a school teacher, and now he's teaching at Gulfport High. You can visit his online classroom here.

Anyway, Hardy's students are working on an oral history project about Hurricane Katrina. They'll be interviewing each other and others--family members and folks in the community--and turning those interviews into stories for a CD, which will also have still photographs. I'm honored that Hardy asked me to do a "writing workshop" with his students tomorrow afternoon. But also a little intimidated by their stories and the lives they've already lived in their short 17 years or so. (They's high school seniors.) A couple of them have emailed me some of their writing, asking me to critique it, to help them as they prepare their college entrance packets.

Their stories are amazing. I have a feeling I'll be on the receiving end of this project, as I listen to their stories. I hope I can help them shape them a little, with a few writing/storytelling exercises about the writer's basic instincts: remembering, desiring, and fearing.

And maybe some simple reminders about the elements of writing: plot, setting, character, point of view, conflict, tone and theme.

But mostly, I think I'll just be their cheerleader. I can't wait to meet them and hear more of their stories.

And to go for long walks along the beach and maybe hang out at a local coffee shop. And maybe make it over to the "Second Saturday" art walk at Bay St. Louis on Saturday.

So, hopefully I'll have internet access and I'll be posting from the Gulf coast in a few days. Stay tuned. I might have some stories to tell.

Happy Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God! And for those following the saga of thumb rings on Facebook, I'll leave you with a photo of my new thumb ring, as I make the sign of the cross, pulling together thumb, middle and index fingers, representing the three persons of the Trinity, in order to venerate an icon of the Mother of God. Well, it's not exactly an icon... it's my icon studio sign. That's my patron saint, Mary of Egypt with Her. And no, it's not finished. Like me, it's a work in progress.

The Imperfect Peace

It's a busy Labor Day weekend and I haven't read any more in Acedia and me.

It's hard to sit down with a serious book when U.S. Open Tennis is on TV, and all our SEC football teams are getting their seasons started. I loved watching the 17-year-old Melanie Oudin from Marietta, Georgia, beat Maria Sharapova.

And I caught some of the Vols game yesterday and some of the Ole Miss game today. Since two of our kids went to UT (one is still there in grad school) and hubby and I went to Ole Miss, we have to cheer for both! And then today there was a wedding at our church, and tonight we're going to a cookout at our next door neighbor's house, so it hasn't been a sit-around-the-house-and-read-a-book kind of weekend so far.

Oh, and yesterday we went granite shopping. We're getting bids to have some renovations done to our house, including replacing the out-dated formica countertops with granite, and a big "farm sink." Looking at tiny granite samples isn't the same as seeing the big hunks from the quarries, so we drove down to Southaven, Mississippi to see 'em in person. Our favorite was one called "Peacock." It's hard to tell from this picture, but it's black with green-gray in it. Since we're going to paint the walls gray and the cabinets are white, we think this will look great. After granite shopping, we stopped at Interstate Bar B Q for a pulled pork sandwich. We'd heard about this place right on Stateline Road, which borders Tennessee and Memphis, and it was okay, but we don't think Memphis's barbeque greats are in any danger.

But even with all the activities of the weekend, I've been thinking about acedia a lot, and really appreciate the comments readers have left here and on my Facebook page and in emails. I feel encouraged that others share the struggle, not because I want other people to suffer, but because it reminds me that we're all in this together. Thanks for reading and commenting.... I hope to post more about the book as I continue reading it soon.

Meanwhile I'd like to share a poem that I wrote a while back that is another reflection of personal struggles. It was just published in an online journal called Southern Stories. The editor, Beth Boswell Jacks, went to Millsaps College in my hometown, Jackson, Mississippi, and did her graduate work at Ole Miss, so I feel like we're connected on several levels. She runs a great little e-zine, if you're looking for some good Southern stories. She also used one of my icons, Christ the Bridegroom, to illustrate the poem.

So, whether or not you're Southern or Christian, I hope you'll enjoy "The Imperfect Peace." (Click on the title to read the poem at USADEEPSOUTH.COM.) Happy Labor Day, everyone!

The Ancient Demon of Acedia in Modern Dress: The Journey Begins

In the past few weeks I’ve told several friends that I’m depressed. A couple of them were surprised, probably because I’m good as masking it. But when I wrote several blog posts about it, like “I Want A Rush,” and "Artificial Loneliness and Man-Induced Boredom." I was happy to receive a comment from an out of town friend, suggesting that I read Kathleen Norris’s book, Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks and a Writer’s Life.

I’m only 40 pages into Acedia & me. Usually I finish a book and then post a book review. But this book is so rich that I’m eager to “share as I read.” I’ll be “journaling my journey” with Norris, sharing bits of her own struggles as well as my own, but also highlights from the well of spiritual and psychological wisdom that she dips into over and over in her book. I’ll try not to be too wordy. If something strikes a chord with you, get the book!

Norris’s own words in her Author’s Note introduce the work better than I can:

“Several themes are threaded throughout this book: the much-maligned doctrine of sin; the question of whether acedia may be equated with depression; the implications of believing that human beings are made in the image of God; the psychological insights to be found in monastic literature and practice; and the meaning of marriage and motherhood.”

Right up front it’s clear that this book isn’t a sensational confessional, although Norris states clearly that she has “experienced both conditions,” referring to depression and acedia. I think I have, too, as I read more of Norris’ definitions of each term, and also the definitions and comments from the Church Fathers, especially John Cassian and Evagrius.

But to make things clear, at the risk of over-simplifying the issue, I’ll share these 3 abbreviated definitions from the front of her book:

acedia (from Webster’s)
1. the deadly sin of sloth
2. spiritual torpor and apathy

acedia (from an online medical dictionary)
a mental syndrome, the chief features of which are listlessness, carelessness, apathy, and mealacholia

Before you quit reading, thinking this is only applicable to the ancients, listen to how Norris places this struggle squarely in middle of modern times:

“I think it likely that much of the restless boredom, frantic escapism, commitment phobia and enervating despair that plagues us today is the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress. The boundaries between depression and acedia are notoriously fluid; at the risk of oversimplifying, I would suggest that while depression is an illness treatable by counseling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer. Christian teachings concerning acedia are a source of strength and encouragement to me, and I hope to explore its vocabulary in such a manner that benefits readers, whatever their religious faith or lack of it.”

She goes on to give more modern tags to aspects of acedia:

“When life becomes too challenging, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet can’t rouse yourself to give a damn.”

Spiritual morphine. Wow. What does she prescribe? CARING. Even as early as page 3, she counters:

“Caring is not passive, but an assertion that no matter how strained and messy our relationships can be, it is worthy something to be present with others, doing our small part.”

I find I’m identifying with page after page of Norris’s personal narrative and appreciating the way she shoots it through with wisdom from the ages. For me, personally, the subtitle of her book would have been enough to hook me, had I seen it on a table at my local bookseller:

A MARRIAGE, MONKS and A WRITER’S LIFE

My own spiritual memoir explores all three of these areas, although Norris isn’t Orthodox. We share a lot of common ground. As she says at the end of her first chapter:

“Acedia is the monk’s temptation… Yet I have come to believe that acedia can strike anyone whose work requires self-motivation and solitude, anyone who remains married ‘for better for worse,’ anyone who is determined to stay true to a commitment that is sorely tested in everyday life.”

As a writer, my work certainly requires self-motivation and solitude; my husband and I will celebrate 40 years of marriage next June; and I’m part of a (local and national) church family that is currently undergoing extremely difficult times, so I identify with Norris on all three counts.

If this sounds too ethereal, don’t stop reading yet. Norris brings the struggle to
every corner of our lives, even our refrigerators:

“I develop a loathing for fresh food, letting salad greens and strawberries languish in the refrigerator while I fill up on popcorn.”

Call it a carb craving or just unhealthy eating, it’s the source of that craving that’s being addressed here, and I so I keep reading.

Chapter III brings the battle more clearly into the spiritual arena, where Norris asks:

“Can [acedia] ever be considered a rational response to the vagaries of life?”

And she answers:

“From the perspective of Christian theology, the answer would be no, for acedia is understood as the rejection of a divine and entirely good gift. Because we are made in God’s image, in fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, we are also running from being our most authentic selves.”

Being our most authentic selves. I want that. I might even want that enough to fight this demon, this spiritual laziness. So where do I start? According to Norris, I start by NAMING THE DEMON. Calling a spade a spade, or in this case, calling sin sin. Ouch. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I keep reading, asking God to give me strength to face whatever truths I will find between the pages of this book. Norris herself helps me, holding my emotional and psychological hand, so to speak, as she paves the way in this final excerpt that I’ll share in this post:

“By treating acedia as a sin, I am not suggesting that people bear responsibility for being overwhelmed by the medical condition diagnosed as depression, which is not a moral failing but an illness. Yet like any essayist, I am an explorer, and I mean to explore freely what I have experienced for most of my life as ‘acedia’ in the light of literature, theology, psychology, and pharmacology. I need to essay, in all its senses—try out, test, weigh, and probe the distinctions between the disease of depression and the ice of acedia. I suspect that an informed understanding of sin can assist us in sorting them out.”

I also am an essayist—an explorer—and I’m signing on for this journey through Norris’ book. I hope lots of my readers will join me. And please leave a comment, a reflection, a question, a doubt, a disagreement, whatever comes to mind.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend. We’re going to enjoy a wedding and a cookout on Sunday, but on Monday, I just might be doing battle with the demon of noonday… especially if I get bored or lonely. Pray for me.

Family is a Contact Sport... Because We're Human

At 2:45 p.m. today I finished reading Pat Conroy’s long-awaited new novel, South of Broad. I could have finished it earlier… last week, even. But I wanted to sip it slowly, like a glass of cognac. I didn’t want it to be over too quickly, but I also thirsted after the pleasure—and the pain—each word, each page, each chapter, would bring. And I was not disappointed.



I’m not going to say it’s as good as The Prince of Tides—my favorite novel. There’s really no reason to compare, but I guess it’s difficult not to. But I definitely could related to SOB (I’m thinking it’s not a coincidence that the novel’s title is reduced to such an abbreviation) better than Tides. Maybe it’s because the group of friends in the center of the drama were about my age…. they were seniors in 1969, the year I graduated from high school.

It’s no secret that Conroy reaches again and again into family history to fuel his fiction. Someone once said he built a cottage industry out of fictionalizing his dysfunctional past. So be it—he does it well. Half way through the book, one of the lead characters and one of Charleston’s elite, says it well, when asked, “Why do we drink so much in Charleston?”

“Because we’re human,” she says. “Like everyone else. And the older we get, the more human we get. The more human we get, the more painful everything becomes….”

Even the monsignor, whose truth isn’t revealed until the final pages of the book, says, early in the novel, “It is the martini’s job to bring me closer to God…. It brings me halfway to God, then I must rely on the awesome power of prayer to take me to the summit.”

I loved the monsignor for his humanness…. Right up until page 500, when even his broken humanness is more than I can bear. But when Leo, the protagonist and hero of the story learns the ugly truth about what this Catholic priest did to his brother, he “cures himself” with Charleston, believing that “there’s nothing that the Holy City cannot right.” Reflecting back on the nightmare that was his life—and the life of his circle of friends—including their hellish survival of hurricane Hugo, he is able to say,or rather write, as he is a columnist for the newspaper:

“We have been touched by the fury of storms and the wrath of an angry, implacable God. But that is what it means to be human, born to nakedness and tenderness and nightmare in the eggshell fragility of mortality and flesh…. I am standing with my best friends in the world in complete awe at the loveliness of the South.”

It struck me, as I read these words, that I might have survived my own childhood in the South better had I clung to a circle of friends who had weathered the same storms. I was reminded of this at my 40th high school reunion a few weeks ago, in Jackson, Mississippi. Classmates who have remained close seem to have come through the storm a little more intact. I’ve been gradually reconnecting with some of those friends this summer, and it feels like soothing ointment on an open wound.

South of Broad has it all—borderline personality disorder, orphans, abused kids, racial unrest, radical religious characters, suicide—all set against the backdrop of beautiful architecture, old money, and the sea.

Starla is probably the most wounded character in the book. Our hero, Leo “the Toad” tries to save her, by marrying her. Years later, a shrink in Miami would tell him that his wife has borderline personality disorder. He asked what that meant.

“It means you’re fucked. She’s fucked….. The borderines are mean, egomaniacal, relentless….”

Leo loved Starla when they were young, but later learned to survive only through detachment. What else can he do, when his wife tells him, “I like shit better than ice cream. Breakdown better than the Rotary Club. I like the darkness…. I trust it.”

If I’m painting a darker picture than I mean to, it’s because the dark images in the book are so powerful. And I’m a little bit like Starla—sometimes I’m drawn to the darkness. As Leo begins to write his final newspaper column which will reveal these dark truths, he starts with the words, “Family is a contact sport.” But there are also beautiful, light, soft images throughout—just as there are in the equally graphic Prince of Tides—crafted with that magical gift of literary fiction that Conroy has. Overwhelmed by despair over the horrific truths that Leo discovers about the events that led up to his brothers suicide, he checks into the psychiatric ward of a hospital, and records his drug-induced dreams with a tender, redemptive voice.

Just before Leo’s release from the hospital, he writes in his journal:

“I have started writing about a boy nicknamed the Toad, whose life unexpectedly begins on Bloomsday in the summer of 1969, when a moving van parks in the driveway across the street, I find two orphans handcuffed to their chairs, and I learn that my mother had been a nun…. I meet the main characters who will take a leading part in the dance, the great arching motion of my life.”

And what a dance it is. Now I’m hoping for a movie. Nick Nolte made such a perfect Tom Wingo in the movie, “The Prince of Tides.” And I loved Maggie Collier as his mother. Who would I cast in the lead roles for South of Broad? Hmmmm, a few ideas:

Leo— Matthew McConaughey

Actually, this will take too long… the main characters are teenagers when the book opens and close to 40 at the end. Will take some brilliant casting….

Birthdays, Books, and Mississippi Artists and Writers: All in One Weekend (whew!)

This weekend was full of significant events for me. Starting on Friday, when I drove to Jackson to visit my mother, and also to see some paintings by a high school friend, Kit Whitsett Fields. It was a routine visit with Mom at Lakeland Nursing Home in Jackson, Mississippi, where she's been living since November. Every couple of weeks when I drive down, I brace myself for the time when she won't know me. She knew me on Friday, but she couldn't figure out who Grace Cushman was... her great-granddaughter. This was the second time I've taken photos of Grace with me. A few weeks ago, she remembered who Jason was (my son, Grace's father) but this time there was a blank look on her face and she kept pointing to him and his wife, See, in the pictures, and asking again who there were. Made my heart so sad.

We were sitting in the dining room, where the movie,"A River Runs Through It" was on the big screen TV. Some of the scenes are full of great period clothing, music and dancing from the 30s, and Mom's face lit up when those scenes came on. There was something more familiar to her about the images on the screen than the images in my book of photos of Grace. It's that long-term memory trying to hang on....

On the bright side, I loved seeing Kit's watercolors, and ended up buying 7 of them! Kit's won awards for her work, and I love her style. Four of the ones I bought are small details of pieces of fruit which I'll frame for our kitchen once it's remodeled. But three paintings drew my attention because they are all scenes from Oxford, Mississippi, where I went to college, and where I now go regularly for writing workshops.

These photos don't do the paintings justice... and they are wrapped in plastic and not framed yet but they are beautiful.

The first one (above) one is Taylor Grocery, a catfish restaurant in Taylor, just south of Oxford. Great little town with a local theater and several artists' studios.

I love this one, of Roanoke, William Faulkner's home.











And this one of Square Books.

I'm going to frame them after we paint our bedroom and den, and find just the right spots for them, to remind me of good memories of Oxford.

Like Saturday, when the Yoknapatawpha Writers Group held our monthly critique session. We've been meeting for two years now, (our first meeting was in September of 2007) and at the last minute Herman and Patti couldn't make it, but we still had a great day with Doug, Tom, Patti ("B") and me. After the critiquing was done, Neil White met us for drinks at City Grocery, and Michelle Bright (also in the group but unable to meet with us today) stopped by to say hello. Congrats to Neil, whose book, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts, got a nice review in the New York Times recently.

Four of us from our writer's group are going to the Escape to Create Fall Writers Conference in Seaside, Florida, in October, and Neil will be one of the presenters. He's always generous with his time and encouragement for new writers. I'll be posting more about it in a few weeks. Seven of us (four writers and three of our spouses, including mine) will be staying in a house right on the beach in Seagrove, just next door to Seaside. Can't wait!

After a busy Friday and Saturday, today was relaxing. Can you believe this weather, in August, in Memphis? Hubby and I enjoyed dinner outside on our front porch earlier this evening, with no humidity and a lovely breeze. Felt like fall! When we came back inside there was a phone message from his sister, Cathy, who lives in Atlanta. Her daughter, Amy, had given birth to twin girls, Allie and Brynn, this morning! Amy wasn't due 'til mid October, but both girls seem to be doing great. Here they are with Amy and Kevin, in the newborn ICU, where the girls will need to stay for about a week. Congratulations, Amy and Kevin! We cant wait to meet our two new great nieces!

Allie and Brynn were born on our son, Jonathan's birthday, so now these cousins will share birthdays. Happy Birthday, Jon! Hearing about the twins got me all mushy, so I got out the photo albums to look at Jon thirty two years ago. Here he is, with me, the day we brought him home.









And with his Dad and me....











Again....









And I'll close with this picture of Jon's 6th Birthday Party! I love it that Jon is still in touch with most of the people in this picture:



Front row: Jordan Henderson, Jon (the birthday boy!) and Stephen Schelver
Back row: Ben Skirtech, Joanna Meadows, Mary Allison Callaway, Carter Callaway, David Algood and Daniel Root.


Off to bed now... I've only got one chapter left to read in Pat Conroy's new book, South of Broad. Conroy's book, The Prince of Tides, is my all time favorite book (and movie) so I had eagerly anticipated this new book. Stay tuned for a review one day this week. Today it's Number One on the New York Times Best Seller List. Kudos to you, Pat!

Are You Saved?

Someone posted this You Tube video on Facebook today, and I found myself watching it over and over. The narrator is a young woman, maybe even a girl, and I love her voice and the music.

The images are sometimes blurry but often beautiful.

It only takes a few minutes to watch, if you're interested in an Orthodox Christian's simple, childlike explanation of salvation.

It Happens

After keeping my butt in the chair for 3-4 hours yesterday and actually getting a draft done for the first chapter of my new memoir, "Jesus Freaks, Belly Dancers and Nuns," I woke up this morning ready to start on chapter 2. And excited that I had a critique sample to send to my writing group that meets this Saturday in Oxford. Good cup of coffee and nice bowl of fresh fruit for breakfast and I was ready to write. And then the dam broke. Literally.

Last week we had a plumber out to fix our drains that were clogged. We thought the problem was solved. Until water started flowing out from under the toilet in our master bathroom this morning.

Four hours and 17 wet towels later, I think it's stopped for now. The plumber can't come back until tomorrow morning (we have a home warranty contract, so if we don't use them we'll have to pay big bucks) so for now we're okay so long as we don't use the master bathroom or the washing machine.

Washing machine? Yeah, when we used it this morning, each time it drained the water from a load of clothes it flooded the bathroom! (Our laundry room backs up to our master bath.)

AND the master shower filled up, then backed up with yucky stuff.

Then, when the shower finally drained, the water rose up under the toilet and all over the bathroom floor, again.

I was mopping for hours, and used up 17 towels that are now hanging out back. I'm
trying to imagine that we live at the beach and the towels are just the result of a fun day in the ocean. But it's not working real well.

Now that it's mid afternoon and things are quiet again, I might try to settle down and start on chapter 2 of the book. Only problem is I'm exhausted! (Want to hear something ironic? The title of chapter 1 is "Holy Water." I guarantee you there's nothing holy about the water that flooded our bathroom for 3 hours today!) Trying to be upbeat about it. Listening to Sugarland helps. Aint no rhyme or reason, no complicated meaning, no need to overthink it.... sssss "It Happens!"

More Ink for 2 Great Memorists

They both deserve it. I’m talking about the good ink two of my favorite new memorists (and friends) just received this past week.

A few days ago I opened the September issue of Writer’s Digest, which is full of yummy stuff about writing memoir, so it’s a great issue for me. I’m reading along and get to page 57, in the middle of Jenna Glatzer’s article, “Master the Memoir Basics: 5 Essentials,” and what book does she choose to site as an example of an excellent memoir? Kim Michelle Richardson’s The Unbreakable Child. (I did a review of Kim’s book here, and a Q&A with Kim here.)

Glatzer uses Kim’s book as an example of her 4th essential of memoir writing: A Hopeful Ending. Her opening sentence in this section speaks straight to my heart:

“It’s not time to write your memoir until your life has some sort of resolution of the main theme…. that it leaves the reader with hope….”

This very issue has tripped me up over and over again… trying to write about something that isn’t resolved yet. That’s the reason I set aside my first memoir, Dressing the Part: What I Wore for Love, at least for now. This second one I’m trying to get started on should be easier (Jesus Freaks, Belly Dancers and Nuns) because I keep thinking I’m in a better place in my spiritual life now and I’m ready to write about it, but then I keep hitting new bumps that change the geography of the story. I wish I could write fiction and just make it up as I go, but I don’t know if I’ve got enough imagination.

Anyway, Glazer says (in the WD article) that Kim’s book “delivers what the title promises: We read about a grown-up child who was not broken, and that leaves us with hope that she’s going to be OK, despite the abuse.”

And she is better than just OK. Her book is doing well and she’s touring and reading and signing… and working on a second book, which is going to be fiction!

In addition to the praise Kim received in the Writer’s Digest article, my friend, Neil White, just got a big spread in today’s Commercial Appeal. And to sweeten the pot, the article, “Finding ‘Sanctuary,’” was written by my friend, Karen Ott Mayer. (I did a Q&A with Neil on my blog, here.)

Karen’s article tells the backstory of Neil’s life, and also includes a nice sidebar about leprosy and an update on Carville, the federal prison that doubled as America’s last leprosarium, where Neil spent over a year incarcerated for kiting checks. Kudos to Karen for a well-researched, well-written article, and to Neil for the ink.

If you haven’t read either of these wonderful, redemptive memoirs, put them on the top of your “to read” list. You won’t be disappointed.

But my writing group is going to be disappointed if I don’t get a critique sample off to them today or tomorrow. We’re meeting this coming Saturday and right now I’ve got nothing. I need to follow Kim Richardson’s advice (she’s writing 10-11 hours/day now, on her first fiction novel): “Butt in Chair.” Hard to do on such a gorgeous afternoon! The low humidity and sunshine are calling me to get out for a walk, and the empty refrigerator is calling me to the grocery store. Walk. Shop. Write. Sigh….

Cousins: THESE Are My People

Next month I’ll be reading an essay on a panel at the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College in Rome, Georgia. The essay, which was published online a while back at “Muscadine Lines,” is called, “Are These My People?” Much of my writing—personal and professional—circles around this theme, this search for my tribe, for somewhere to belong. My second blog post, over two years ago, carried this title. And since the first time I heard it, I loved Rodney Atkins’ song, “These Are My People.” (Also love that he’s from Tennessee and was born in 1969, the year I graduated from high school. He was also adopted, and is the spokesperson for the National Council for Adoption.)

All that to set up two stories I’m about to share—both about surprise encounters with cousins this week. Well, the first one wasn’t just this week. A few weeks ago I started getting messages on Facebook from one of my five first cousins, Julie Johnson, who lives in San Antonio. Julie’s father and my father were brothers, but she’s a lot younger than me because she’s Uncle Jim’s daughter from his second marriage. Julie didn’t meet her half brothers, Johnny and Jimmy, until 1977, because of some messy family issues. I remember the day they met—I was there, at my Aunt Barbara Jo’s house where we always shared Thanksgiving Day. But this year we also gathered on Christmas. We had lots to celebrate, because Bill and I had just adopted our first child, Jonathan, just four months earlier. Lots of cousins getting to know each other.

This is Julie and me. I think we had met once before, but she was just now old enough to begin to understand what cousins are. I was always closer to the cousins I grew up with in Jackson, Mississippi, but lately it’s cousin Julie that’s making the effort to reconnect. Oh, we’ve shared Christmas cards with family pictures over the years, but regular communication just wasn’t happening. Until I got on Facebook a couple of months ago. I love looking at her photo albums, seeing her kids, and even her cowboy husband roping cows at the rodeo! With FB messages, I can ask about her mother, my dear Aunt Joy, with whom I correspond by longhand, and get an immediate reply. Julie and I both lost our dads to cancer, but she was only 14 when she nursed Uncle Jim and shared his suffering. It’s very healing to me to reconnect with Julie, and I hope to make a road trip to visit her family soon.

My second healing “cousin encounter” happened yesterday. My mother grew up as an only child in Meridian, Mississippi. Her first cousin, Sonny Hopper, was also an only child, and they lived near each other and were more like brother and sister than cousins. Sonny is a retired Presbyterian minister in Lexington, Kentucky. A few years ago I took Mom on a road trip to visit him, before the Alzheimer’s had begun to erase her memories.

Yesterday Sonny and his wife, Barbara, stopped in Jackson to visit Mom at her nursing home, and called me from the lobby to chat and also to let Mom talk with me on their cell phone. I asked Sonny, “Does Mom know who you are?”

“Oh, she says we look familiar,” Sonny answered. “And she looks great—seems to be happy here, and that’s what matters.” Sonny is a good man.

After chatting with Barbara, she asked if I’d like to speak to Mom. Mother has forgotten how to use a telephone, so she doesn’t have one in her room any more. Barbara held the phone up to Mom’s ear and we chatted.

“Hi, Mom! It’s Susan.”

“Oh, hello dear. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Are you enjoying your visit with Sonny and Barbara?”

“Who?”

“Your cousin, Sonny Hopper, and his wife, Barbara, from Meridian.”

“Oh, I love the sound of those names.”

I can see Mom fingering the air as she speaks, as though she’s trying to capture the words and put them with the faces.

“Yes, remember that Sonny was Aunt Bess’s son, and you grew up with him in Meridian?”

“Oh, isn’t that nice. Yes, that sounds good.”

A few minutes later I was back on the phone with Sonny, thanking him for their visit and making sure I had all his contact information. After we hung up, I realized that he’s the only living person who knew my mother since she was a baby. Oh how I long to visit with him again and ask lots of questions about her…. And her people. My people.(I’ve got pictures of our visit with Sonny in Lexington a while back, but they’re in the attic…. Some day they’ll be in photo albums. Some day.)

But today I’m just thankful for cousins on both side of the family, and how much more connected I feel because of Julie and Sonny.

The Eight Year Itch

In 2008 I got the seven year itch. Again. Just about every seven years since we’ve lived in Memphis we’ve moved to a different house. One of those times we built a custom house. It started in 1993, with meetings with architects and builders.
















Finally we had a big ground-breaking ceremony, complete with an Orthodox blessing by our priest. (look at those guys with no beards:-)











The foundation was laid and the framing began.











Even during the snow, the work continued.








We moved in two years later, in June of 1995. Notice that I didn’t say, “finally the house was finished,” because it wasn’t. But we were tired of living in a rental, so we moved for the final month or so of the construction.


Here’s the house on the 4th of July that same summer (or maybe the next?) when the Olympic Torch made its way down our street and we had a big celebration. It was a doozy of a house, with a swimming pool, exercise room, home office, four bedrooms and 4 ½ bathrooms, formal living room, dining room, kitchen/den, laundry room, and attached two-car garage. I've got a box of photos in the attic that I don't want to dig through right now. I think the fact that I quite keeping photo albums when we built our house speak volumes about how much time and energy the project took!

But we sold it six years later, because our kids grew up and our needs changed. We scaled down, settling into another home in the same neighborhood, but 1000 square feet smaller and with 2 downstairs bedrooms and baths, thinking my mother would move in with us.

She didn’t. So… the seven year itch got me last year and we found another house we really liked, but we couldn’t sell this one, so we had to let it go. After studying the market, we finally realized we’ve got to renovate this one if it’s going to compete. Although it was built in 1990, the kitchen and master bathroom, in particular, need upgrades, and the house needs new carpet upstairs and painting in a few rooms.

So, a couple of weeks ago we began the process of interviewing contractors. The first one called back to say his subs are too busy to give him quotes, so he can’t bid on it right now. A good sign, actually, that the market is picking up. The second one came over yesterday to discuss what we wanted, offering a few good suggestions, and will get a bid to us soon. The third is coming over in about 30 minutes, so hopefully we’ll have two bids to compare soon.

And then the fun begins…. Stay tuned for before and after pictures and enjoy the ride!