courage

Break Every Chain

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

aconite
Sun on aconite.

A good reminder in church today: Let’s listen more than we talk.  Or listen before we talk, perhaps. What is the pain behind the lashing out? What is the story behind the closed doors and windows? Where does that rant come from? What truth can be excavated from a bagful of raging fury?

And then: Let’s speak up more than we are silent. Although it sounds like the opposite of the first part, it’s really a good next step, isn’t it? Listen first. Find the source of pain, of confusion, of anger, of despair. Then speak up. When you see an injustice, speak out. The front of the bulletin at church today was the Martin Luther King, Jr. quote:

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

We have a new generation in the current walk toward justice. Will we need to repent again for our silence, or will we meet the challenges ahead with courage and joy, speaking up for those who are harmed by hatred of their race or country, their sexuality or gender, their religion or their class?

Courage and joy. I wish you Courage and Joy.

Gratitude List:
1. William Carlos Williams moment: So much depends on a green field dotted with white gulls in the winter rain.
2. My church congregation, who welcome students from my school to lead the service today on anti-racism, with much applause and appreciation.
3. Those young people. I learn so much from them. Constantly. They will lead us. We just need to give them the safe spaces to learn the power of their voices. And then we need to be their back-up, their safety net, their boosters. I am incredibly proud of them. Break every chain.
4. That shade of brown/salmon/ochre that is the color of the leafy forest floor seen through trees on a rainy day. You know the color I’m talking about? It’s so satisfying.
5. Listening. Speaking Up.

May we walk in Beauty!

Panda and Panther

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Panda and Panther
I am rather proud of these two paintings which I managed despite the fact that the canvases constantly twitched and squinted.  Panther requested that I paint green eyes on his eyelids, which meant that he went around with his eyes closed for a while.  When he smudged his paint, he touched it up himself.  He has requested that we buy ourselves a family set of face paints. I think I will.

Gratitude List:
1. A day of play
2. Public spaces that are created specifically for children. (Yes, I know it’s a lucrative business.  Still, the Hands on House is particularly well done.  My boys were some of the older ones there, and they became obsessed with keeping the factory room tidied and organized.)
3. The determination of a small child to participate in the cleaning of the garage, the preparation for the first share of the season on Monday.
4. Mist in the mornings.  Makes me want to hike to Rivendell.
5. Courage, which I think is different than bravery, because the courageous person recognizes that she is terrified, but she takes the next breath anyway.  I have friends who are deeply courageous, though perhaps they don’t realize how deeply courageous they are.  (Root is couer = Heart.) I want to start a poem like Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” only to say:
You do not have to be brave.
You only have to fill your aching lungs with one more breath.
You do not have to wait until you no longer feel afraid.
You only have to step from this moment into the next one.

May we walk in Beauty, in Couer-age.

All the Things I Wish I Had Said

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

ZOE_0001

I am using the Curtis Memorial Library Prompt List for a series of morning exercises.  After yesterday’s Abecedarian poem, I began thinking about how I wish I could have given it to some of my students this past semester.  I think the next set of poems I am writing might be:
All the Things I Wish I Had Said (While You Were Still Here)

Courage
An Acrostic Poem

Can you feel how it fills you
once you offer it that space
underneath your ribs?
Remember: You can do this.
After all you have been through,
give yourself this breath, and this one.
Each one will offer you space for another.

Gratitude List:
1. (What gives you strength?) Finding new summer rhythms–more writing, more reading, more yoga.
2. (What opens your heart?) The way that people listen to each other
3. (What refuels you?) Sleep–the summer sleep is returning
4. (What gives you energy?) A clean house
5. (What makes you more completely human?) Stories

May we walk in Beauty!

Dreamers and Poets

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Having fun with the photo apps on my new phone.

Gratitude List:
1. (What gives you courage?)
The people who use language to build bridges
The ones who sit outside the fortress
and invite the rock-throwers to the table
The ones who sit in the breach
and reach their hands to both sides
The ones who straddle the trenches
2. (What is satisfying?) My classroom is ready for summer cleaning.
3. (Who is helpful?) All the people who work at the school to clean up after us, to prepare the place for the next season.  They don’t get thanked enough.
4. (What is healing?) Eight hours of sleep.  When did I last get eight hours of sleep?  And there was very little waking up throughout.
5. (Where do you find inspiration?) Dreams and poems.  Dreamers and poets.

May we walk in Beauty!

Reminders

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DSCN9032

Gratitude List:
1. Reminders: It is well.  All shall be well.
2. Calls to be courageous in the face of that which feels threatening.
3. Interfaith and intercultural dialogue.  Many gratitudes to the folks who invited a groups from the local Islamic Center to visit church yesterday.
4. Sleep.  Deep, long, sound sleep.
5. Fellowship meals: The people at my church know what to do with kale.  And there were plenty of brownies to go around.

May we walk in Beauty!

Preparation

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Ellis used a fancy app to turn our Christmas tree into a cathedral window.

Gratitude List:
1. The moon and her morning companion.  How brightly beams the morning star.
2. (I don’t really believe in jinxing a good thing, but something in me fears to name this for fear it won’t last.  Here goes, anyway.) SLEEP.  Good sleep.  Long sleep.  While it lasts.
3. Potatoes and mushrooms and broccoli.  Companions, again.  May we accompany each other like the right combination of vegetables, like moon and star.
4. Courage.  My favorite quotation from the Narnia books: “Courage, Dear Heart.”  That was Aslan speaking to Lucy.  Sometimes I hear him say it to me, too.
5. Advent.  Anticipation.  Expectation.  Preparation.  Inner work. Remembering that the Light Returns.

May we walk in Beauty!

We Muddle Through

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Gratitude List:
1.  The way gill-over-the-ground stands up in the holes in the snow made by my footprints, face to the sun, ready for greening.
2.  The way the swans winked in and out of my sight against the clouds, as though they were shifting between worlds.
3.  The way the house finch sat in the top of the maple and sang and sang its heart out to the sun.
4.  The way the willows are turning that pre-green yellow.
5.  These quotes from today:
“You have built a place in my story.”
“We muddle through with the wisdom and the courage that we have.”
Bonus:
6.  Courage.  Remembering that it is couer-age (heart, hearten, enheart).  I hear you speak your truth even when it is difficult and painful, when it’s hard to trust, when you’re angry, when you’re shy, when you don’t think you’ll find the right words–and it en-heart-ens me, en-couer-ages me.  Thank you for that gift.  You are so full of heartening courage.  I am incredibly grateful for the ways that you teach me.

So much love.
May we walk in Beauty.