Gaps

Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. 

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Ezekiel excoriates false prophets as those who have "not gone up into the gaps." The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself for the first time like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the cliffs in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. 

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.

by Annie Dillard

© Jennifer Phillips

Second chances

Dear Sugar,

I am thankful for second chances. Deserved or undeserved, but truly given without reservation. Given to me and to others, but most importantly, the one I gave to myself.

JC

Source: http://therumpus.net/2011/11/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-90-94-ways-of-saying-thank-you/

The environment

© Michael Leunig

I've never been to me

Hey lady, you, lady, cursin' at your life

You're a discontented mother and a regimented wife

I've no doubt you dream about the things you never do

But I wish someone had a talk to me like I wanna talk to you

Ooh I've been to Georgia and California, and, anywhere I could run

Took the hand of a preacherman and we made love in the sun

But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free

I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

Please lady, please, lady, don't just walk away

'Cause I have this need to tell you why I'm all alone today

I can see so much of me still living in your eyes

Won't you share a part of a weary heart that has lived a million lies

Oh I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece

Where I sipped champagne on a yacht

I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I've got

I've been undressed by kings and I've seen some things

That a woman ain't s'posed to see

I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

Hey, you know what paradise is? It's a lie

A fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be

But you know what truth is?

It's that little baby you're holding, and it's that man you fought with this morning

The same one you're going to make love with tonight. That's truth, that's love

Sometimes I've been to cryin' for unborn children

That might have made me complete

But I, I took the sweet life and never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet

I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free

Hey lady, I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

I've been to paradise - never been to me

(I've been to Georgia and California, and anywhere I could run)

I've been to paradise - never been to me

(I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece

While I sipped champagne on a yacht)

I've been to paradise - never been to me

(I've been to cryin' for unborn children )

(Fade)

by Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch

String theory

Everyone else is a cardboard cut-out - 

their intimidatory iterations now fail.

An invisible draw-string gathers

our heart-strings ever closer.

In my innermost places you fit - 

distances most intimate.

Infinite intimate iterations - 

my-into-mate, mate-into-me. Ha!

Our intimacy in its infancy, yet - 

our heart-strings entwine intimately,

through intermittent iterations - 

strung forth into infinite horizons.

© Jennifer Phillips

Inspired by a quote from Charlotte Brontë in "Jane Eyre":

“Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"

I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full.

"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

And of course, String Theory itself:

In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. It describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. 

More, see Wikipedia.

Happiness is a warm guinea pig

Happiness is a warm guinea pig © Jennifer Phillips

Hope

© Michael Leunig