Wisdom Tree

LIttle Songs

For years, many years ago, I was a musician. Not a professional--I was never that good, but I was pretty good. And I sang all the time. Then things changed, and I stopped singing. My life of writing books had emerged, and my voice was failing, so I let it go . . .

Now I find myself singing again--to myself, while I walk or drive. Songs are a great gift. Sometimes I sing the songs I wrote back in the days of songwriting and small concerts. Mostly I become attracted to a particular song and learn it and sing it. A few of my musical companions:

During Advent: "The angel Gabriel from heaven came . . ." / "I'll Be Home for Christmas" / "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Lately: "If Not Now" and "I Do Not Know Its Name" by Carrie Newcomer

Always, from time to time: "Trumpet Child" by Over the Rhine

From Babette's Feast (and we've sung it at my church): "If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee"

It's always good to have a song, to discover a song and learn it by heart, to sing it to yourself when you want to feel the air spinning inside you and marvelous phrases lifting out of yourself and beyond . . .

Beautiful 10 Minutes of Gratitude

Thanks to friends Tom McGrath and Paul Campbell, I've a glorious video for you. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ&feature=player_embedded

Before Annunciation

Just before snow covers,

it reveals. In the gloom and gray

appear the bright veins of stone

and rippled bark, the sharp character

of shingles, beams, street signs, forgotten

toys and paper bags. It’s as if the interior

of everything has grown outward,

adorning itself in fine lace.

 

I like to think that, before the great angel

pronounced and the Holy Spirit overwhelmed,

the girl Mary had a moment—or perhaps years—

of revelatory and incidental wonders,

and even that morning, taking her breakfast,

she said something startling, and her dreams glistened

upon the outlines of face, shoulders, hips and feet;

and something gusted through the room,

hinting of chill and snowflakes.

V.H.Wright Copyright 2008

Winter Desire

Another poem from Advent 2009. But I've no new poems for you all, so hope this will do!

 

The cold is a hateful hand

scraping over skin to grip bone against bone,

and the soul is bruised, for lack of softness,

for want of a warming light.

Some days it seems the world is anger

and not forgiveness, that the day

has already slid into a bleakness and sorrow.

 

There must be a hearth, with flame and love.

There must be a day beyond this one,

when the divine speaks upon a bright spring cloud

and a little boy with bare arms

happily learns the shaping of wood,

the telling of stories.

—VH Wright, © 2009

Advent Poetry

Go to Pages, Advent Fiction #4 to read the conclusion to "Jacob's Wish."

We begin Advent by remembering the angel Gabriel’s visit to young Mary. Last year, as part of my own Advent meditation, I wrote these poems. I hope you enjoy them.

Gabriel

 How much shrinking did you have to do

to get into the house?

How much shine had to be rubbed off

to become visible?

Did you carry the plan like a secret fire in the heart,

because such information could cause

a whole new rebellion up there?

And when the girl said yes, how much

did you ache to grow legs and lungs and

a head of hair, just to know the sensation

of your spirit breaking open?

Copyright © 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

 

Mary’s Mom

 I’d like to know if you noticed anything different

about your daughter. On a particular day, did she seem pale

or out of breath? Was she weepy? Did you have to tell her things twice?

When the truth came out, did you agonize about why

she hadn’t come to you? Did you tell her father, or did she? 

And—be honest, now—when you, being the mother, being a woman,

understood the situation, didn’t you enjoy some moments

of sheer satisfaction? Didn’t you say to God, one eyebrow arched,

“You couldn’t have picked a better one”?

 Copyright © 2009 Vinita Hampton Wright

Holiday Endurance

[Go to Short Fiction to read Advent #2, part 2 of "Jacob's Wish"]

 

[This piece is now 2 years old, but I think it still applies to this time of year . . .] 

There is the deep breath you take, around Thanksgiving or a few days after. It’s the huge and hopeful breath you hope will sustain your air supply through the next month, because you will need additional oxygen to fuel the extra cooking and baking, the extra participation in various celebrations and rituals, the extra spending on gifts and holiday paraphernalia. Also, the extra communication, by phone, letter, card, or e-mail, because this is the time of year you feel obligated to connect with people far and wide, even those you don’t hear from more than once every year or two.

 Also, and possibly most important, you will spend extra time with family—not just the people who live with you, but the people you used to live with or live around, such as parents and siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins, grandparents and great-aunts or second-cousins. Add to that all the people they have acquired over the years, such as girlfriends or boyfriends, spouses or other live-in partners, and the various babies and children resulting from this union and that. And don’t forget stepchildren or half-siblings—we may be a culture that reveres the unfractured, traditional family, but we seldom belong to one anymore ourselves. So our holiday gatherings are frenetic and uncertain, with so many and varied relationships to navigate.

 The truth is, the next several weeks will require everything you have in terms of strategy and creativity. You don’t want to just buy the same gifts every year for the same people. You don’t want this year’s letter to sound very similar to last year’s. And, given that there’s less money than ever, your creativity and resourcefulness are not merely helpful but truly necessary for survival.

 More than anything, what you need—and what this enormous, preparatory inhalation will not give you—is holiday endurance. There is too much of the impossible to accomplish, and yet you have the horrible feeling that if you do not accomplish the Christmas of All Christmases, your failure will register somewhere, perhaps in a dry, pale room in which all our failures are logged in bulky books by weary angels. To fail at Christmas is the ultimate moral, religious, personal, and psychological shortcoming.

 Yes, it’s come to this. Christmas is one more chance to fail, and not only that, it is a chance to fail on multiple levels. So what can we do but suck in that tremulous breath and beg God for the grace to endure, and prevail.

 Yes, it’s come to this—that such a holy time, overflowing with grace and replaying for us the central story of God in the universe—this startling and luxurious season has become something to endure. To get through somehow. To manage as best we can. God help us.

 Well. First of all, let’s stop sucking air and instead say out loud to ourselves: “Christmas is not about me.” Let’s say that several times. Then we can repeat several times, with minor changes:

 “Christmas is not about money, or anything material, for that matter.”

• “Christmas is not about fixing the life of everyone I know. Furthermore, it’s not about pleasing everyone I know.”
• “Christmas is not about my doing better at absolutely everything.”
• “Christmas is not about creating the perfect experience.”

 Go ahead. Make up a few sentences of your own, suited to your particular experience. Take some time to remind yourself of what Christmas is not.

 Then, exhale all that anxiety you’ve built up and close your eyes, and remember . . .

 Two people and a baby, walking into their strange lives one day, one step, at a time, with a little bit of faith and a little bit of hope.

• Poor and dirty sheepherders discovering that, despite everything, they find themselves on a chill, damp night suddenly embraced by the glow of heaven. Angels are singing—to them. And the same old hillsides vibrate and sizzle with the focused gaze of God—upon them.
• A countryside teeming with an oppressed population, its villages gripped by harsh foreign powers, its people growing up in an atmosphere of helplessness and poverty.
• A collection of very old stories that tell of better times to come, that describe eras that will burst with visions and upheaval, with harrowing destruction and then stunning restoration.
• Old people—kind grandmothers and raspy-voiced prophets—who can always be counted on to remember the stories that matter most.
• Young people—robust fishermen, zealous students, dreamers and movers—who will not give up imagining what God might do.
• You, today—full of your own mysteries and possibilities. You with dreams yet unremembered and with gifts yet to be revealed.
• You, right now—walking alongside that couple with their baby. You know that in order to learn from this infant you must allow him to grow up and find his voice. You’ll need to be patient. In the company of the Christ Child, you will need to walk into life one day, one step, at a time . . .

  . . . until all of a sudden, you’ll notice that your whole life is embraced by heaven’s glow. And that angels are about, and songs hum through the air. It is Christmas day, and your life is still simply your life, but it carries within it the ancient stories that will always be true—about God’s mercy and Christ’s entrance into reality. Also, there are the brand new stories that holy desire is writing in you this very day.

 Go ahead. Endure the joy.

Copyright © 2008 Vinita Hampton Wright

 

Fiction for the Season

I'll post about three times per week during Advent, but I want to alert you to the fiction I'm putting on the site. On this blog page, look to the left under "Short Fiction" and click on "Advent Fiction #1." I'm posting a full story in four parts this week and will have something else next week. Enjoy!

Art and Justice

I spent the past weekend in Orleans, MA, on Cape Cod, at various events celebrating the Church of the Transfiguration. This house of worship is the workmanship of the Community of Jesus and has taken years to complete; actually they still have some frescoes to paint. I’m including the link because I couldn’t capture it with my phone camera. Sculptures, paintings, mosaics, floral arrangements—the place is stunning in its detail and joyous in its beauty. When they add the music and drama of their professional singers, musicians, and actors, the moments tumble over one another in an endless rhythm of art and faith. Go to www.churchofthetransfiguration.org

 

 

The Community brought into this long, complex process the expertise of sculptors and mozaicists from Italy and Germany; the artists were there for the celebration and gave talks and presentations about how they worked on their particular contributions. Also in attendance were scores of people who had contributed financially and supported the work in various other ways. The weekend carried a palpable sense of wealth and artsyness at times, but many of those people whose status might put me off at other times were singing and praying alongside all of us during the services. Overall it felt like two full days of “Thank you!” to God and to one another.

 

During one conversation, though, a friend questioned why it was necessary to spend so much money, time, and energy to construct a building. She confessed to living more in the vein of St. Francis of Assissi, a spirituality that stresses our solidarity with the poor. This friend did not condemn the Community for what seemed to her an extravagance, but she simply didn’t “get it.”

 

What does art have to do with justice, really? Should we spend millions of dollars on the best mosaic work in the world, when that money could feed, clothe, and shelter so many people who need those things? Is there really a place for Christians obtaining the best of the best because we want to offer the best to God—in physical, monetary terms?

 

I asked a similar question the week after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I was at a bookstore celebrating a friend’s newest book publication. At the time I was working on a novel. I asked another friend, a wise woman and lover of books, “Why the f--- write stories, when they’re digging through rubble for body parts in New York?” She said, “Oh, I think that now we need your stories more than ever.”

 

If we truly possess a sacramental mindset, every thing matters. Beauty is worthy because it is beauty, and beauty offers to us a quality that nothing else provides. Another friend, a great lover of social justice, came to understand this principle years ago when an organization began beautifying some slums in her city. At first she was critical because that money could go to schools and social programs. But the Holy Spirit tapped her on the shoulder and said, “More than anyone, the people of this neighborhood need trees and flowers.”

 

Beauty has the power to move a soul, and thus it is capable of transforming a life. Who hasn’t stood in a particular place—a cathedral or a golden valley or at the foot of a glass building eighty stories tall—and been transported out of self and into a larger, more colorful vision? Not long after I moved to Chicago, I was stopped short one day downtown by this realization: All of these buildings and bridges, windows, roadways, and subways were imagined, designed, and built by creatures a few feet tall with very limited physical strength. We humans managed to create structures thousands of times our size and mass; this itself is a miracle, and we walk past hundreds of them every day on our way to work.

 

There is a true place in the human landscape for the Church of the Transfiguration. This doesn’t mean that every house of worship should follow the example. There is also a place for the storefront church and the house church, for the suburban church that welcomes the community by providing community space in the form of auditoriums, coffee shops, and gymnasiums. The older I get, the more I believe that there’s a place for just about everything in this world. And I can say with enthusiasm that I am spiritually richer after two days among the frescoes, fountains, phrases of song, and light glinting off the many-colored visions in stone.

What Is Beautiful: What Is Sexy?

While working on dinner last night, an important conversation began. I say began, because we didn’t take it too far. We didn’t take it too far because we finished cooking and the topic shifted, as it often does. But this start-of-a-conversation has stayed with me, and I want to return to it, but with wisdom.

 

The person at the other end of the conversation was a young woman. The topic: what makes a person sexy? All I contributed was the observation that there was artificial sexy—acting certain ways and dressing like a whore (this term is merely part of teenage vocabulary, so I used it)—and then there is the real sexy, which has more to do with everything about the person. Unfortunately, it was at that point that the shrimp were turning pink in the skillet and I was hunting for a potholder. There’s a real art to parental sorts of conversations. You must be available a lot, because sometimes the most crucial things come up just when the shrimp are turning pink, or when you’re trying to find the exit you need off the expressway. I don’t know if kids plan it this way, or if it’s just less intimidating to engage adults when they aren’t looking you full in the face. At any rate, the conversation about sexy ended, and I feel as if it wasn’t enough.

 

Really, what do we present as a healthy definition of sexy? Because I did not imagine myself remotely sexy until about age thirty-five or forty, I’m not the best resource here. Thanks to an over-emphasis on mere physical appearance, I did not learn how much of sexy comes from within until decades after I could have enjoyed sexy’s benefits. As a teenager I was sure that sexy had to do with big-enough breasts and clear skin—also, the absence of braces. The only thing that changed for me back then was the braces, so it seemed that sexy was not in the cards for me.

 

In high school and college, I believed that the only people who could determine my sexy quotient were guys my age. I did not know that how I saw myself had a lot to do with how they saw me. I felt homely and rejected, and so they agreed tacitly, through ignoring me. I saw them going after the pretty, sexy girls, and I simply was not among them. The false ideas about sexy were thus reinforced so often—with every rejection, real or imagined—that they became rooted in my soul. From time to time, they still throw up fresh shoots because some plants cannot be eliminated unless you move a whole lot of earth.

 

I would love to hear from anyone out there about how to explain to young women what it means to be sexy. No point in telling them that sexy is not important because they know that it is very important. But I do believe there is real sexy and false sexy. I would love some help in continuing this conversation.

What Is Beautiful: A Roomful of Nuns

I’ve not blogged for a few days because I left home without my laptop to spend a weekend in Burbank, CA with a number of Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary—known to insiders simply as “BVMs”—and some BVM associates. Associates are laypersons who join in the BVM ministry in a long-term committed and official way.

 

I led a full-day workshop on the topic: Days of Deepening Friendship, and it was just that for me—an opportunity to be in a roomful of nuns and benefit from their wisdom and energy. For me it was an easy retreat because I had only to introduce a topic and say a few words, and they were off.

 

Most of them were older than me, and I knew that they already bested me in life experience and the wisdom it brings. Also, a number of them had spent years in classroom teaching. Nothing silly or contrived would work in this crowd (not that I strive to be silly or contrived elsewhere).  I dared to use Scripture stories, knowing that these women (and a couple of men) had probably read, studied, and presented these stories many more times than I had. This was just the sort of situation that compels a person to rely on the Holy Spirit. I was not disappointed.

 

What makes for wisdom? Judging from my time with the BVMs:

• Openness to learn, even from someone younger, even when you’ve covered this topic a hundred times.
• The humility to ask questions—to admit in the first place that you have them—and to struggle with those questions out in the open.
• The dedication to community, the understanding that holy work always happens in the context of conversation, acceptance, help, communication, and cooperation.
• The love for life with God, whether as a vowed religious or as a layperson. More than one of the women had been nuns early in life, left the convent during the 60s and 70s, embarked upon family and career, only to return as associates—still in love with the mission, the community, and the Christ who remains at its center.

 

I confess that we sang “Alleluia” even though you’re not supposed to use that word during Lent. I also confess that the weekend was declared “Lent-exempt” in terms of eating sweets (this was reiterated by one of our leaders when hotel staff brought in fresh-baked cookies). But it was a true Lenten experience, in which we explored our inner worlds, described and named that terrain, and kept walking toward Easter.

 

Copyright ©  2010 V.H. Wright