Under the Sun

On occasion throughout the year the White boys get together for a saunter through the mountains. Thoreau said a saunterer is a "seeker of the Sainte Terre or Holy Land." We define saunter as "reverently walking through creation to look for God." 

Our conversations in the car and on the trail ebb between the themes of theology and identity, ministry and family, art and beauty, sacrament and stillness, and between liturgy and life lessons. 

During our saunter our Dad read two poems by R.S.C. which echoed my soul's prayer. 

Building His heaven, On common sod.

Oh the sheer joy of it,

Ever to be, 

Living in glory,

Living with Thee,

Lord of tomorrow, 

Lover of me! 

Mountain Te Deum

I thank Thee just for life,

The chance to live,

To be alive! So great They gift,

If Thou dost nothing give

Beside, it is enough,

To breathe Thy air,

To walk this mountain sod,

To feel the play of mighty winds,

To look Thee in the face,

And call Thee God! 

Reverently walking through creation to look for God always leads to Him. 

These are good days

A Haiku Poem for my kids

with lizard tongue smiles

an aperture memory

of rainbow shaped lives

photo courtesy of Leah

If you didn't know the rules of Haiku poetry.

If I remember correctly from junior high school

it's...

5 syllables for the first line,

7 for the second, and

5 for the third

You should totally give it a try! 

Follow @joeandheidi

A poem for your thoughts

A friend of mine, Lee Kosa wrote this amazing poem.  

I thought I'd let you faithful blog readers enjoy it too.

It's a poem that depicts the Genesis account.

• 
  

  A black blanket lay wrapped around the face of the abyss.

  
  

  Exhale.

  Divine breath whispered across the deep¬–poised

  To create. 

  
  

  Light, shining distinctly in the darkness; 

  Sky, stretching out vaulting vapor and sea;

  Water—gathered and giving way to earth;

  As green goes forth from the ground.

  
  

  Lights—dapple dominion over the sky.

  Stars—perforate the night through piercing stare.

  Sea—teem thick with fin.

  Ground—abound with beast and hide. 

  
  

  Exhale. 

  Divine breath rolls into the body of a being

  created to reflect the creator.

  
  

  And the fullness of his presence was good. 

  
  

  Seduced by the call of the siren’s sound 

  They take and don the sovereign gown. 

  
  

  Confined, their freedom is found consumed, 

  And crushed by a weight not meant to bear

  they fall.

  
  

  Distorted—the reflection inward bends.

  Exposed—the likeness recoils in shame.

  Broken—the image writhes in pain. 

  Contorted—limbs limp against the grain. 

  
  

  Condemned to suffer, bruise and wound;

  Time is stage to an ageless feud. 

  
  

  Earth’s curse enslaves all work.

  Life staggers forth from labored birth. 

  
  

  Muscles groan with tones of toil;

  And the pounding ground throbs in travail. 

  
  

  Keeping pace with inner unrest–we run; 

  Stricken with the anxious illness;

  Driven by a desperate longing; 

  Subject to compulsive striving;

  Struggling to escape the ache,

  Fear fuels our frantic journey into the night.

Follow @joeandheidi

Today....changes everything

“Seven Stanzas at Easter”

By John Updike, (1932-2009)

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

–John Updike, “Seven Stanzas at Easter” in Telephone Poles and Other Poems (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 72-3.

I'm thinking about spoken word poetry...

Sarah Kay defines it this way: "Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry.  It involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper but something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person".  

I've been told a handful of times over the years that I should try it....and again, last night, a student of mine said "Joe, you'd be good at spoken word poetry".  Really?  Thanks!  Probably not....but maybe...

My dad is a poet... and has a deep appreciation for good poetry.  He got it from my grandpa who also loved poetry and often recited his favorite poems at family reunions.  And...I have to admit...there are three things in my life that regularly bring me to tears: listening to certain classical music pieces, watching triathletes cross a finish line, and hearing powerful poetry.    

When I was in junior high and high school I wrote "poetry" to "figure stuff out"....and I acutally have a file folder with probably more than 100 hand written poems somewhere buried in a dusty file cabinet.

Maybe it's time to pull a few out and write a few more....

Maybe I could write and speak poetically...like these guys (is this poetry?):







Well, student of mine...you got me thinking....

we'll see

Saturday's a comin'

Good people of Vancouver.

The weekend is almost here....

People before pleasure
Service before self

May I remind you...

As you look forward to a weekend full of adventure and fun...Remember:

People before Pleasure
Service before Self

Priorities

People before Pleasure

Service before Self

A Poem by Luci Shaw

In her new book entitled, "Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation", Luci Shaw expresses Jesus' arrival in a manner I have not yet considered until now.

One

Winter, and very cold,
and the night at
its deepest. The politicians,
as usual, double-tongued.
The town chaotic, teeming
with strangers.
And tonight, as often
in winter, in Bethlehem,
snow is falling.

I always love
how each flake,
torn from the sky,
arrives separately,
without sound, almost
unnoticed in
a flurry of others. How
each one (on a clear
night) lies there glittering
on the swelling breast
of snow, crisp
and intact, as wholly itself
as every radiant star