A Soft Opening

Today is the last day of National Poetry Month, so I wrote one final poem to commemorate it. I was going to illustrate the poem with photographs of my blossoming peony bush…. But I decided to wait, at least until tomorrow. You’ll understand my reason when you read the poem. So, I’ll illustrate it with these beautiful ancient paintings instead.

And now, for the poem.

A Soft Opening

My peonies didn’t come out
For Pascha this year.
Well, one of them did—
The matriarch peeked through
Her dark green casing just enough to see,
Just enough to test the warmth of the sun
On her blossoming inner petals.

That’s where the nymphs live—
Those mischievous fairies
For whom the plant is called
Shame,
Or Bashfulness
In the Language of Flowers.

Named for Paeon—
Physician to the Gods on Mount Olympus—
Who was gifted with the flower by the
Mother of Apollo, but then
Turned into one himself by
Warring factions amongst the gods,
The men gods, I might add.

Her seeds flew across cultures to become
A national emblem in China
Where she’s known as the
Flower of Riches and Honor.
Then to Japan where her root was used
To treat convulsions in kampo—
A Japanese nod (yes) to Chinese medicine.

So this Bright Week I keep watching
For her blossoms to unfold,
But they keep waiting for the sun
To warm the air, to tease them
Into dancing—uninhibited—
In their birthday suits
In my front yard.

Maybe they’re camera-shy,
Afraid of what my lens might reveal
To the world of poets and bloggers
And voyeurs, like me and Annie Liebowitz,
Too eager to reveal the hidden beauty
Of our subjects to the lusty, waiting world.

Shame on you, Billy Ray,
Lying there with your baby girl
As Annie’s lens opens her budding
Maidenhood before the nymphs
Are ready for their coming out—
Before they are strong enough to
Bear the scrutiny of the watching world.

Shame on me, exposing the buds
Of my young peony bush too soon,
Impatient to see their beauty,
To smell their heady perfume
And to touch their tissue-soft
Petals before they are ready
For my embrace.

Maybe I’ll wait for their
Grand Opening,
But more than likely
I’ll be ready with my Lumix—
The aperture low—for a soft opening
Tomorrow, on May Day, in honor of Flora,
The Roman Goddess of flowers…
A convenient excuse
For my premature indulgence.

I’ve been reading reviews of my favorite poet’s latest book, Unmentionables. Here’s one, in a blog called “The Shelf Life.” If you scroll down to the end of the post, you can read my comment… where I disagree with the reviewer about Beth Ann’s poem, “First Warm Day in a College Town.”

REMINDER: Beth Ann will be signing and reading from her book at Burke’s Books in Cooper Young tomorrow night from 5-6:30 p.m. It’s the second month for the Cooper Young Neighborhood’s Cooper Young Night Out . Lots of restaurants, art galleries and shops will be open. I’ve got a table reserved at Tsunami’s for my friends and my daughter, who arrives home from her first year of grad school tomorrow night!

And yes, there will be photos from the evening… I’ll try to post them tomorrow night. Beth and I are flying to Denver early Friday morning to visit my son, Jason, for a few days, so I’ll be busy packing … if I can get my left brain to function in the euphoric trance that always follows Beth Ann’s readings! (Confused by the names? Beth Ann Fennelly is the poet. Beth (Elizabeth) Ann Cushman is my daughter. They are both amazing, talented, and beautiful, and I'm so excited that they will get to meet eachother tomorrrow night!)

Voices of Passion... and Reason

Susan May Warren , award-winning author of more than twenty books, and Rachel Hauck, multi-published author of romance and chick lit, have a blog called Book Therapy. It’s a place where writers can submit parts of their works-in-progress and get “therapy” for their writing… from Susan and Rachel, and from other members. I’ve been dabbling in it for a few weeks, and not long ago they ran a “contest.” They asked members to write a short piece telling who our voice of REASON and our voice of PASSION are in our work-in-progress.

So, today they announced that I was one of three winners, and they published my comments here: (scroll down a few paragraphs to the one that begins Susan C had a great point to accompany her example… )

I’ll even get a free copy of Susan’s upcoming book, Wiser Than Serpants . I love the way the internet connects complete strangers through common threads of interest…. Susan’s Mission: Russia series deals with issues like human trafficking in Russia. Her web site has a link to the International Justice Mission. The IJM was the beneficiary of the Art and Justice Show I was asked to participate in last spring. There were about six artists displaying their works, and I had several icons in the exhibit. The organizer, Terry Carter, suggested I have a place where visitors could light a candle in front of the icons and say a prayer for the victims of human slavery. I miss Terry and her husband, Mike, (that's Mike and Terry on the right end of the group picture) who taught art at Westminster Academy here in Memphis for many years. They moved away last summer to pursue their art work full time.

Back to voices of passion and reason. I love this story that a friend sent me via email today. It’s a great example of the voice of passion winning out over the voice of reason in the main “character,” an elderly gentleman. (I don’t know if it’s a true story or not. It's through the voice of a nurse.)

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80'sarrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be overan hour before someone would be able to see him. I saw him looking athis watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, Iwould evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked toone of the doctors, and got the needed supplies to remove his suturesand redress the wound.

While taking care of him, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home toeat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer's Disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset ifhe was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had notrecognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, "And you still go every morning, eventhough she doesn't know who you are?"

He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."

Another (true) story about passion trumping reason is the story of the Holy Martyrs Raphael, Nicholas and Irene, who are commemorated on Bright Tuesday in the Orthodox Church. (Today is Bright Tuesday.) All three were martyred by the Turks in 1453 on the Island of Lesbos. In June of 1960, the Saints started to appear both in dreams and in broad daylight and were seen by many pilgrims and they revealed who they were.

Miracles like this one, and of course the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, remind me why we call it the Passion of Christ.

Happy Bright Tuesday! Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen!

Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen! Or as these M & M's say (in Arabic) Masiah Qam!
(I ordered them from http://www.mymms.com/... to give as Pascha gifts. You can get them in any colors personalized for any event.)

But on to more celestial things... the Pascha service at Saint John Saturdaynight/Sunday morning. (It began at 11 p.m. and ended about 1:30 a.m..... and then we feasted ... on all the goodies everyone brought in decorated baskets. Some of the baskets are on the solea in this picture... waiting to be blessed by the priest at then end of the service.) But I feasted on champagne and lamb soup.

I didn't take many photos in the dark... didn't want to use a flash and interrupt the service, and the dark photos aren't so good. But this one, up close, shows everyone coming up the steps of the church at the end of the procession.

And here's Father John Troy knocking on the doors of the church saying, "Lift up your gates, O Ye Princes... and the King of Glory shall enter in!" And a voice from inside the church says, "Who is the King of Glory?" And Father Troy says, "The Lord mighty in battle...." (click on the 4th video below for a live production!)

Here the priests wait for the people to finish filing back into the nave after the procession.

I took a few short videos so you can get a very brief look at what an Orthodox Pascha (Easter) service looks like.

The first one shows the church almost completely dark, even the vigil candles have been extinguished.

Then Father John Troy starts singing "Come take light from light" and goes down the aisle lighting candles, and parishioners share the light with the person next to them. The dark church becomes light as we prepare for the procession.

The procession begins inside, then goes out the front doors and around the building, down the street and back to the front steps.

Stopping at the top of the steps, Father Troy knocks on the doors of the church....

Once we're back inside, we sing a million versions (and languages) of Christ is Risen... and the clergy take turns leading the exclamation. Here's a couple of my favorites from Saturday night: Deacon Tim gives a try with Spanish... which comes out very Southern Boy Spanish... look at Father Don laughing behind him.

And Deacon James, instead of trying three languages, stuck with the Greek, but got increasingly louder and more enthusiastic with each chant.

Finally we got to my favorite Paschal hymn, "Shine, Shine, O New Jerusalem."

Here's what the Great Entrance looks like... when the clergy and altar services process from the altar through the nave with the gifts of bread and wine.

And finally, communion... the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Not just a symbol. Who would go through all of Great Lent and Holy Week for a symbol? Who would choose to fast and pray and engage in any kind of ascetic struggle for a symbol? The priest says, "With faith and the fear of God, come forth." Most of the time I don't have much of either of these... faith, or the fear of God. But Sunday morning at 1 a.m. I believed. And in a mystery, God's precious Body and Blood filled my heart, my soul, my veins. The light of Christ illumines all.

These words from the Paschal homily of Saint John Chrysostom, which is read following the Gospel reading on Holy Pascha, are some of the most encourging words ever spoken from the pulpit:

Let no one weep for his sins, for forgiveness has shone forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free. He that was held prisoner by it has destroyed it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.... O Death, where is your sting? Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the First-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages.

Holy Saturday: Arise O Lord! and Making Lamb Soup

What a glorious day! Holy Saturday is the first and early announcement of the Resurrection... and typically the service when catechumens are baptized and/or Christmated. Father John Troy Christmated twelve new members this morning at Saint John in Memphis!
Here's Catilyn Manning with her sponsor, Meribeth Harvey. I'm sure Caitlyn will have some yummy things to say about the day on her blog.

My favorite part of the service is when my husband, Father Basil, cries out, "Arise, O Lord, and judge the earth!" and comes out of the altar and throws bay leaves and rose petals everywhere! It's sooooo joyous. The bay leaves and flowers represent our victory over sin and death. I love the way they smell together... sweet and tart. Like life.

Again, it takes a long time to download these vidoes, so I'll be short on words and long on videos. If you want to download any of these, I think you can RIGHT-CLICK on them and follow the directions. The choir, directed by Margaret Elliott, was AMAZING, as usual. Listen to these!!!

drat! I can't get the first one to download... maybe it's too long... it's when the twelve catechumens were processing to the front of the nave and everyone was singing. Oh, well...

The next one is when Father Basil comes out of the altar with the bay leaves and rose petals and begins singing "Arise O Lord and judge the earth!"

The final one is when he goes up into the choir loft to throw bay leaves and rose petals at the choir and over the balcony. If you think this is joyful, wait until the Pascha service tonight!

Julia and I met at the church kitchen at 4 to start the traditional Greek Lamb Soup. It's called Mayiritsa in Greek. Here's an article about it (but not the recipe we used.) And another one here, spelled Mayeritsa. I ordered the ground lamb ahead of time from the butcher at Schnuck's. First you brown it, then drain the fat and cover it with water and start simmering it.

Then you chop up lots of green onions and yellow onions and brown them in real butter. Near the end you stir in lots of chopped up parsley and cilantro. Then a bunch of dill. You add all this to the meat in the pot and simmer for an hour.

Then you put the pot in the refrigerator for a few hours (or a day or two ahead, if you prefer.) Meanwhile, you squeeze a bunch of lemons and mix the lemon juice with cornstarch in a jar and save it for later.

When we come back to the church for the Pascha service tonight (at 11 p.m.) we'll take the soup out of the refrigerator, skim off the fat, and slowly warm it during the service. At the last minute, we'll stir in the lemon juice and cornstarch mixture, as well as a dozen or so beaten eggs.

When Julia's father, Andy, was alive, I remember that all he wanted (at 2 a.m.!) on Pascha morning was a cup of lamb soup and a glass of champagne. He converted me to this practice several years before he died. Those Greeks know how to celebrate! I'll be thinking of Andy and Urania tonight as we crack our red eggs together and say, "Cristos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!" (Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen!) Or, in Arabic, "Masiah Qam!"

Holy Friday: Taking Down from the Cross and Lamentations

Holy Friday is truly the climax of the bright sadness that Orthodox Christians experience during Great Lent every year.

The children of the parish have helped the women decorate the funeral bier with fresh flowers.

The afternoon service, known as the "Taking Down From the Cross" of our Lord is celebrated at 3 p.m. at our parish here in Memphis.

The 7 p.m. service is known as "Lamentations." It's like a funeral service in many ways. It's sung before the Epitaphios by the priest and the congregation... a poetic dirge sung antiphonally by the choir and the congragation. The author of these Lamentations is said to be St. Romanos Melodos.

The music is haunting... once it gets into your soul, it never leaves. Rather than writing about it, I'm going to post several photographs and a few videos I took with my camera. Forgive the extremely amateur videography, but I hope that pictures, and music, will, in this case, speak louder than words.

If you've never been to an Orthodox Paschal service, they are amazing. We begin at 11 p.m. tonight (Saturday) night at St. John here in Memphis. The service is over around 1:30 a.m, and then we share a feast in the fellowship hall.

You can actually hear the music if you click on these videos. The first one shows the clergy bowing before the bier, on which the epitaphios, which represents the Body of Christ, is placed.

The next one shows some of the people coming forward to venerate the epitaphios.

Every generation to the tomb comes... this next one has my favorite music of Holy Week...

It takes too long to load these videos, so I'll skip a few and end with this one, the end of the Holy Friday Procession, as the people come up the steps, under the bier (which represents going under the Red Sea... back through the waters of baptism) and into the church. As I sit here at my computer downloading these, it's thundering and raining.... and I'm so thankful it waited until after the service! (although I agree with Erin that there's something fitting about rain and thunderstorms on Holy Friday....)

This morning at Holy Saturday Liturgy (10 a.m.) we'll be Christmating twelve new members. I love the Holy Saturday service.... it's when my husband throws bay leaves all over the nave with such vigor and joy.... stay tuned for more pictures and videos!

Dying Eggs on Holy Thursday & Welcome, Olivia Kate Autrey!

Today is Holy Thursday. Urania taught me to dye eggs on Holy Thursday. This is our first Holy Week without her—she’s my friend who died in October—so all of us at St. John Orthodox Church here in Memphis are missing her greatly.

I was thrilled when her daughter Julia emailed me from New York and asked if she could come over on Holy Thursday to dye eggs together. But first, a few links for those who want to read more about this tradition:

Here’s a blog post about why Orthodox Christians dye eggs red for Easter.

Link to dying eggs with onion skins is here. I might try that next year!
More information about traditions about Easter eggs is here.
One story about Mary Magdalen and the red eggs is here.
And another one here .

Okay, here’s Julia reading her mother’s instructions.

First we put the eggs in lukewarm water for about 20 minutes. This lets air bubbles out and prevents cracking. After 20 minutes, you pour this water out and start with fresh water for the dying process. I’ve done it both ways, and truly, fewer eggs crack this way. (Today we only cracked 3 out of 48 eggs!)

While the eggs are soaking, you mix Rit dye, “Scarlet” red, with a small amount of water and then pour it through a coffee filter into a container.

Your pour this dye mixture into the pot with the fresh water and bring it to a boil. Boil for about 12 minutes, then remove the eggs to paper towels to dry.

Once they are cool enough to handle, “polish” them with olive oil and put them in the refrigerator until Pascha night.

In some Greek Orthodox Churches, the priest gives out these eggs to the parishioners at the end of the service. At our church, most parishioners include some eggs in their baskets of food they bring for the Paschal feast.

The tradition is for two people to each hold an egg and “crack” them together… the one whose eggs does not crack wins. More about this game is here.

We’ve had a rainy Holy Thursday here in Memphis, but it’s turned out beautiful at the end of the day.

These clematis on our gate are in full bloom, as are these beautiful azaleas.

My peonies still haven’t bloomed, but I’m hoping for some blossoms by Sunday. Signs of spring are increasing as we move towards Pascha.

Watch for another post on Saturday afternoon… Julia and I will be making the traditional Greek lamb soup together. Yum!

Breaking News! Congratulations to my Goddaughter, Stacy Autrey, in Nashville… who gave birth to Olivia Kate this afternoon! 7 lbs 4 oz. We can’t wait to meet her!

Here's a picture Stacy and Jared just sent to my cell phone. Isn't she beautiful! Aunt Susan loves you, Olivia Kate!

Thoughts... from Poets & Writers and Real Simple Magazine

Well, it’s out there. I sent my book proposal to a literary agent in New York City today! And suddenly I feel…

Vulnerable. . .

Old. . . and

Exhilarated. . .

All at once. Like this woman riding a bicycle, in the May issue of Real Simple Magazine. I love the quote (it’s RS’s “Thought” for the month) from one of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle:

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

The woman looks like she’s riding down the candy-colored streets at Seaside… but she’s too eccentric for the folks there. So maybe she’s on the east coast somewhere. I’ve been staring at this picture for a while. It’s a kind of reality check. Like writing a memoir. As I finished the chapter outline for the book, I thought about L’Engle’s words again… that maybe I’m not losing all the other ages I’ve been. And unlike that cliché that Bruce Williamson made popular back in the 80s—It’s never too late to have a happy childhood—I’m thinking, it’s never too late to make peace with your unhappy childhood…and to be a fully realized adult.

Two articles in the new Poets & Writers spoke to me about my writing. The first is Stephen Corey, editor of the Georgia Review (which has rejected several of my fiction pieces, but I haven't sent them any essays yet) and author of nine collections of poetry. Here’s his take on the work he sees and the work he’d like to see submitted to the literary journal he edits:

Well, more people are sending out and publishing what they now call… “creative nonfiction.” In the mid-1980s we received perhaps two to three hundred essays annually, but now that count has increased at least fourfold—except that most of the pieces we receive are not essays anymore, but autobiographical narratives and reminiscences that read more like sentimental journal entries than thoughtful and rigorous considerations of experience. Everyone has experiences; we as writers must make something of them, in both language and idea.

That’s what the best memoirists do… writers like Anne Lamott, Haven Kimmel, Joan Didion, Mary Karr and others. As I read these amazing stories, sometimes I look at my life and wonder if it’s interesting enough. Corey’s words about making something of our experiences pretty much define the job of the creative nonfiction writer.

The next article in Poets & Writers that caught my eye was “First,” the Practical Writer column. Amy Rosenberg writes about Melissa Delbridge’s memoir, Family Bible. The first thing I noticed (with great hopefulness!) is that the author is 55 years old and this is her debut collection of essays about growing up in Tuscaloosa. Yea! Maybe I’m not too old! But then I read the article, and again, like Karr and the other memoirists I admire so much, her life is full of craziness that makes for good story fodder. But she goes beyond just recounting the crazies. As Rosenberg says in the article:

In presenting individuals who are indeed incestuous, slow-witted, fanatically religious, and all the rest, Delbridge insists on understanding, pushing herself, both as a writer and as a character in her own tale, until she finds compassion—even for Mary’s deranged husband or her own transgressive stepfather.

And as Delbridge puts it:

I’m taking characters and people who are familiar to anyone who has read Southern fiction or lived in the South, and I’m twisting them around to show the real people underneath, people with complicated inner lives.

Now that’s what I’m talking about. And trying to do with my own writing. My two writing critique groups and a couple of “early readers” are helping me try to find that compassion and paint those images with multiple dimensions, reminding me that no one is all good or all bad, and yes, all of us have “complicated inner lives.”

Another helpful thing in Rosenberg’s article is her section about structure. One of my early readers expressed concern that the time frame of some of my chapters overlap, which he thinks might be confusing for the reader. But as I follow a theme throughout the book, I’m also thinking about letting each chapter stand on its own, as a complete essay. As Rosenberg says:

... the publishing industry has been so frenzied for memoir over the past decade that the category has become a stale one, its examples too often feeling contrived or trite, or just leaving the reader cold. Delbridge rises above the label, refusing to impose an artificial structure on her tale and instead stringing together a series of essays, each capable of standing alone. The result is a personal history in which the silences between—and within—chapters leave much to the imagination and enrich the words that appear.

So, once I get past anxieties over the mechanics of the book, I’m kept awake at night worrying about how it will be received. (Presumptuous anxiety, since it hasn’t even been accepted by an agent, much less a publisher.) As I seek to finding healing for myself and others in telling the truth with compassion, Delbridge’s words are helpful:

I’ve tried to write about people, even those I feel wronged me, with understanding and in a spirit of forgiveness.... But with honesty as well. I don’t worry so much about anyone not liking what I have to say. What kind of relationship that’s worth having requires holding back your truth?

I welcome my readers’ thoughts, either privately to my email box (susanmaryecushman@yahoo.com) or join the online discussion here, by leaving a comment. If you don’t know how to leave a comment but would like to, just click on comment below and follow the instructions... it's free to create an account and only takes a few minutes. Or, you can just send me an email and ask me to publish it as a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

The Tinderbox

I had every intention of getting up at 7 a.m. today. It’s Holy Monday for Orthodox Christians, so I wanted to up the ante a bit during these final days before Pascha (Easter) by working more diligently, talking less, fasting more, and turning my thoughts toward the Cross. High aspirations for this lowly sinner, but important ones. So, I set my alarm clock for 7 (instead of my usual 7:30) but I forgot to turn it on. I had told my husband my plan, so he did bring me my first cup of coffee at 7, but I didn’t touch it until 8. Usually my snooze alarm goes off every 9 minutes (weird, but true) and by the second or third time I’m up. Did I mention I’m not a morning person?

Anyway, what happened between 7 and 8 am explains why I couldn’t get up. I had too much to dream. Then came the dawn. And it was gone, gone gone. I wasn’t ready to face the light. I had too much to dream last night.

If those words sound familiar, you’re old like me. The Electric Prunes sang them in 1967. If you really want to go there, here’s a video. Not of the band, but just a guy dancing his socks off to this song. (Just click on the arrow to play.)

Anyway, I got up and wrote down the dream to email it to my friend who helps me with dream work. And then I went to my icon corner to pray. After reading the life of the saint featured in the 2008 Daily Lives, Miracles and Wisdom of the Saints Calendar, I read the quote for the day. This one's by one of my favorite saints, Isaac the Syrian. It’s about suffering. And the cross.

My husband had placed the palm branch from yesterday's Palm Sunday procession there. It's green, verdent, alive. I looked up on our wall of icons and saw the crosses my children had made from palm branches over the years, and thought about how easily the branches could be bent, and shaped into the little crosses, when they were new. But once they died, they dried out. So now they look like crosses of straw, easily breakable. And so I resolved, again, to let God shape me, bend me, mold me, before it’s too late. Before I’m too brittle, too breakable.

Maybe the words from Bridegroom Orthros last night helped.

Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed are those whom He finds watchful.

Waiting. Ready. Like the five maidens who had oil for their lamps. And the sinful woman in tears who anoints his feet. I want to be ready. But I know I need to be sober. To suffer a little. Like not taking off any edges, but taking my sorrow straight, like Iris Dement sings. All this talk about suffering always scares me. Again with the taking up of the cross and all that. Which is why Saint Isaac’s words helped this morning:

Behold, for years and generations the way of God has been made smooth through the Cross and by death. The way of God is a daily Cross. The Cross is the gate of mysteries.

The gate of mysteries. I want to go there. I’ve known a lot of people who thought the gate of mysteries was marijuana. Or other “mind-enhancing” drugs. But now I’m thinking that God didn’t leave anything out when he made our minds and they work just fine, so long as we don’t numb them. And yes, lot of artists and writers have been drug addicts or alcoholics. But I doubt the alcohol helped their craft. It probably just helped them make it through the pain of creating, if they were wounded, broken people. And of course we all are… but maybe the artists and poets and writers are even more broken. More fragile.

This last week of April is also the last week of National Poetry Month, so here’s another offering … one I’m penning as I write this post, so don’t expect anything very polished.

The Tinderbox

Like the moth, I dance
Too close to the flame,
Loving the heat, like the burn
Of good whiskey.

My tinderbox full
To overflowing with
Brittle memories, dry bones
Waiting for something to quench

The thirst that seems to never end
And can’t be sated with wine
Or even Tequila, as the worm
At the bottom of the bottle knows.

If I water the twigs with my tears
Will they come back to life,
To the Tree, to the Cross
And be free from the fire?

Or do they need more
To replenish the years of the
Drought, of my flight from
The Light to the mirage.

Maybe I need the oil of Unction
If I can but wait until Holy Wednesday—
For the relief of every passion
For the healing of soul and body.

Two more days with only my tears
To stave off the fire, but wait—
What’s that I feel?
The tears of Holy Mary

Mingling with mine until
They fill my cup and saturate
The contents of my
Tinderbox.

A Fan of Beth Ann

I’m a fan. And this is a fan. One that Beth Ann autographed, along with her new book, Unmentionables, at Off Square Books in Oxford on Friday night. She giggled as she handed it to me, saying, "Look--fans for my fans! Aren't they cute?"











I met with some of my fellow writers from the Yoknapatawpha Writers Group at our monthly critique session in Oxford on Friday. We usually meet on Saturdays, but we’re all fans of Beth Ann Fennelly, so we changed our meeting to Friday. And she did not disappoint.

When Beth Ann “reads” her poems like she did last night, it’s much more than a “reading.” It’s a performance. She takes you there… into those “unmentionable” places that she dares to go with her amazing poetry. (sorry the photo is fuzzy, I was several rows back, holding my camera in the air over my head!)

Like this one, that she read to us, her eager students, last June at the Yoknapatwpha Writing Workshop. Before it was published. She joked with us then that she might lose her job if it ever got published. I won’t quote the entire poem because, well, because I want you to buy her book. If you’re in Memphis, you can buy it at Burke’s Books, and hear her read and get an autographed copy on May 1. So, here’s the teaser, a few chosen lines from her poem, “First Warm Day in a College Town.”

Today is the day the first bare-chested
runners appear, coursing down College Hill
as I drive to campus to teach, hard

not to stare because it’s only February 15,
and though I now live in the South,
I spent my girlhood in frigid Illinois

….

so now it’s hard not to see these taut colts
as my reward, these yearlings testing the pasture,
hard as they come toward my Nissan

not to turn my head as they pound past,
hard not to angle the mirror
to watch them cruise down my shoulder,….

Want to read more? See you at Burke’s Books on May 1, between 5 and 6:30 p.m., or, of course you can order an autographed copy of the book from them online here.

Last night when Beth Ann opened with this poem, she looked over our heads out into the filled to over-flowing room at Off Square Books and said, “Oh, good evening Chancellor.” The room filled with laughter as she blushed like a school girl caught passing notes in class.

So, what’s the big to-do about Beth Ann Fennelly? As this article in the Oxford Town entertainment newpaper from this week says, she’s winner of the 2002 Kenyon Review Prize and the GLAC New Writers Award for “Open House” in 2002… and the 2997 Texas Review Breakthrough award for an earlier chapbook, “A Different Kind of Hunger.” And a Pushcart Prize winner, listed three times in The Best American Poetry Series. She even read her poetry at the Library of Congress at the invitation of the U.S. Poet Laureate!

All that’s big stuff, but it’s her soul that draws me. As she says, of “Unmentionables,”

These poems investigate the mystery of human relationships—between lovers, family members, individuals and society, ourselves and our perception of ourselves.

The book includes this great poem she wrote about the art of Berte Morisot, after touring the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. I was especially interested in this, since I’m both an artist and a writer. Fennelly says, of this experience:

While working on this poem, I was able to explore the decisions a female artist makes when balancing fulfillment in one’s personal life versus fulfillment in art.

Want to read it? You know what to do. (Buy the book!) Preferably at an independent book store. But if you must, you can order it here.

The poetry reading was especially yummy at the end of a day of critiquing with my writing group buddies. Tom submitted the next chapter of the novel he’s writing. Doug submitted a short fiction piece he wrote as an assignment for a class recently. Herman shared the essay he wrote that Rivers Jordan actually read during a pod cast recently, “Southern Intrusions,” which was really good.

With fear and trembling I exposed the Prologue and first chapter of Dressing the Part to these folks, who treated it with tenderness, thankfully. It’s almost ready to send in with the book proposal, so I really appreciate the fine-tuning from my fellow writers. We missed Patti, who couldn’t come this weekend. But it was very interesting to get feedback from three guys on my book, since the target audience is mainly women.

At the end of our critique session, just for fun, and because it’s National Poetry Month, several of us shared poems we’d written. Herman’s was amazing. It’s about New Orleans. I’m going there in a few weeks, and it made me hunger and thirst for its sights, sounds, smells and tastes.

Okay, I will unabashedly end with the words of encouragement that Beth Ann wrote inside my copy of Unmentionables. I’m very humbled by her kindness and I’m really too embarrassed to type the words for you, so I hope you can read them in the picture.

Inspirational? I’m spending the rest of this gorgeous Saturday afternoon inside editing the book proposal. Thanks, Beth Ann, Doug, Herman and Tom!

The Treasure Hunt

I subscribe to a blog called “Book Therapy,” which often has helpful tips for writers. A recent one, which you can read here is called “Digging for Treasure.” It’s about the importance of “backstory” … information the writer uses to make the characters more three-dimensional and the story more interesting. I’ve never had a problem not having enough backstory… my problem (and probably other writers) is that I often put the backstory in front… I tell the reader things that I should only show him, by the way I write about the characters and develop the plot.

For example, I just went to Jackson to visit my mother, and I was kind of hoping to do a little digging for treasure while I was there. I had a few questions about my childhood that I wanted to ask her, as “backstory” for my memoir. Now, right here, at the beginning of this story, I could tell you all about why I didn’t ask her these questions before she turned 80. Before she got Alzheimer’s. And then I could tell you how it didn’t work out for me to ask her those questions on this visit. But I would bore you to tears. So, instead, I’ll try to tell you a story about my visit with her, keeping the “backstory” to myself. Here goes:

"The Glasses"

a story by Susan Cushman

“I just can’t get my glasses clean.” Mom was riding with me to do some shopping when she pulled her glasses off and held them up to the windshield for a better view of the smudges.”

“Here, I’ve got a special cloth for cleaning lenses,” I offered.

She fumbled with the cloth for a few minutes. At a stop light, I took the glasses and tried to clean them for her.

“Mom, these are all scratched up… in fact, these are your old glasses. Where are the new ones we got you?”

“Oh, I think they fell under my bed.”

“Well, when we get back to your apartment, I’ll look for them.”

“Oh, no. You couldn’t possibly fit under the bed. There’s only a tiny, tiny space there.”

“But I could at least see if they’re there, and maybe fish them out with a yardstick or something.”

“No, there just isn’t room under that bed, I promise you.”

“Well, I’ll still look for them when we get back.”

After shopping we went to lunch. Trying to read the menu, Mom took her glasses off and said, “These glasses are so dirty, I can’t see a thing through them.”

“That’s because they’re scratched, Mom, remember? I’m going to look for your new glasses when we get back to your apartment.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure they’ll turn up some time.”

After lunch, I took her to get a manicure and pedicure. Sitting across from her and reading fashion magazines while a cute Vietnamese guy did her nails, I realized we’d been together for three hours, and I hadn’t asked her any of the questions I’d been thinking about from my childhood. They’d have to wait ‘til we got back to her place now. Or I could just listen as she entertained the employees and other customers at the nail place.

“This is my little girl.” She pointed to me. “She lives in Memphis. She took my car away and sold my house. But she comes to visit me about once a year.”

I smile at the young women in the chairs next to her, fighting back the urge to defend myself. One them of gives me a knowing wink, which helps. And then the young man doing Mom’s nails says, “Now, Mrs. Johnson, your daughter brought you in here just a month or two ago to get your nails done, didn’t she?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She lives in Memphis. Ouch!”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize your toe was tender.”

“Well, it is. Something’s wrong with it. I’ve been meaning to get someone to look at it.”

The nail on the big toe of her right foot was thick and green with fungus.

“Mom, I took you to the doctor last month and she told us what to do about it. Remember? I got you some Vicks Vapo-Rub to put on it twice a day. I wrote you a note and taped it to the Vicks bottle by your bed. Have you been putting it on your toe?”

The giggles the other customers had been trying to stifle just couldn’t be held in any longer at this. So I said to the room, “I know it sounds ridiculous, but Mom’s internist told us that more than one of her patients has had success with this.”

A few minutes later, as we’re leaving the nail place, with Mom wearing a pair of free, disposable flip-flops, she looks at her feet and says, “What’s wrong with the nail on that big toe?”

“You’ve got a fungus, Mom.”

“Oh. Is there anything we can do about it?”

“We can try putting Vicks Vapo-Rub on it. I’ve got some for you back at your apartment.”

“Vicks? Really? Well, I'll try anything once!”

Back in the car, we’re driving through some neighborhood that had been hit by tornadoes a couple of weeks ago. Mom says, “I think I saw this on the news, but I didn’t realize how bad it was.”

“Me, either. Wow—look at that huge tree completely uprooted over there. And all those houses with blue tarps on the roofs where trees fell on them. My goodness.”

At this Mother took off her glasses and held them up to the window. “I can’t really see them well. My glasses are so dirty. Do you have something I can clean them with?”

“We already cleaned them, Mom. They’re scratched. Those are your old glasses. We need to find your new ones when we get back to your apartment.”

“What new ones?”

“The ones you think might have fallen under your bed.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, these are fine.”

Back at Ridgeland Pointe, Mom’s assisted living facility, we make our way through the lobby, where she “introduced” me to all her friends. Again. Finally we’re back in her apartment and I’m on my hands and knees looking under her bed for the glasses.

“You can’t see anything under there, Susan. The space is just too small.”

“I can see fine, Mom, but there’s nothing under here.”

Up off my knees, I begin to search her bedside table, and finally the bookcase headboard behind her pillow.

“Here they are, Mom!”

I hand her the glasses, and she looks at them, then at me, and says, “Oh. I like my old ones better. But thanks, anyway.”

End of treasure hunt. For now….

With a SPRING in my Step!

Yesterday my doctor at Campbell Clinic said, after looking at an x-ray of my big toe that he operated on in January, "go forth and buy new shoes... with heels up to two inches high!" Well, he didn't actually tell me to go buy new shoes... but gave permission to wear them. And to exercise! I know I'm never excited about exercising, but after four months as a total slob, I'm ready!

So this morning, it was off to Curves for me. I'd been driving past this sign several times a week for over three months, but today, I pulled into the parking lot, got an old exercise buddy to snap this pix of me going in... and then this pix of me actually working out. (Thanks, Debbie.)

I know I'll probably be sore tomorrow, but it'll be a good kinda' pain, you know?

It's an all-around beautiful day in the neighborhood... with tulips blooming,

and these tiny peony buds from two weeks ago (right)

are now HUGE (below) .... and I'm hoping they'll bloom by Sunday for Pascha. Just hoping.

I'm off to Jackson to visit my mother today.... hence the quick post. Check back in on Thursday for something meatier. Or not.

Oh, and did I mention I got my mom's income tax stuff done on time for the first time in five years? Yep, it's a beautiful day. (But if you're late or last minute, there are some helpful tips here.)

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm reading The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. Somehow I missed this one, back when it came out in 1995. It's a gritty memoir about her childhood in South Texas... similar era to my childhood in Mississippi. Read a great interview with Karr on Salon here. I've already got the sequel, Cherry, to read next. Great stuff. Got 'em both on PaperBackSwap.com. (check it out!) Watch for book reviews soon.

After watching these great interviews with Joshilyn Jackson about her new book, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, here, I'm doubly inspired to write about real stuff without pulling punches. Without, as Josh says, "chickening out." So.... I'll be taking my laptop to Jackson this afternoon.... getting close to finishing that book proposal and getting another chapter done. But for now, a beautiful drive down south.... with a spring in my step!

Bad Girls and Princesses

Yesterday was the Sunday of Saint Mary of Egypt. She’s my patron saint. Eleven years ago I wrote a poem about her… it’s really a prayer. I wrote it when I was visiting a monastery and was there for Saint Mary of Egypt Sunday in April of 1997. I had been there all week, including the night the Life of Saint Mary was read, along with the Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete. The poem was my feeble attempt to express some of my soul's response to the Canon and to Mary's life. I’ll offer it here, and then share a conversation I had with two little girls at church yesterday, about Mary of Egypt.

Fill my soul, O Lord
As you filled the soul of Your Holy Mother;
Let there be no room in my soul
For anything but You.

Fill my belly, O Lord
As you filled blessed Mary in the desert;
Let my sustenance be only You
So that earthly food will have no taste.

Fill my heart, O lord
As you filled the searching Zosimas
Whose heart’s desire was only You
And the blessing of Your saints.

Fill my mind, O Lord
As you filled the theologians
With words to teach us Your ways
And wisdom that gives life.

Fill my mouth, O Lord
As you filled the mouth of David,
Enabling him to sing Your praise
And teaching repentance through his psalms.

Fill my days, O Lord
As you fill each moment of time
With good works appointed for our sake
Increasing us in virtues and piety.

Fill my nights, O Lord
As you filled the desert nights
With watchfulness, tears, and victory
For holy saints who sought You there.

Fill my flesh, O Lord
As you fill those who keep the fast
With your own Body and Blood
So that it becomes my only satisfaction.

Fill my eyes, O Lord
As once you filled Saint Mary’s eyes,
First with humble tears of repentance
And finally with your glorious Light.

When I wrote that, I was in a more “radical” phase of my spiritual life. As I read it now, a decade later, I can still offer that prayer, but maybe with a few adjustments. I’m not sure I want to have room in my soul only for God. Shouldn’t there be room there for love of others? And I know I don’t want earthly food to “have no taste”…. well, sometimes that would be helpful, like when I’m trying to fast or just be moderate with food. But then where would the struggle be?

After church yesterday, my five-year-old Goddaughter, Sophie, and my six-year-old “grand-Goddaughter,” Mary, asked me some questions about Mary of Egypt. We were sitting by her icon, when Sophie (that's Sophie with me, at left) asked me why she didn’t have on many clothes.

“She lived in the desert and the hot sun burned them off,” I answered.

“Why did she live in the desert?”

“Well, she went there because when she lived in the busy city, she had a hard time being good. But when she repented of being bad, she went to the desert to try to change her behavior.”

At this point, six-year-old Mary joined in to help answer Sophie’s questions. (That's Mary with me in the cowgirl hats.)

“She was a big sinner.”

Sophie misunderstood Mary and said, “she was a baby sitter?”

I was trying hard not to laugh, both at Mary’s answer and Sophie’s question.

“No, honey, a big sinner. A person who behaves badly.”

“Is she still a big sinner?”

“No, actually, she taught us how to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

With this, Sophie looked up at the icon again, and the Prayers After Communion were winding down, so the three of us kissed the relic of Saint Mary of Egypt (which is attached to the icon) and headed downstairs for coffee hour.

Being with Mary and Sophie reminded me of the photographs I’ve been scanning for my book proposal. The Prologue and first few chapters are about some things that happened to me when I was about their ages… maybe ages four to ten. I write about my experiences having to be the Witch (that's me, the Witch) in my third grade play, when I wanted to be the Princess (that's Jan McMillan, the Princess.) But how I got to be the Queen of the Little League the summer after fourth grade, which helped. Some. But how all those longings to be a Princess get mixed up with all those witch-like behaviors… and sometimes how it all begins with a bad experience with your grandfather when you were four years old. And again, like I wrote about in my blog post on April 1, I wonder what happened to Mary of Egypt when she was a little girl. I guess it’s more important to know what she did later in life. That her tears watered the desert. And her heart was aflame with love for God. Like this painting, "Heart on Fire," that my friend, Pam (Napapon) Santirojprapai painted, using coffee and scrap paper. I saw it at a showing a couple of years ago, bought it, and met Pam. She was trying to make a living as an artist, and didn't have a lot of financial resources, so she was using whatever materials were at hand. (Interested in Pam's art? Email her at cici123art@yahoo.com.)

Most days that’s what I want more than anything--for my heart to be aflame with love for God. But some days, I’d rather have a margarita. How wonderful to finally be learning that God forgives and loves me, even on margarita days.

The Imperfect Peace

April is National Poetry Month. My cup overflows, so strap yourself down for a long post. If you'd like to read a poem a day in April, click here. Poetic Asides (a blog sponsored by Writers Digest) suggests that we each write a poem a day during April. My friends who are actually poets may be up to the task, but I have only managed to squeak out one short poem, which will serve as my offering for the entire month. I’ll open with it, and by so doing, will save the best stuff for later in the post.

The Imperfect Peace

©Susan Cushman 2008

O’Connor said it was Christ-haunted,
My home, the South.
Maybe that’s why
I can’t escape His hold on me,
Like Jacob, who wrestled with the Angel.

Sometimes I want to run away,
From my roots,
From my God,
But neither will let me go,
And for that I am, at long last, grateful.

The angry child tries to escape
His father’s embrace,
And fights against
His mother’s love
Until, exhausted, he collapses in her bosom.

That’s where I find myself today,
At rest in the arms
Of Christ and the South,
Having at long last
Buried the sword and accepted the imperfect peace.

Madeleine L’Engle, writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction prose, understood the power of poets, and writers in general. Listen to her essay, "The Danger of Artists," from Madeleine L'Engle, Herself:

The first people that a dictator puts in jail are the writers and the teachers because these are the people who have vocabulary, who can see injustice and can express what they feel about it. Artists are dangerous people because they are called to work with human clay, with the heart and the soul. So to protect itself, society has had to pretend that either art is unimportant or that it is simple…. It is the artist who dared to help us try to be human—to be, though many artists might not put it so, to be saints. We have been given a model in Jesus and we must be brave enough not to kill the Christ in ourselves or to let it be killed as people tried to kill Christ 2000 years ago. It is not the secular humanists who are doing the killing of Christ, but we who call ourselves Christians….We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are, to see through plastic sham to living, breathing reality, and to break down our defenses of self-protection in order to be free and to receive and give love.

And with those words of introduction, I’ll begin my poetry posts with one of L’Engle’s poems, from her book, The Weather of the Heart:

Within This Strange and Quickened Dust

O God, within this strange an quickened dust
The beating heart controls the coursing blood
In discipline that holds in check the flood
But cannot stem corrosion and dark rust.
In flesh’s solitude I count it blest
That only you, my Lord, can see my heart
With passion’s darkness tearing it apart
With storms of self, and tempests of unrest.
But your love breaks through blackness, bursts with light;
We separate ourselves, but you rebind
In Dayspring all our fragments; body, mind,
And spirit join, unite against the night.
Healed by your love, corruption and decay
Are turned, and whole, we greet the light of day.

While I’m still on a spiritual note, I’ll take a moment to mention a liturgical poetic style known in the Orthodox Church as the Akathist. On Friday nights during Great Lent, a portion of the Akathist Hymn to the Mother of God is sung. Tonight, at least at St. John Orthodox here in Memphis, the entire canon is sung. You can read an excellent explanation of it by Frederica Mathewes-Green here. Or listen to her read from it here and here. It’s beautiful beyond words. Now back to the poetry posts.

My favorite contemporary poet, Beth Ann Fennelly, who teaches writing at Ole Miss, will be reading from her new book, Unmentionables, at Square Books in Oxford on April 18, and at Burke’s Books in Memphis on May 1. I’m hoping to make both readings. Her readings are amazing performances, actually. So, if you’re in either vicinity, try to get there! If not, pick up one of her books. Here’s a sample, from Tender Hooks:

I Need To Be More French.
Or Japanese.

By Beth Ann Fennelly

Then I wouldn’t prefer the California wine,
its big sugar, big fruit rolling down my tongue,
a cornucopia spilled across a tacky tablecloth.
I’d prefer the French, its smoke and rot.
Said Cezanne: Le monde—c’est terrible!
Which means, The world—it bites the big weenie.
People sound smarter in French.
The Japanese prefer the crescent moon to the full,
prefer the rose before it blooms.
Oh, I have been to the temples of Kyoto,
I have stood on the Pont Neuf, and my eyes,
they drank it in, but my taste buds
shuffled along in the beer line at Wrigley Field.
It was the day they gave out foam fingers.
I hereby pledge to wear more gray, less yellow
of the beaks of baby mockingbirds,
that huge yellow yawping open on wobbly necks,
trusting something yummy will be dropped inside,
soon. I hereby pledge to be reserved.
When the French designer learned
I didn’t like her mock-ups for my book cover,
she sniffed, They’re not for everyone. They’re
subtle. What area code is 662 anyway? I said,
Mississippi, sweetheart. Bet you couldn’t find it
with a map. OK: I didn’t really. But so what
if I’m subtle as May in Mississippi, my nose
in the wine bowl of this magnolia bloom, so what
if I’m mellow as the punch-drunk bee.
If I were Japanese I’d writ ea tone poem
about magnolias in March, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celedon suide, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I’d end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy’s cast-off slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers. Yes, my poem
would end there, spent firecrackers.
If I were French, I’d capture post-peak, in July,
the petals floppy, creased brown with age,
the stamens naked, stripped of yellow filaments.
The bees lazy now, bungling the ballet, thinking
for the first time about October. If I were French,
I’d prefer this, end wit the red-tipped filaments
scattered on the scorched brown grass,
and my poem would incite the sophisticated,
the French and the Japanese readers—
because the filaments look like matchsticks,
and it’s matchsticks, we all know, that start the fire.

I’ll end my poetry post with one from Mary Waters, a poet I discovered while shopping in the Heights, my favorite area of Little Rock, a few years ago. I bought one of her chap books, Other Stars Waiting, and later my friend who lives in Little Rock picked up two more: Private Rooms and Thoughts From a Vast Right-Brain Conspiracy. The poem I want to end with today inspires me on several levels. I had dinner with a friend last night, and one of the many things we talked about was how messy life is when we choose to be true to ourselves. My young friend is learning things at thirty that I’m just now grasping. So, this one’s for you, Sally Anna.

Accommodation (from Other Stars Waiting)

By Mary N. Waters

When I first began to write,
I thought that nothing much
would change;
one more activity,
added to my days.
I would accommodate it;
the writing,
give it
the extra bedroom.
But I was wrong.
This was my lover,
wearing muddy boots
upon the neatly
polished floor, and sleeping
where he pleased.
So all those other things
began to change, to
give him space;
and since he didn’t fit
the me I was,
I chose to be
transformed,
in ways I can not name.
And here I am,
a writer of poetry,
and those who thought
they knew me,
wonder,
and sometimes,
so do I.

Religious Wars and Publishing after 50!

The April issue of Writers Digest magazine arrived in my mailbox this week, containing an article called “Religious Wars.” The author, Kara Uhl, talks about the role of September 11 as the catalyst for many of what she calls “anti-religion” books. She highlights Sam Harris’ book, The End of Faith, which was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction in 2004, as the leader in a nonfiction, bestselling subcategory, which Uhl says, “indicates a culture shift.”

But unlike many subcategories that take a strong stance, here publishers have seen anti-theism readers pick up anti-religion books, and vice versa, if only so they can better argue their views…. It’s an age-old war being fought on pages and marketed on the front tables of major bookstores, and while some say the trend has peaked, other think the crusade has only just begun.

Uhl discusses some other key players in her article: The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, and The Dawkins Delusion? by Alister McGrath, God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor Stenger, and Nica Lalli’s memoir, Nothing. But her article reminded me that I'm overdue for another installment of my continuing "review" of Harris' book, The End of Faith.

My earlier reviews are (Chapter 1) here, (Chapter 2) here, and (Chapters 3 and 4) here.

I think there are several reasons I’ve been avoiding Harris’ book. One is my own feeling of inadequacy…. Not knowing if I’m up to the task. This is heady stuff. I only agreed to read the book because someone I love very much asked me to. This friend was very much taken with Harris’ book, so I agreed to read it with an open mind. And that leads to the second reason I’ve been avoiding the book. I don’t think I’m capable of reading it with an “open mind,” if that means with an empty slate. I’m not sure any of us can do that. We take in everything around us through a filter, don’t we? Everything we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and read goes through a filter that’s been developed through years of sensual and intelligent input. And yet, I try. The third reason is that I’m choosy about what I read. I try to balance my reading with books (and essays, short fiction and poetry) that are uplifting, spiritual, and artistic and books that are educational and informational. Some times a book can accomplish several of these tasks simultaneously. And yet, I’m pressing on a bit today, having just read Chapter 5 of The End of Faith: “West of Eden.”

Harris deals with what he calls “the influence of religion in the West” in this chapter, and starts with a warning:

The degree to which religious ideas still determine government policies—especially those of the United States—presents a grave danger to everyone…. For many years U.S. policy in the Middle East has been shaped, at least in part, by the interests that fundamentalists Christians have in the future of a Jewish state…. Fundamentalist Christians support Israel because they believe that the final consolidation of Jewish power in the Holy Land—specifically, the rebuilding of Solomon’s temple—will usher in both the Second Coming of Christ and the final destruction of the Jews.

Right off the bat, Harris is taking an extremist fundamentalist view and applying it to all Christians. When Pilate asked Jesus if He was the King of the Jews, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” (John 18:36)

The Orthodox Christian Church (some good links to read about Orthodoxy are here, at the Antiochian Archdiocese's web site) does not take a political stance on these issues, because we believe what Christ said to Pilate. Our faith does not, or should not, lead us to extreme actions based on what Harris calls “intrusions of eschatology into modern politics.” His statement that “Millions of Christians and Muslims now organize their lives around prophetic traditions that will only find fulfillment once rivers of blood begin flowing from Jerusalem” is again, not an indictment against Christianity, any more than extreme behavior on the part of an individual American, or even a group of Americans, is an indictment against America.

The War on Sin

In his section on “The War on Sin,” Harris talks about what he calls “the tension between private freedom and public risk.”

Behaviors like drug use, prostitution, sodomy, and the viewing of obscene materials have been categorized as “victimless crimes.”…. Indeed, what is startling about the notion of a victimless crime is that even when the behavior in question is genuinely victimless, its criminality is still affirmed by those who are eager to punish it…. The idea of a victimless crime is nothing more than a judicial reprise of the Christian notion of sin…. It is no accident that people of faith often want to curtail the private freedoms of others. This impulse has less to do with the history of religion and more to do with its logic, because the very idea of privacy is incompatible with the existence of God…. Because we are a people of faith, taught to concern ourselves with the sinfulness of our neighbors, we have grown tolerant of irrational uses of state power.

As I read these words this morning, having just finished my Morning Prayers, I thought about the Prayer of St. Ephraim, which Orthodox Christians pray every day during Great Lent. His words speak directly to Harris’ accusations that Christian faith leads to the desire to curtail the private freedom of others:

O Lord and Master of My Life, take from me the spirit of sloth, meddling, lust of power and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant.
O Lord and King, grant me to see my own sins and not to judge my brother, for blessed are You unto ages of ages. Amen.

When I judge my brother (and I do this, unfortunately, quite a bit) it’s not in obedience to my faith. Quite the contrary—it’s a sin against my brother, and against God, the judge of all. I’m not sure who Harris is referring to when we says that we, as a people of faith, are “taught to concern ourselves with the sinfulness of our neighbors,” but it’s certainly not the historic Christian Church.

I don’t know the scientific and medical facts necessary to argue with Harris about his assessment of the danger of alcohol and cigarettes (which are legal) vs. the harmless and possibly even helpful effects (according to Harris) of marijuana and other illegal drugs. But I do disagree with his assumptions about how prohibition causes crime:

The crimes of the addict, to finance the stratospheric cost of his lifestyle, and the crimes of the dealer, to protect both his territory and his goods, are likewise the results of prohibition.

This is just illogical. Would Harris have a state with no laws, so that there would be no crimes against the law? I guess I’ll find out what his plan is in the final chapters of his book, if I can make myself read them.

The God of Medicine

In his final section of this chapter, “The God of Medicine,” Harris deals with embryonic stem-cell research. He states his beliefs about stem cells dogmatically:

Here is what we know.

Immediatly, I'm asking, who is “we”?

We know that research on embryonic stem cells requires the destruction of human embryos at the 150-cell stage. There is not the slightest reason to believe, however, that such embryos have the capacity to sense pain, to suffer, or to experience the loss of life in any way at all.

Again, who is “we”?

He sets people of faith over and against the “we” in terms that try to render them as idiots:

Enter faith: we now find ourselves living in a world in which college-educated politicians will hurl impediments in the way of such research because they are concerned about the fate of single cells…They believe that even a human zygote (a fertilized egg) should be accorded all the protections of a fully developed human being…. Those opposed to therapeutic stem-cell research on religious grounds constitute the biological and ethical equivalent of a flat-earth society.

Well, I guess we’re pretty clear about how Harris feels about Christians. I’m finding it more and more difficult to continue reading this book of his “with an open mind” as he continues to assault my intelligence, and even my humanity, with such statements. Harris’ transition into his next chapter says:

It is time we found a more reasonable approach to answering questions of right and wrong.

I guess we’ll learn about his approach in the final chapters of his book. But don’t look for my comments any time soon. Reading Harris leaves me hungry for something substantive, especially as I approach these final seventeen days of Great Lent. And so I refer again to Metropolitan Anthony Bloom’s short book, Meditations on a Theme, for some balance here:

It is not circumstances that make shadows darken our souls, nor is it God’s fault, although we accuse him all the time. How often have I heard people say, ‘Here are my sins,’ then stop a moment to take a breath and begin a long discourse to the effect that had not God afflicted them with such a hard life, they would not sin so much.’…. I suggested, before reading a prayer of absolution, that peace between God and man was a two-way traffic, and I asked whether the penitent was prepared to forgive God all his misdeeds, all the wrong he had done, all the circumstances which prevented this good Christian from being a saint. People do not like this, and yet, unless we take full responsibility for the way we face our heredity, our situation, our God and ourselves, we shall never be able to face more than a small section of our life and self. If want to pass a true and balanced judgment on ourselves we must consider ourselves as a whole, in our entirety.

On a different note, in the same issue of Writer’s Digest, I found a wonderful article called “Publish Your First Book after 50.” Looking at all the young folks at every writers conference I attend can be very intimidating. Literary agent Scott Hoffman offers great tips for writing and publishing after age 50, and you can bet I read every word! Especially some of his closing remarks:

Anna Sewell didn’t sell the classic novel “Black Beauty” to her publisher until she was 57. [Note: I’m 57!] Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie series didn’t have her first book published until she was well into her 60s. And Richard Adams, author of the children’s classic “Watership Down,” remained unpublished until he was in his 50s.

Looks like I’m in good company! Or… I will be when I get my first book published. Which reminds me, blogging is fun, but it isn’t getting the next chapter written….

A Lesson at Starbucks

After having coffee with a friend on the patio at Starbucks this morning, I went inside to work on some revisions I’m making on the prologue and first chapter of my book. But I was distracted by the conversation I had just had with my friend. And by the words of my Father Confessor after my confession on Saturday night. And by one of the employees of the coffee shop.

My friend and I had been discussing what it means to struggle. To deny yourself and live a disciplined life, especially during Great Lent. My struggle is pretty basic: I have become a Lenten passivist, in some areas. So, rather than struggle (and therefore, in my pessimistic view, fail) daily against certain passions, I’ve just chosen not to engage. Like an anti-war protester. But at the center of this non-struggle is something baser than fear of failure… it’s just plain old-fashioned self-centeredness. I don’t want to suffer. Not even the pain of dealing with things in life that are hard, physically or emotionally, without a buffer…. be it alcohol, or food, or other comforts.

At my confession, my priest encouraged me to read this scripture verse and ask God to show me what it means for me, especially in regards to this struggle. Or non-struggle. Here’s the verse:

“Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 8:35, also in Matthew 16)

I had just read that, on the Sunday of the Cross, so I continued reading the next verses:

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (verses. 35-37)

So, I asked God to show me what this means for me, right now, today. Yes, I prayed that prayer sitting in Starbucks. And then I saw him. This older man, a Starbucks employee, who was cleaning the tables and chairs in the coffee shop. Now, all the employees working behind the bar were young, all under 30, I would guess. And this man looked to be around 70. But he was on his knees, with a bucket of soapy water, carefully cleaning every leg of every chair, every seat we customers sat in, every table top we spilled our drinks on. It was so humbling, and so beautiful, that I couldn’t take my eyes off him, and I gave in to the temptation to capture him on my cell phone.

Why was he doing that? What had the last seventy years of his life been like, that brought him to this place of cleaning tables and chairs on his hands and knees in a coffee shop? I couldn’t write, so I got up to leave, and as I passed by him, I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Thank you so much for doing this.”

He smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”

“It really makes this a nice place for us to come to.”

He just nodded and went back to work.

When I got home I got out the Orthodox Study Bible (the old one, actually) to read the comments about these verses. They spoke to my heart:

To save one’s life means to base one’s earthly life on self. This is the opposite of self-denial, and ultimately results in the loss of eternal life. To lose one’s life is to accept suffering and sacrifice for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom, which ultimately brings salvation. Discipleship is costly: it requires giving up all claim to everything the world holds dear.

I wonder if the man at Starbucks had given up that claim willingly, or if it had been taken from him.

Soul (in Greek, psyche) can refer to our spiritual nature or the whole human being. Nothing is more valuable to us than our souls.

As I pondered on my soul, a phrase suddenly came to me, and I Googled it:

How Much Does a Soul Weigh?

And I found that a woman, Dorie McCubbrey, had written a book with a similar title: How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? It was about her life-long struggle with body-image, weight gain and loss, and eating disorders. A brave book. You can read excerpts from it here.

And then I picked up the little book my friend Madeleine gave me for my birthday with quotes by various women, and came across this one, by author and motivational speaker, Linda Henley:

So many of us define ourselves by what we have, what we wear, what kind of house we live in and what kind of car we drive…. If you think of yourself as the woman in the Cartier watch and the Hermes scarf, a house fire will destroy not only your possessions but your self.

I’m as attached to material stuff as anyone I know. I love certain clothes, houses, cars, jewelry, etc. So I get this about losing my self to these things. But I’m more attached to food and drink…. “And what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Well, I have traded my soul for a cup of coffee on Sunday morning more than once, preventing me from receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus in Holy Communion. (In the Orthodox Church we fast before communion, from all food and drink.) And most afternoons, I want that glass of wine more than life itself, so I guess in those cases I trade my soul for temporary pleasure, or comfort, or just numbness.

But I’m going to try to keep the image of that dear man on his knees at Starbucks before me as approach the remaining days of the Fast. And the words of Jesus from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. And my fellow strugglers, Dorie McCubbrey and Linda Henley. When I read their books, it gives me courage to write my own, and hope that my words might someday help someone else who struggles.

Arkansas Literary Festival...*note correction below!

It was a beautiful day in downtown Little Rock today… and the River Market District was teeming with natives and visitors in town for the annual Arkansas Literary Festival. I met my friend, Daphne, for a morning of events while my husband was giving a medical lecture to private practice docs, nurses and dieticians. It was one of those rare convergences of his work and mine. Yes, attending festivals like this is part of my work, as a writer. Learning from successful writers, and soaking up their creative energy.

It was difficult to chose from the amazing authors lecturing simultaneously all day, but after scrutinizing the schedule over our Starbucks drinks, we settled on these three venues:

Tito Perdue, author of several books, was reading from his latest, The Fields of Asphodel (fiction). The New York Press touted him as “one of the most important contemporary Southern writers we have—and should certainly be considered among the most important American writers of the early 21st century.” Purdue was scheduled opposite Sonny Brewer, so it was a tough decision. (Sonny was talking about Cormac: The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing, which made it easier for me to skip his presentation, since I’m not into dogs.)

Anyway, Perdue was born in Chile, but was raised in Anniston, Alabama from age 3, of a Chilean father and Alabaman mother, so he’s truly a Southerner. His latest book is kind of an epilogue to his series about his character, Lee, who died in the last book. He just wasn’t through with the character, so he wrote about his experience in pergatory in The Fields of Asphodel. The seven books he wrote about Lee have definitely autobiographical aspects to them. Lee despises modernity and loves the agrarian South… was asked to be sent back 100 years earlier than he lived, to see the South as it was then. Perdue spoke of him with compassion:

“When he died, he wanted beauty, which was always teasing about the edges of his life.”

Speaking of Lee, and himself (Perdue started writing at age 44 and “slowly developed a voice”… for about ten years) he says:

“The ability to see metaphysical truth through the transparent medium of reality is given us as we get older.”

I loved the passages he read from Lee and The Fields of Asphodel. His work has a fine literary quality. I’m anxious to read his earliest book, The Sweet-Scented Manuscript, which he wrote twenty years ago and just recently published. It was about his wife of fifty years, who accompanied him to the reading today. You could just see the love between them.

Next we listened to Tony Earley reading from his new book, The Blue Star. It’s a sequel to his best-seller, Jim the Boy, which Newsweek called “a dazzling first novel about boyhood.” In The Blue Star, Jim is a teenager falling in love on the eve of World War II. Earley teaches Creative Writing at Vanderbilt University, has a four-year-old, and writes “when he can.” The passages he read were tightly written, literary, but with a simplicity that bespeaks his talent. Asked about his relationship to his stories, he said, “I made up the childhood that I wished I had.” He also follows his heart instead of trends, saying, “For About a year and a half I tried to write something post-modern and smart so all the cool kids would like me. But now I just plan to keep writing sequels to Jim the Boy.”

It seems to be working for him. And living in Nashville has its perks. He asked his friend, the musician Paul Burch, to play at a reading he was giving, and Paul asked if he could write a song about his character, Jim, from his books. He ended up writing an entire CD, “The Last of My Kind,” based on Earley’s books. It might be the first soundtrack ever written for a book!

His purity reminded me a bit of Flannery O’Connor, who said, “Don’t think I write for purgation, I write because I write well.” Earley gave a similar answer to a question about why he writes: “I don’t think of writing as therapy. If I need therapy, I go play golf.”

Earley’s books have layers of meaning that can be enjoyed by boys (and girls) ages 12-22… or adults who will appreciate their literary quality and the charm of the stories, themselves.

Our final seminar was Barbara Oakley speaking on “Why People Behave Badly.” Her book, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, was born out of her quest to understand her sister’s lifelong aberrant behavior. Oakley is one of the few women to hold a doctorate in systems engineering, and used her scientific brain to research personality disorders in an effort to help us all understand psychopathic behavior in general, and what she calls “borderpath,” – a mixture of borderline and psychopathic personality disorders.

There was standing room only for Oakley’s lecture, and she seemed to be in her element during the question-answer time, which welcomed questions and comments from a psychiatrist, a pastor, a physician, and numerous folks with family members who struggle with personality disorders. I was already pretty familiar with a lot of the symptoms of these disorders, but am always interested to see what words of encouragement might be offered in the realm of healing. Near the end of the Q & A, Oakley’s theory of seven generations was discussed—that it takes seven generations for the wiring to be straightened out in a family with borderpaths. The first generation that acknowledges the problem and chooses to get help begins the process. But his or her children still have a strong chance of getting the gene, which will be weakened for the next generation, again, if the children seek help and work through their issues. *Okay, Barbara emailed me with the following comment/correction, so I'd like to insert it here, "for the record":

*That's actually not quite right. It's many genes that combine to make a borderpath--which also makes it quite likely that the child of a borderpath, although at higher risk, could still be a perfectly normal, kind individual. So there's no seven generations involved, or getting help or working through issues.

I think this info about the 7 generations came from a conversation I had with someone else at the festival. Sorry, Barbara! But it's fascinating stuff. And delivered with a spirit of hope and a sense of humor.
There’s another full day of the festival tomorrow, for anyone reading this who lives in Little Rock or nearby. We ate lunch at the River Market (left) where I had yummy spinakopita, hummus, pita and taboulie from the Medeterranean booth, and we shared a table with this lovely gentleman in the hat.

And the Oxford Conference for the Book is wrapping up today. So many authors, so little time! My friend Doug, from our Yoktapatawpha Writing Group, was there in Oxford taking photographs. With a real camera. See, I forgot my camera, so these photos at the festival in Little Rock were actually taken with my cell phone! What they lack in quality, maybe they make up in candor... it's easier to be sneaky with a cell phone!

Some Identity Problems

That’s the name of Corey Mesler’s first full-length chap book. The one he read from last night at his book signing at Burke’s Books. Before you read my post, you can read a review of Some Identity Problems here. I especially like the quote at the end of that one, where they ask Corey why he writes.

But first, let me set the scene. The reading and book signing last night coincided with two other significant commemorations: It was the one year (plus one day) celebration of Burke's Books’ move to its new location at 936 Cooper Street. If you don’t live in Memphis, this is part of an artsy neighborhood called Cooper-Young, which is alive and brimming with coffee shops, restaurants, art galleries, music stores, architects’ offices, massage parlors, dance studios and other creative businesses. And, it was the first ever Cooper-Young Thursday Night Out . Here are a few shots of the street scene in front of Burke’s Books. As I approached, I could hear music from a group jamming in front of the Memphis Drum Shop, and the aromas wafting from nearby Tsunami, Dish, and Blue Fish, my favorites among the food offerings in the neighborhood. As I drove away I saw young couples with babies in strollers coming up the street to join the festivities, and I smiled.

Down the street and around the corner on Central, Artists on Central was celebrating “Italia Va Bene” during the month of March. My friend Nancy took me there on Wednesday, to see her husband Lloyd Mardis’ display of acrylic paintings from their trip to Venice last year. They’ve extended his showing during the month of April.

But back to Burke’s Books. First a digression, one of those “it’s a small world” stories. At the two Creative Nonfiction workshops I’ve attended in Oxford, one last fall and another this February, one of the hosts has been Neil White. Neil has just sent his first book manuscript to the publisher, and he’s been kind enough to give me some help with the book proposal I’m putting together. As it turns out, Cheryl Mesler, (right) Corey's wife and co-owner of Burke’s Books, is Neil's sister-in-law. So it was a nice surprise to see Neil and his wife, Debbie, there at the book reading last night.

Speaking of the book reading, Corey read several selections from Some Identity Problems. The room was packed with people sitting and standing along the sides and in the back. He read with a comfortableness that belied his fear of crowds.

I sat with his book in my lap, with my eyes on his. It’s the best way to listen to a poet read their own words. That’s what I tell visitors to my church… that’s it’s best not to try to follow along in the Divine Liturgy Book, but just to watch the altar area and listen for the voices of the priests and deacons and chanters and angels.

And even though I loved hearing Corey read his poetry, I’m going to end with one of his poems that he didn’t read last night. But it’s one of my favorites. People who know me well will understand why I like it so much. It’s short. Just try to picture Corey reading it:

Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey sits down at her desk.
Today she’s going to try to reinvent
a famous life. “Now there’s a mystery,”
she thinks, “the arc of reality.”
She puts her fingers on the keys and
something stops her. She turns
around to see her shadow go into the
kitchen. She hears the refrigerator
door open. “I just want to get this started,”
she thinks. “Just let me into this book.”

Leaving a Space for God

“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”

As I wade through painful memories while writing my memoir, I struggle to embrace this maxim. My response to pain inflicted by others, or even to difficult situations allowed by God, is much more often anger, and rarely thankfulness. In his book, How to Be An Adult: A Handbook on Psychological and Spiritual Integration, David Richo talks about the necessity of both psychological and spiritual healing. The following is a fairly long quote, but worth the read:

An example of the congruence of psychological and spiritual work is in dealing with the hurts of childhood. Psychologically, we work through the emotions by grieving the past and by self-parenting. Spiritually, we work with the past experiences as present healing images. These images may reveal that what wounded us also sensitized us. We needed all the experiences of our life—positive and negative—to become as emotionally and spiritually rich as we are!

As we learn to honor timing, we may notice that we alternate between psychological and spiritual emphases in life. At one time, our main motive may be to seek out and respond to challenge, to take hold and become deeply involved in projects and relationships. This is functional ego work and takes rightful precedence over letting go. At another time, what will work best for us are choices that lead to fewer encumbrances, to lightening up, and letting go. This is spiritual unfolding and takes precedence over ego goals.

Psychological work ultimately leads us to closure and to the goal of change: healthier self-esteem and more productive relationships. Spiritual work leads us to continual transformations of consciousness: an ever-actualizing Self, in touch with inner healing powers both for us and for others.

For many years I rejected psychological healing, considering it to be un-Christian. Thankfully, I was shown its value and encouraged to incorporate it into my life. One of the people who encouraged me in this direction is my “spiritual mother,” an Orthodox Abbess at a monastery. Another is someone I haven’t met, but his books were crucial in preparing the way for me to enter this realm. Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlakos, whose books have been translated from Greek in recent years, speaks of the Church as a “spiritual hospital,” but also avows that when it fails in this role, modern psychology often steps in to fill the gap. I don’t believe the Church fails sacramentally… God has given us everything we need for life and salvation in the sacraments. But in our sickness, sometimes we need counseling to bring us to a place where we are able to more fully receive those sacraments, and not all priests are equipped for this counseling.

Yesterday I received our parish newsletter, the Evangelist, in the mail. The front page story, “The Great Fast Continues,” by our pastor, Father John Troy Mashburn, talks about this past Sunday, the Adoration of the Cross, which is mid-way in our Lenten journey. A brief excerpt:

Having fasted for three weeks, some weariness sets in, and to counteract the temptation to grow faint, the Church reminds us of that to which our struggle leads. For the week following, as we enter the nave of the church, we see the cross in the middle of the nave, and we remember the passion of our Lord, His own struggle which culminates in the defeat of death. By the mercy of God, our parish is blessed to have a piece of the True Cross in our midst for those five days. Buoyed and refreshed by God’s mercy through the presence of the Cross on which the God-man defeated death, we continue our journey to the revered days of Holy Week and the celebration of the Great and Glorious Resurrection of our Lord! (That's the Reliquary of the True Cross at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, at right. Click on the image to see it larger.)

In the past, I’ve struggled with this reasoning: how is the Cross a means of encouragement when we’re weary from our journey? The Cross represents sacrifice, struggle, pain, martyrdom… all the things we’re supposed to embrace, especially during Great Lent. But these are the things I spend most of my life trying to avoid, in my quest for comfort and pleasure. Where’s the “refreshment” the fathers speak about with this Cross in our midst half-way through Lent?

Somewhere between the service of Compline on Monday night and Presanctified Liturgy last night it began to sink in. When I let go of the intense mental and psychological work that Richo wrote about in Growing Up, and move into the realm of spiritual healing, I make room for God. The psychological work is helpful, even necessary for me. I still have painful stuff to work through from my past. And as Richo says, becoming deeply involved in projects (like icon workshops and memoirs) is an important part of that journey for me.

But once the latest project (the icon workshop) was over, and I entered the nave and saw the Cross, something in me began to let go. I temporarily forgot about my foot, still healing from surgery, as I prostrated myself before the Cross, physically and spiritually throwing myself on Christ’s mercy. I suddenly felt what Richo meant by “choices that lead to fewer encumbrances”… that it was time to simplify, to slow down.

This push and pull, this rhythm of psychological and spiritual work, is a dance I’ll be learning the rest of my life. I received a beautiful card in the mail yesterday from a dear friend. On the front was this colorful image, reminding me of a spinning wheel creating beautiful fabric designs. The quote was from Rumi, and in case you can’t read it in this scanned image, here’s what it says:

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

As I read it, I thought of the Scripture verse that says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

So how do I continue this dance… this struggle to heal the past and be fully present to receive God’s love and pass it on to others? I had a discussion with one of my children a few years back about whether or not people can truly change. I have to believe they can.

Dr. Jamie Moran, in his essay, “Orthodoxy and Modern Depth Psychology,” (in Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World) says:

People only change if they are truly religious in the way that the child is originally religious: in love with the world, and full of the élan that can only come from reaching out of oneself, in interest and concern. Those people who retain a spark of this religiousness, and who therefore still serve something greater than themselves, will because of that ‘something,’ open their selfishness to life and healing. Only such people will repent of selfishness, and let life show them it is wrong as a basis for existence.

People who leave a space for God—even for the “hidden” God, which is what the Holy Spirit is: God’s humility—can be helped, and can change. They can learn to live with the most extreme damage and suffering, and yet still find joy in life….

People who leave a space for God are able to make that change of heart, not for any sentimental reason or out of any moral superiority, and certainly not because of what is conventionally called piety, but because and only because, despite their selfishness, they truly acknowledge and have faith in a force that is greater than themselves. They are willing to open their selfishness up to that greater force, and in opening its closed system, to begin to let life teach it its mistakes and heal its wound, and comfort its genuine suffering.

That’s what the True Cross did for me this week by its presence in the nave at St. John. It comforted my genuine suffering and softened my selfish heart, enabling me to let go of my delusion of control, and of clinging to selfishness, as Moran says, as a basis for existence. Oh, I’ll want to take them back up again, over and over, that anger and control and selfishness. But at least for this week, I’m choosing to take up the Cross, and I’m finding, by God’s grace, that “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:30)

Wounded Hearts and the Language of Clothes

Today (April 1) is the Feast Day of Saint Mary of Egypt, my patron saint. She is also commemorated on the 5th Sunday of Great Lent every year, in the Orthodox Church. The story of her life is read during one of the evening services the week after her Sunday. You can read it here .

The Orthodox Church holds her up as a model of repentance. She repented of a life of prostitution and spent the rest of her life in the desert, away from the city where she was so easily enslaved to her passions.

Nothing is written about her life before she became a prostitute. But the fact that she craved sex, and being the center of attention, and didn’t just sell herself out of desperation, is an indication that she might have suffered abuse as a child. And while her extreme example of repentance is inspirational, most of us don’t have the opportunity to flee to the dessert. But there is help for healing, not only through the Church, but through counseling.

Dr. Dan Allender, in The Wounded Heart, says that abused men or women often try to numb their pain...

with addictive activities, such as alcoholism, substance abuse, workaholism, sexaholism, eating disorders, perfectionism, or religious fanaticism. The common element of each is the bondage that is exercised over the individual by the object of obsession and the deleterious influence it has on his or her ability to love others.

Allender doesn’t give victims of sexual abuse an excuse to stay in these addictive behaviors, but says that “all addictions are illegitimate worship of an object and gain, for a time, a false sense of control to eradicate the ambivalence and numb the wound.”

So, I tend to believe that St. Mary of Egypt was wounded in some way, and that wound led her to prostitution. Her story mentions her craving for food, drink, and music, but it doesn’t talk about an obsession with clothes. Maybe that wasn’t such a common substitute in the fourth century. Or maybe she escaped that bondage by fleeing to the desert where clothes weren’t an issue.

In doing some research for the memoir I’m working on, which uses clothing as a narrative frame, I just found two books which shed light on the significance of clothing over the past century, especially.

First, in The Language of Clothes Alison Lurie (Random House, NY 1981) begins with the concept that fashion is “a language of signs, a nonverbal system of communication.” People often check each other out, visually, before ever having a conversation, and that visual perusal starts with their exterior…. their clothes.

Having just finished teaching an iconography workshop--and explaining to the students that painting icons is called "writing" because we are telling the “story” of the person whose image we paint, but we’re telling it with color, with paint, rather than with words--I found it interesting to read today that the French structuralist Roland Barthes describes theatrical dress as a kind of “writing, of which the basic element is the sign.”

Lurie takes off from this premise to describe the “language of clothing” or the “vocabulary of fashion” throughout the twentieth century, primarily. Most of the book was just a fun walk down fashion’s memory lane, much like my recent Google search for Easter fashions of the 50s, and my search through old family photo albums for pictures of my own journey in style. But near the end of Lurie’s book, she addresses more of the psychological issues involved in clothing. I was especially interested in what she had to say about how we dress our “outer and inner selves”:

The information or misinformation we want our clothes to convey about status, age, occupation, opinions, mood and sexual tastes may make it hard for us to decide what to wear. What often happens in such cases is that the outer layer represents the external or public person and the inner one his or her private self….

I’m thinking of some of my favorite combinations that to some might seem contradictory: leather and lace…. denim and pearls… and Victoria’s Secret beneath the sloppiest of exercise clothes….. But I'm also thinking about the years I wore a head-covering to church. Even though I reined in my fashion sense a great deal during my "nun phase," close friends made gentle fun of the fact that my head-covering (scarves) always matched whatever I was wearing. I just couldn't completely shut down the "artist within" that was struggling for legitimate expression!

Michelle Lee, in Fashion Victim: Our Love-Hate Relationship with Dressing, Shopping and the Cost of Style (Broadway Books, NY, 2003) takes us on a similar fashion journey, but with more stops along the way to discuss body image, eating disorders, marketing strategies, and “fair trade” issues. Her obsession with underarm flab was set off by an encounter with an ultra-thin supermodel (Lee works for Conde Nast) in New York, but her description of fashion’s “thin spin” was right on target. She quotes a Harvard Medical School Psychiatrist as saying, “Of course, the fashion industry isn’t responsible for having created our culture—but this doesn’t mean that they don’t have a responsibility for what they do.”

Fashion magazines have great power, I think, over the psyches of women, and especially teenage girls. I got my first bra and cut my last molars while ingesting every word and picture in Seventeen Magazine in the 60s.

While Lee’s book doesn’t deal with the affect of childhood abuse on a young woman’s obsession with her body and clothes (and other addictive issues which I will address in my book) she paints a vivid picture of the culture in which the wounded woman-child will have even greater struggles. It was a bit comforting, in a dark sort of way (misery loves company?) for me to read these words in her epilogue:

I still occasionally look at Karolina Kurkova’s thighs in a magazine, then switch to mine, then to hers, then to mine, and wonder why hers don’t touch at the top the way mine do…. And I still suffer from innumerable Bad Clothes Days, unable to shake the frustration that I don’t have—and never will have—enough to wear. Just the other day, before meeting friends for dinner, I tried on ten outfits before settling on one. And even now, I see trends in W, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and feel compelled to buy into them in some adolescent hope that people who see me will think I’m cool. Most likely, I’ll struggle with these issues for the rest of my life.

And she’s a size 4.