Submission

March 3, 2020

“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.
6.”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come

Rachel Held Evans, who passed much too soon at a young age, and John Bunyan are separated by time, country and theology. Still, the sense of being a pilgrim in a land of becoming is consistent to both writers. Her blog is still available online, and her books too, that illustrate her journey of faith in the land of social justice.

Though I haven’t read John Bunyon’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1676) (yet) or John Milton’s Paradise Lost, I think that I’m on a path to delving into the some of the deeper meanings... as I said to Stephanie yesterday, I go very deep, especially after meditating, to which she responded: “Even without meditating.” Hmmm. If that isn’t food for thought....

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven...”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

There is a common thread between these excerpts from these 17th Century writers, which is the sense that life is a journey of challenge and discovery. This is what I’ve been sensing all my life, and especially during the last few months, while committing to daily meditation and writing. This writing is something that I now acknowledge that I need to do, as part of my personal journey. I don’t know why yet, but I trust that the reasons will eventually become evident.

There is so much connection already, a synchronicity, a sense of becoming, to things that I don’t yet understand. I feel the tug and pull of the future drawing me forward. I know the goal is personal transformation, renewal and growth, part of which is learning how best to apply what I’m learning to the world around me. That’s always been my weak point: applying myself to the world around me. I’ve always felt out of step with the world of Sundays to Saturdays. Perhaps I’ve been looking in all the wrong places! Where I am most at home is at rest in the quiet, writing. I need to remember that.

Submission

At eight years of age,
Spending months as a housebound invalid,
I said I wanted to be a writer.
It seemed natural,
That what I was reading
Could also be written....

That knowing eroded over my years,
With the reading of great writers.
Could there be room for another who scribbles
(My childhood nickname),
Sending thoughts into the Universe?

It stuns me
To realize
That I don’t control
Readers’ thoughts.
That is a domain
Best left to them.
What I write means only
What it means to the reader.

Humility comes gradually.
If I submit verse to the Universe,
I must submit to it.
- C. Scribner © 3/3/20


Where any of this goes is not up to me. If I put it out into the Universe with a pure heart, it goes where it needs to go.

The influence of connectedness

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never Is, but always To be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.”

― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man

How many times have I come to what I thought was the end of my rope, only to find that there was more rope. Drawing in breath is itself an act of hope though unconscious, an effort of life to sustain life. The body collaborates with non-human organisms to extract nutrients from our food that sustain us as we move about the day. The heart beats without rest every moment of our lives. These things are all votes in favor of life, to the very last breath.

I am grateful for the continuity that this implies. I am grateful for those whom I carefully consider, as I contemplate what effect I may have had, and am having, on those in my past and present life. In the latter third of my life, it’s these thoughts that are sustaining. I want to continue to be a positive influence as long as I have breath.

Entangled

It’s impossible
To encompass a sufficient understanding
Of the ties that exist
among ourselves and living things.
Invisible
connections vibrate,
Unseen, the way
the glistening, dewy web
Is,
Of a hidden spider
Who rids my garden of pests.

Across time and distance
These connections extend, effortlessly
Providing a tactile resonance
Of all the vibrations
That have begun
Unknowingly,
Through thoughts and actions
That we create.

As long as time exists
We are entangled, connected
With history and present
Of living beings, through memory and influence.
Let us be mindful of the power of creation.
- C. Scribner © 3/2/20

Winter Wakes Spring

Winter Wakes Spring

Sown in Fall, wheat wakes late in Winter,
Growing with the warming sun
Into the Spring and Summer for this dot on the planet,
And maturing slowly, gracefully, late in Summer.
Earth inexorably tilts toward the sun,
Moving closer daily by small degrees, in its annual orbit
Around the source of nuclear fire that produces
All the power of Earth’s growing things.

Noticing:
Raptors circling overhead, songbirds with their throaty songs And a woodpecker hammering on my old tree,
Spring peepers that sing into the dusk and the dawn,
While slumbering trees and flowers swell with new buds.
Daffodils and tulips pierce the crust of soil.

Look closely.
Be filled with the grace of presence
As the life blood of growing things
Flows into new life yet again.
All is not lost.
The intoxication of an unmistakable Spring smell arrives again with hope,
Earthy.

A cardinal posed as a sentinel yesterday
On the bare branch of a Winter-denuded tree
To certify that I am not a threat.
I am not.

This, while snow geese sounded the alarm
As my terrier and I approach across the wide field,
Taking to the sky by the dozens,
Filling the air with the sound of wings lifting,
And a chipmunk skittered across the garden,
Widely aware that she is not alone.

I am awake.
- C. Scribner © 2/27/20