la la life

Well, hey.

Yesterday my friend played a writer's round showcase. She was stunning. The best guitar player on the stage. And vocalist. And lyricist. Also, and very importantly, she made the whole thing not awkward.

(I'm SO proud! And she's wearing my shirt.)

Later that night, I awoke to a phone call from Orem, Utah. Me:"Yes, I'm at home. My house is on fire, you say?" (Sniffs the air. FREAKS out. Runs downstairs, still talking to the security system lady on the phone, to find an open oven with a blackened bottom, fans spinning, doors open...and the most delicious-looking apple turnovers Williams Sonoma has ever seen.) The firemen hadn't received the "false alarm" message in time from Utah Lady, so we offered them cookies when they showed up, apologized profusely (not even trying to pretend that I wasn't in pajamas), and tried to take pictures of their truck as they pulled away from the house.  I went back to bed, and laughed out loud. Like a crazy.

(Here's their truck. Nicely washed, just for us. Can't you see it shine?)

Now, I'm at Starbucks. God bless America. I've already listened to a podcast on Reckless Love. Feist and Joni Mitchell and Eva Cassidy have played on the store speakers.  I have done NO work, but I don't feel bad yet. I did receive the most beautiful, completely unexpected, and perfectly-timed message from an distant college friend. It was such a made-for-tv-movie moment. My eyes filled with tears and I wondered if the guy in the chair next to me had any idea what a great day like this felt like.

(I hope you have an idea.)

G.K. Chesterton on what we DO have in common...and what we don't.

"There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies and parliaments of religion: “the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they are the same in what they teach.” It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they teach. It is as if a man were to say, “Do not be misled by the fact that the Church Times and the Freethinker look utterly different, that one is painted on vellum and the other carved on marble, that one is triangular and the other hectagonal; read them and you will see that they say the same thing.” The truth is, of course, that they are alike in everything except in the fact that they don’t say the same thing. An atheist stockbroker in Surbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian stockbroker in Wimbledon. You may walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal and offensive study without seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly godless in the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that they are divided. So the truth is that the difficulty of all the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that they agree in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite. They agree in machinery; almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods, with priests, scriptures, altars, sworn brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the mode of teaching; what they differ about is the thing to be taught. Pagan optimists and Eastern pessimists would both have temples, just as Liberals and Tories would both have newspapers. Creeds that exist to destroy each other both have scriptures, just as armies that exist to destroy each other both have guns."

Priscilla's right.

I just love this. If I could write a song, I would like it to be like this one.

One step enough for me...

"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home --

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene -- one step enough for me..."

-s. 1, The Pillar of the Cloud, John Henry Cardinal Newman

It's so real. My heart feels this, tenses at these words. Inside, uncertainty about what's forever and what's next juxtaposes itself with the right-now knowledge of being LOVED. (*All of the fiery words in here are capitalized. Slam your hand on the table with each capitalized word for greater effect. Maybe raise your eyebrows, too.) It's a cozy light in a long, unlit hallway. Cozy is not even enough of a word. Because I am loved, I can do anything good. (Ahahaha! Sorry, Cardinal Newman. Totally serious here. Back to furrowed thinking face.)


I wish I could spell precisely how TRUE THIS IS. (*Three slams on the table, eyebrows high.) Love has made me the good parts of me. That's why I write about it ALL the time and think about it ALL the time and cry immediately when Father Baker or some random country song describes it, as long as no one is looking at me.  It's why I have the courage to say stupid things in front of smart people (which is mildly unfortunate), and even do some good things in bad situations (more fortunate).


I have been loved by my parents. From the first, in the school of the family, I learned love. Alert the media: This changes the WORLD, a parent's love. I know women, and men too, with broken, broken hearts because they do not know this love.


I'm loved by the greatest friends EVER. Try and test me on this one. I won't budge. Some would die for me, and greater love has no man than this. I have been cherished and forgiven and challenged. LOVED.


So, when I squint to follow the Light, when the night is dark and I'm far from Home, when I must insistently remind my achy-breaky heart that He DOES have a plan, and it's a reeeeally good one, it's Love that keeps my feet and lets me say "I do not ask to see the distant scene -- one step enough for me."


And I mean it.


Because they mean it, when they love me.


And because He meant it first, so we can love.


(*Slam.)

Who was your friend when you were in space?

Cleaning out my yahoo.com inbox, I came across this email from Daddio. Experience a seasoned storyteller with a distinctive emailing style:

March 5, 2008
Yesterday, I went over to a school in a neighboring town, as they had Clay Anderson, the Astronaut from Ashland, Nebraska (who spent 5 months at the space station) at this school for the day. 

I was there for the 5:15 p.m. time they had for the public. At the Q&A session ... once some old guy asked the obligatory question about Space Ship bathrooms and there were questions about fuel, water, etc ... a little girl  maybe 5, 6, or 7 years old, sitting a couple rows ahead of me, raised her hand and asked in all seriousness:

" ...Who was your friend when you were in space?" 

Having shared life with 2 daughters, I recognized that this would be a question a little girl would ask ... and in all sincerity, this would be some thing a little girl would have recognized as an item of real concern, even miles above the earth...a question worthy of asking in front of a gym full of people. 

This guy was good. He responded:  "First off, I have to tell you that I got to email my wife every day and got to call a few times a week, and once a week we got a video visit.   My wife was my best friend on the space station."  

"...Then, the 2 guys from Russia and I were like the 3 musketeers."

***********************************************************************************

That little girl's question gave that Astronaut hero a chance to show another side of him being a hero. 

That little girl's simple question let me nod in recognition of what all little girls hold as important in life.  

The others were worried about getting there and back and the danger of space walks, and this little girl was worried about the "danger" of Clayton Anderson not having a friend for the 5 months he was in space. 

************

As beautiful as any night time lift off. 

Dad Kevin Burnison

There is a castle on a cloud...

Save this one in the "Concepts" file for inspiration.

A poem half-memorized, wholly good

The Annunciation

And was it true, The stranger standing so, And saying things that lifted her in two, And put her back before the world's beginning? Her eyes filled slowly with the morning glow. Her drowsy ear drank in a first sweet dubious bird. Her cheek against the pillow woke and stirred To gales enriched by passage over dew, And friendly fields and slopes of Galilee Arose in tremulous intermixture with her dreams, Till she remembered suddenly...

Although the morning beams Came spilling in the gradual rubric known to every day, And hills stood ruinous, as an eclipse, Against the softly spreading ray, Not touched by any strange apocalypse Like that which yesterday had lifted her sublime, And put her back before the first grey morn of Time -- Though nothing was disturbed from where she lay and saw, Now she remembered with a quick and panting awe That someone came, and took in hand her heart, And broke irresistibly apart, With what he said, and how in tall suspense He lingered, while the white celestial inference, Pushing her fears apart, went softly home.Then she had faltered her reply, And felt a sudden burden of eternal years, And shamed by the angelic stranger standing by Had bowed her head to hide her human tears. Never again would she awake And find herself the buoyant Galilean lass, But into her dissolving dreams would break A hovering consciousness too terrible to pass -- A new awareness in her body when she stirred, A sense of Light within her virgin gloom: She was the Mother of the wandering Word, Little and terrifying in her laboring womb.And nothing would again be casual and small, But everything with light invested, overspilled With terror and divinity, the dawn, the first bird's call, The silhouetted pitcher waiting to be filled. I Sing of a Maiden Rev. John Duffy, C.S.s.R.

Putting up with the smell of fertilizer

I'll crinkle the corners of my eyes and grimace my whole face because the memory tastes bad, and admit to these words : "I just don't understand. I try to take care of my things, be a good steward, be kind and good, treat people well...why is life hard? Why don't things just work out?"


A recent bout of this whining landed me in a pew at a Saturday morning Mass in my wooded neighborhood. The sanctuary is always shadowed, and the cool stone walls catch me looking for a tiny spring leaking through the cracks in the wall, as if the church were underground. The priest looks like Barack Obama and enunciates like a Shakespearean actor. He read:


"Jesus said to his disciples:

'If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;

but because you do not belong to the world,

and I have chosen you out of the world,

the world hates you.

Remember the word I spoke to you,

‘No slave is greater than his master.’

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

And they will do all these things to you on account of my name,

because they do not know the one who sent me.'” 
- John 15:18-21


Recover from your shock, Tala, quitcherbellyachin (I would like that to be Russian for "move on, grown-up"). Now turn to the question of how to turn this situation into fertilizer for something beautiful to grow.

To long for the sea

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the sea.”  -Antoine de Saint Exupery

Daddio

He writes emails in bullet points.

He has not given up hope that I will someday learn to decently slug him in the arm.

He will send me a card with his message written on a sticky note so that I can send the same card to someone else.

He once was stopped at work by neighborhood boys who had found an injured bird. They didn't know what Mr. Burnison's job title was, but they were pretty sure he could handle this case.

He's an economic developer.  But he helped with the bird.

He taught me to love reading the newspaper.

He preaches with the passion of a Southern minister on the evils of maintaining a credit card balance.

He fields questions from restaurant patrons who are wondering when the lasagna will be refilled in the pasta bar.

His voice projects so well that said patrons think he must be the manager of the place.

He won't live in a place where your door locks behind you.

He walked his girls to school.

He respects the difference between dress bibs and regular bib overalls.

He is a stranger to no one. Especially in South Dakota.

His fatherly lecture series could make us a million: "It's the Inner Beauty that counts," "I played football with a Lux bottle full of sand and I liked it," and "Women put themselves at an economic disadvantage by insisting on wearing non-functional shoes and dresses that zip down the back" are a few gems.

He claims to be the quietest in his family.

He can answer with some authority on every question I ask him.

He will ride his bike alongside when I want to go on a late-night run.

He really, really cares.

He shakes his head and says "My daughter..." when I decide that due north is whichever direction I'm facing.

He's my dad.  And I love him.