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What’s Coming Up This Week?

Hello, you.  Are you awake this morning?  Rarin’ to go?

I’m not…quite…but I’ll get there.  Another sip of coffee.  There.  Now, I’m good to go.

We have so much to chat about this week.  I’ve just seen Food, Inc. Gross is one word for it.  Enlightening is another.  Anger and frustration are a few more adjectives to add to the emotional mix.  I’ve not read Animal Factory yet, and I’m told I have to, so the book has been added to my pile.  Sometime this week, we’ll talk about our food and where it comes from, and why it’s so important.  If you’re groaning, I know exactly how you feel.  There are so many don’ts floating around, but not enough direction on what to do now.  I’ll help you with that, to the best of my ability.

I’ve just finished listening to Speaking of Faith’s “Land, Life, and Poetry of Creatures” podcast, highlighting Biblical scholar Ellen Davis and poet Wendell Berry.  So beautiful and poignant.  I think we’re very rapidly learning new ways of communicating with our world and the creatures that inhabit it, and I’m so encouraged we’re doing so.  We have a long way to go, but it’s a start.  Observation…listening…are key.

Wendell Berry read his poem “How to Be A Poet.”  An extraordinary directive, which I think can be applied to the practice of life in general.

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill — more of each
than you have — inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Isn’t that lovely?  Mmm, warms my heart.

I’m also re-reading Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer’s Parenting as a Spiritual Journey.  Just delightful.  More on that later.

So much to talk about.  We’ll get to all these things in due time.

In the meantime, here’s a female songwriter/singer who was discovered by EMI on MySpace at the age of 17.  She’s now 20, and this song “Rambling Man” is off her second (sorrowful, yet wise) album, I Speak Because I Can. The song reminds me of my father–I’m not sure why, other than there were times I thought he was sad and lonely, and there was nothing I (or anyone else) could do about it.

[Post image: Laura Marling, photo by Leia Jospe]

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