Ash to Ash

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, our exploitation of other people,

We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt for those who differ from us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, Good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;

Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish is us the work of your salvation,

that we may show forth your glory in the world.

winter cooking

*Thai chard soup

*Roasted vegetables

*Roasted beet soup

*Sweet potato fries with garlic aioli

*Spicy hummus (my own soaked garbanzo beans!)

*Tilapia (chile/lime/cilantro) with asparagus

*Black beans from scratch, granola weekly, my own grown sprouts

*Purple cabbage/kale/chard/ginger scramble

Up next: Apricot-Almond-Dark Chocolate Biscotti!

walk well the banks

Five dead crows, black stick legs splayed in the air,

lying on their backs in shallow snow

I found them walking at Pioneer Park two weeks ago,

Navigating ice sheets carefully as I talked with K,

holding my heart to hers 250 miles away.

I don't want to only tell hard stories,

but I can't purge my mind of the image of that kindergartner who killed a cat

(is it possible that a five-year-old could do that?)

and later, when he told me of his dad who kicked down doors

I felt only the sick familiarity seeping into the pit of my stomach

Brother, I know it well

The warm Chinooks blew last weekend,

melting the ice that had coated the streets for days

treacherous roadmap in a city that doesn't plow.

Silver earring glinting in the dark,

I thought of that metallic band of water flowing from the Rockies,

no longer reaching the Sea of Cortez,

of Phoenix's air conditioning and golf courses,

Mexico's dried-up womb farmlands, y todos los inmigrantes hambrientos,

But who really owns a river?

I read Mark 5 and had a hard time believing a father could be that desperate

I guess I missed the point.

Y esos fotos me molestaron, tu explorando cuevas en mi ropa, mi luz de cabeza. !Es tan impropio! Luego yo recordé mi caja de pino, de tu mano, de la que yo tomo anillos y horquillas cada mañana. Yo pienso que usaré eso hasta que me muera, contigo o sin ti.

So I will also learn to bend.

ginger cabbage scramble

Taking some inspiration from this sister's beauty, I thought I'd share a recipe. Sort of makes me wish I could re-design this whole bloggin' space. Ah, if only I knew how to do things like that!

Well, here is the first; I threw it together last week, not knowing what to do with the rest of the purple cabbage in my fridge from making beet soup.

Use a little bit of olive oil in a pan and let it heat up. (I always use a paper towel so that the oil is minimal).

Cut two or three cloves of garlic, and onion if you have it.

Throw them in the pan.

Add purple cabbage. You could also add zucchini and or squash at this point.

Let cook for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, cut up chard and kale. Throw that in.

Now for salt, pepper, garlic powder, and ginger (root is better, but ground also works).

Stir scramble so everything is seasoned.

Optional: add an egg or egg white for protein. The yellow and green mix to form a brilliant shade of blue around the edges of cabbage.

Serve sprayed with Bragg's Liquid Aminos.

For breakfast or dinner, soooooooo good!

January: intentional

I've been soaking beans, roasting vegetables, sprouting seeds, making granola. Cooking up roasted beet soup and sweet potato fries. Practicing my own apartment-homesteading in whatever small ways I know how.

And this! For a woman who has maybe done four cartwheels in her life, holding crow pose for a minute-plus is pretty much the coolest thing I can do! Yoga has been an incredible addition in my life.

And I am obviously not very good at wielding a sledgehammer (or in this case, an ax), but we spent MLK service day Monday destroying this little structure, and my arms and hands are killing me today. So satisfying though!

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you've held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropical heat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

between your palms, a plain face

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

-Ellen Bass

still most loved after all these years

O! Holy night! The stars, their gleams prolonging,
Watch o'er the eve of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error, longing
For His appearance, then the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn...

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.


Read the literal translation from the French here.

"We cannot help others who suffer without paying a price ourselves, because afflictions are the cost we pay for empathy. Those who wish to help others must first suffer. If we wish to rescue others, we must be willing to face the cross; experiencing the greatest happiness in life through ministering to others is impossible without drinking the cup Jesus drank and without submitting to the baptism he endured."

-Streams in the Desert, 19 July

our parallel lives

I will confess, your unoffered friendship in these four weeks me duele mi corazon mas, aun que te entiendo. Yesterday on Main Street I saw you with your bike, and huddled closer to I & T. That's the thing with people the size of Akeen: their grid for sadness is so small. They always accept you, even want you.

Once at midnight I nearly mailed back all your wooden and penned gifts, not from spite but only the wanting to forget, when our circles are still so close.

He has already forgotten, the one whose mouth tasted of milk, of life and heat and breasts and the vacas he grew up herding. I promise not to blame you if you do the same. I am so much older and sadder than you.

And being unwanted is a strange country.

"If you're legs are tired, lie back down,
and I will kiss you till your breath is found."

-Sufjan Stevens, All Delighted People

a new psalm from august

When it is easy to be angry,
when you think you are alone,
when you feel old ways coming on
(offering payback through vanity):

Then child, listen closely
put thought before a mouth otherwise mechanic
and I will calm the sea inside you
I will hold you in my right hand.

over the rhine / what i'll remember most

The saddest songs are the happiest
The hardest truths are the easiest
Put us both to the test
And tell me if you still need me
And I will swallow these words
And see if I can still believe

The biggest lies are the little ones
When the look in your eyes is the distant one
Angel or demon
You know that they can share one bed
I've laid awake so long
I've got them both inside my head

This is what I'll remember most about dying
So many moments like ghosts
Slipping through my hands in vain
You were 80% angel, 10% demon
The rest was hard to explain

This American dream may be poisonous
Violence is contagious
Crowded or empty
I walk these city streets alone
Whoever brought me here
Is gonna have to take me home

This is what I'll remember most about dying
Loading these moments like a gun
Hoping to kill the pain
[I] was 80% angel, 10% demon
The rest was hard to explain

Went out to cut dogwood and tamarack branches. The sun is strong today--my scarf, sweater, vest almost too much. Five days of sun and hardly a cloud in the sky. Glory be, spring is really coming.

Now a small wind moves through pale, bedridden stalks of grass. Stalks that will miraculously revive and stand tall and green to sing their song in a matter of weeks. How do all these seasons move? Just when you feel you cannot bear another grey morning, another colorless afternoon--the first resurrections of spring come exultantly.

I've been thinking of that afternoon, that evening spent at the Flats with the orchard one, passing the soccer ball back and forth, back and forth, until both sweet spots on my bare feet were numb and I was smiling into the sunset, all the endorphins of pain and pleasure, summer and sunlight and friendship filling my stomach.

Now I have traveled East and West, have lived South of here for seasons that were rich, but when it comes to a Northern spring, or murmurings of one, well I have never found its equal, and that's the truth.

ash wednesday

the sun is out (is out, is out, for the first time this february!!)
and Fun is singing
Take your time coming home,
hear the wheels as they roll
let your lungs fill up with smoke
forgive everyone.

so we breathe deep the stale winter air
kayak choppy waters and crave vitamin D
cross our fingers for snow-pack and water,
cross our fingers against drought

then smear ashes on our foreheads
and remember that smoke, dust, drought,

from the dirt we came,
and to dirt we shall return.

Do what we must, yet cannot do alone
and lay your solitude beside my own.
-W.H. Auden

you may or may not recognize the sound of two owls calling
to each other, like the ones i heard in the pine woods this evening.
it was not far from my house, and i tread the ice carefully,
waiting to hear them sing.

and then there was the deer, running on hard snow
that unmistakable thumping

the yeast bread is rising in my kitchen,
made from freshly ground wheat
(by a motor, not stone and hand).

and i still don't know how to explain things
why some would kill a swan, senselessly, for pleasure
why a dearest friend's father would stand (deservedly?) accused

these are grave times, and hope in ourselves turns bitter
betrayal on the tongue
(so we are practicing not to hope in ourselves, anymore).

50 loves, 50 woes, our buddha has said
(a mantra we will not soon unlearn)
but you, in your backwards, insane way
choose all fifty.

to cry for the forgotten, suppressed things
to be tender in the midst of ice,
to look for the robins in the middle of winter.

these are your ways (to hurt again and again and again, as a child)
to trust and hope and believe.
well, nonsensical though they may be,
to follow them is the way to Peace.

I want to open up these silent cords, move your heart to tears of joy

I will throw myself into the ocean
Dive head first into a pearl factory
Clams will work me till I’m lovely
I’ll become a diamond in the sea



Ruby Parasols show Saturday night

on eagle carrion sightings, and evening baking

It snowed before Thanksgiving, and the rain fell gently on our feast day
but after that, the ground grew dry as bones,
the thermometer registering merely single numbers.

Yesterday, we awoke to sunshine on the mountains,
a light jacket of snow covering the streets and buildings like white dust.

This morning, before sunrise, I opened the blinds to silence,
the quiet that comes only from inches of snow in our driveway, on our cars, plowed from the roads.
I am triple-layering everything, pulling on snow boots and heating thermoses of coffee and tea,
falling into bed long before midnight,
baking bread and granola and unfreezing large jars of applesauce,
reaping from what we chose to preserve.

"To be trustworthy in winter," as Darrelle says.
Well, I have already shoveled the driveway, the front steps, the mail carrier's route,
rolled collected pinecones in golden glitter to hang on yarn,
sawed down a fir tree from the woods on my parents' property.

And there is no telling, no, there is no telling,
just how long these months will feel in our bodies.

My bottom lip will split for many more dry days
my gloved hands beg lotion
my solitary existence want for companionship.

but for the reading of David James Duncan (and his most colorful words!)
the games of Speed Scrabble and Pinochle,
the bundled babes huddled in this market co-op,
the cedar boughs and late-night letters,
the pine and myrrh candles,

we will survive. And we will thrive.

till the rays of gold and honey cover you

{a future of forestry song playing on repeat in my house]

This chest is full of memories of gold and silver tears
I’ll give you more to own than all of this
And I’ll give you more than years
For you were once a child of innocence
And I see you just the same
Your burdens couldn’t win or lose a thing
Oh, I’d tell you once again,
But you’re always on the run

Slow your breath down
Just take it slow
Find your heart now, oh
You can trust and love again
Slow your breath down, just take it slow
Find your smile now, oh
You can trust and love again

If you leave I’ll still be close to you
When all your fears rain down
I’ll take you back a thousand times again
I’ll take you as my own
I would sing you songs of innocence
‘Til the light of morning comes
‘Til the rays of gold and honey cover you
In the sweetness of the dawn
But you’re always on the run

You’re not alone
You’re now a part of me
You feel the cure
I’ll feel the toil it brought you