Words for the Weekend: The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

I love to read. I love to read because I love to think. Whether its a lengthy story with slow and deep character development that boldly declares a message without ever stating the message itself or a well-worded quote, just a few sentences long that gives me pondering fodder for days, I am attracted to, inspired, and challenged by the power of the written word.

So I've decided, at the beginning of every weekend, to share some words that I deem worth sharing. I hope they comfort, challenge, and inspire you as they have me. Enjoy!

This weekend's words are from a book I just finished called The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, A Small Town , and the Secret of a Good Life by Rod Dreher. The book is the story of the author's little sister, Ruthie, their relationships to each other and with their childhood home. While Rod left their small, Louisiana hometown as soon as he was able, Ruthie stayed and fostered a beautiful community. When Ruthie was diagnosed with cancer, the people of her town cared for her, her husband, Mike, and their family in remarkable and self-sacrificing ways. These words speak to the difficulty and joys of staying in a place.

"Those of us you have moved away are not necessarily callow and ungrateful people. We live in a time and place in which we are conditioned to leave our hometowns. Our schools tell our young people to follow their professional bliss, wherever it takes them. Our economy rewards companies and people who have no loyalty to place. The stories that shape the moral imagination of our young, chiefly by film and television, are told by outsiders who were dissatisfied and lit out for elsewhere to find happiness and good fortune.

"...I had spent my professional life writing newspaper columns, blog posts, and even a book, lamenting the loss of community and traditions in American life. I had a reputation as a pop theoretician of cultural decline, but in truth I was long on words, short on deeds. I did not like the fact that I saw my Louisiana family only three times a year, for a week at a time, if we were lucky. But that was the way of the world, right? Almost everyone I knew was in the same position. My friends and I talked a lot about the fragmentation of the modern family, about the deracinating effects of late capitalism, about mass media and the erosion of localist consciousness, about the consumerization of religion and the leviathan state and every other thing under the sun that undermines our sense of home and permanence.

"The one thing none of us did was what Ruthie did: Stay.

"Contemporary culture encourages us to make islands of ourselves for the sake of self-fulfillment, of career advancement, of entertainment, of diversion, and all the demands of the sovereign self. When suffering and death come for you--and it will--you want to be in a place where you know, and are known. You want--no you need--to be able to say, as Mike did, 'We're leaning, but we're leaning on each other.'

"...In the midst of marveling about the goodness of the townspeople, Julie and I wondered if we were romanticizing St. Francisville... A local friend had said to me, 'You have seen the town at its very best. You know, it's not always like this.'

"I knew St. Francisville's shortcomings. There is poverty. There is brokenness. There is drunkenness, and there are drugs. There is meanness, and conformity, and lack of professional opportunity. Of all the things that made me run from this place nearly three decades ago, most of them remain.

"But Ruthie transfigured this town in my eyes. Her suffering made me see the good that I couldn't see before. The same communal bonds that appeared to me as chains all those years ago had become my Louisiana family's lifelines. What I once saw through the melodramatic eyes of a teenager as prison bars were in fact the pillars that held my family up when it had no strength left to stand.

"We're leaning, but we're leaning on each other."

A Tribute to Abe and Ruth

This blog claims to be a literary investigation of seeking and dwelling, adventure and home, and the tension between the two in my heart and mind. Recently, however, I have reflected on how my thoughts, those published here and the ones incessantly rolling about my head, are mostly devoted to the former. Even when discussing home, my disposition continues to be that of a seeker. Questions, a critical eye, and a desire to discover the meaning found in monotony is its own adventure.

Yet occasionally I am gifted with an opportunity to truly dwell. To rest in the joy of a moment that does not require analysis. A moment so obviously good that no seeking is really necessary. Only dwelling is asked.

Last week I was at a family reunion celebrating my grandparents' 90th birthdays. Kin from Oregon, Indiana, Saskatchewan, Michigan, and Pennsylvania gathered, reminisced, and reconnected. To celebrate the lives my grandparents made for their children and children's children, we sang a song written by their youngest son, Dave Lefever. Old stories, worn and beloved like a favorite pair of jeans, found a melody among a ragamuffin choir:

Milking cows on a cold winter morning
You would give a hundred dollars if you could, to still be sleeping
But with the pulse of the milkers and the warmth you would find
Being right there with your father you could catch a glimpse of the divine

Hot afternoon shelling mountains of peas
Under the shade of the birch tree with a little breeze
Mother made up games so nobody would moan
We talked about whatever and no one ever checked their iPhone

Chorus: Those memories seem so far away, though in some ways they seem so near
                We can't go back but we remember the Love that brought us here

Riding in the night to a new home far away
She cried and cried to leave her friends and face another day
Her daddy at the wheel was patient with her sorrow 
He knew about the loneliness of an unknown tomorrow

(Chorus)

We laughed until our bellies hurt, we laughed with each other
And the one who said the craziest things was our oldest brother
He gave pop songs brand new words and sang them with a straight face
Like..."I believe in Melvin, he sets the pace"

It's not too hard to see where he got that silly bone
With a dad who'd tie a string to a purse and lay it along the road
And a mother who would chase us all around the room
And dissolve in fits of laughter while wielding a wooden spoon

(Chorus)

A girl will push the limits, it comes as no surprise
Icy roads won't keep her home when she's got to socialize 
Mother and Daddy were away and to reason she would not yield
She never made the party but got acquainted with a farmer's field

With a parent and a teen the heated words could fly
She was headed toward the front door seething, "Let me live my life"
Sitting at the kitchen bar no more did he speak
He just caught her as she walked by, pulled her down and kissed her cheek

(Chorus)

This song could last for hours or days so we better bring it home
Now the grandkids have stories too...

Of catching the bus and the Jubilee Shop and fishing
Of pretzels and cold fresh milk and Grandma humming hymns
Grandpa's teeth and a bobcat and wild swing rides
Bible trivia, crokinole and that spicy Old Spice
Farm stories and deer tales and watching birds
and Grandma exclaiming, "Abe, that's not a word!"

If you ever wonder where the years have gone
Look at all of us and smile or cry, and know we'll carry on 

Abe and Ruth we will treasure the love that's growing here

Abram Thomas and Ruth Naomi
Daddy and Mother
Grandpa and Grandma

My heritage is certainly not perfect; no one's is. Yet I pray I never forget I am about as blessed as they come.

Distorted Glory

*Disclaimer: This post and video discuss the very difficult issue of child abuse. Reader and viewer discretion is advised.

If we pay even the slightest attention to the news, our senses are inundated with stories of heinous acts each and every day. Events from Norway to Egypt to Boston serve as a constant reminder that we are not a people at peace with each other nor with ourselves.

Desensitization is nearly inevitable.

But on occasion we catch word of an event that comes like a punch in the gut. An atrocity that affects a person, cause or place close to our heart carries a weight that sends minds into tailspins and hearts into pieces. The closer evil comes to our world the more evil it seems.

And so was my reaction when I saw the headline about the arrest of a former classmate of mine:

"Lebanon man accused of seriously injuring infant" 

The article goes on to explain in too much detail the abuse of a four month old little girl endured at the hand of her father. I cannot imagine a greater wickedness than this grossly distorted relationship between parent and child. I am thankful my imagination cannot extend beyond the words of the article for the mere thought would be too much to bear.

Initially I could not pull forth the name that matched this man's mugshot. My mind flipped through forgotten names and faces as I clicked on the link and waited for the info to load. The name came to me like a second punch in the abdomen as the entangled web of human wickedness gained clarity.

In middle school, the two years my life intersected with his, this boy was known to all as "Gay Robert." I don't know what made him a target for two straight years, but he was it--one of two kids that all other students knew to avoid if they hoped to survive the ruthlessness of middle school peerdom. I don't know what his life was like outside of his personal twelve period hell, but I know his clothes were dirty and his hair, unkempt.

Since his arrest I have heard new descriptors slapped on him. The arsenal of junior high sneers have been replaced by the sole label of "monster." Indeed, his actions justify this name. His crime is unthinkable and his sentence well-deserved.

But monsters are not born.

Humans are born.

And humans bear the image of the holy and the good.

What, then, does it take for the image of God, a human being in all his goodness and glory, to be so twisted, scarred, distorted, and marred that their only human resemblance is the skeleton they carry?

How deep into people's souls do our mocking words penetrate?

How damaging is our neglect of each other?

At what point does bitterness become hate, hate become evil, and evil distort the image of God into a monster?

Sin is a complicated web. A web to which we all contribute.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Pray for this damaged little girl.
And if you are able, pray for Robert.

Calibrating to Beauty

Last Thursday morning I came down from the mountains after nine days of beholding fresh landscapes, ascending new heights, and breathing in the comforting paradox of nature's simple complexity.

Photo credit: William Hayes

Beautiful things happen within me when I'm in these places.

The hardened wax around my heart, formed by anxiety, cynicism and selfishness begins to crack, then melt, and finally shake off its residual grip that keeps my person from wholeness.

Photo credit: William Hayes

The pupils of my mind's eye dilate as my body and soul attempt to absorb the infinite beauty flowing, growing, soaring, rising and forming in every direction.

Photo credit: William Hayes

I settle into rejuvenating rhythms of co-travelers' footsteps,

Photo credit: William Hayes

the ebb and flow of speech and silence,

Photo credit: William Hayes

and the timely patterns of the sun and the moon.

Photo credit: William Hayes

Photo credit: William Hayes

I inhabit this space and no other. In this habitation my heart finds its center. As my soul both rests and awakens I remember why I write. I suddenly wonder why I stopped writing for so long; why I found it so difficult to put pen to paper. But in this place, in a place where my spirit calms and soars, I remember that writing is my response to beauty.

Worship is easy when beauty is near.

And then a peculiar thing happens. My experience of beauty does not abandon me when I descend to the foothills, the plains, and the even lower ground of Central PA. Rather my beauty-filled eyes are renewed and this renewed sight follows me back home. Sitting in my favorite park, my eyes discover new vitality in familiar rivers, trees, sidewalks, and friends.

I am reminded of my first unchaperoned visit to an art museum. It was the first time I was free to spend as long as I wanted wandering the great halls designed for displaying beauty. As I drove west out of Philly and past Boathouse Row, the sky seemed new to me. The skyline in my rearview mirror was stunning. The trees, exquisite!

Photo credit: William Hayes

Photo credit: William Hayes

Photo credit: William Hayes

It is amazing what we see when we calibrate our eyes to beauty.

So here I am, returned from my summer travels, thankful for the opportunity to be renewed and inspired. Yet also struck by how quickly our wonder fades. Left on our own, our eyes grow dim. How desperately I need the Holy Spirit who gives new mercies and renewed wonder with each sunrise!

"For we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we." -GKC

Photo credit: William Hayes

Where do you see beauty?

When Monotony Shimmers

I recently heard about a book called A World in One Cubic Foot: Portraits of Biodiversity in which photographer, David Liittschwager, placed a green metal cube measuring one foot by one foot by one foot in various ecosystems around the world and for 24 hours observed and measured the life that passed through the cubic space.

Imagine. Walking into your backyard, choosing a random cubic foot of space and staring.

Perhaps your mind is being inundated with cliches--images of drying paint, simmering pots, growing grass and the like. Staring at such a small space for 24 hours? How excruciatingly boring!

Or is it?

You observe the meandering, yet purposeful path of a scavenging ant. A robin hops into your space and locates a worm burrowed in the ground (which is technically outside your designated area), but pulls it up into your cube of awareness. You take note of a discarded fall leaf, following the wind's guidance to an unknown resting place where it shall return to the soil that bore it.

The foreword of the book boasts:

"After encountering this book, you will never look at the tiniest sliver of your own backyard or neighborhood park the same way; instead, you will be stunned by the unexpected variety of species found in an area so small."

I believe it, for I am learning the unshakable beauty found in the tiniest of gifts; the joy of being attentive to every disturbance, each movement a sign of life and a reminder that the Creator never ceases to create.

The glory of the unimpressive requires something of the observer that the vistas of the Grand Canyon do not.

Faithfulness.

For it is only in the act of staying present that our wearisome, entertainment-seeking souls can know the splendor contained within one cubic foot. The majesty of the mountains is declared beautiful by its first time visitor. However, the square foot of forest is known to be most beautiful by the one who has spent time there.

The hidden beauty of the Wyoming mountains (Photo credit: Andrew Harlan)

It's an awful lot like living in a small town. It's easy to become restless moving about the same few miles. It's easy to become bored with the same sidewalks, same neighbors with the same gripes, same food at the same restaurants, same conversations with the same friends.

Oh, but the riches we miss when we run because of boredom! We miss goodness, beauty and the knowledge of a place that only comes with time.

Welcoming friends and strangers into a home that is known and settled.

Being surprised by how much you have yet to learn about friends you know so well.

Understanding the pain of a community, not through reading books, but by walking on the sidewalks, listening to the neighbors and observing patterns long ingrained.

Learning that love does not exist apart from loving the person, neighbor, townie right in front of you.

Realizing we must know one another in order to love.

Being known by people not because you've told them who you are, but because they've seen who you are.

My few cubic feet

Sometimes the world seems too big, sometimes too small. But either way I am learning that there is infinite beauty in each and every cubic foot of this beautiful planet, especially in our backyards, small towns and closest friends. Go. Explore. Discover. Stay.

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. 

-GK Chesterton in Orthodoxy

The Sacred Act of Creativity

Have you ever observed someone in the process of creating?

I don't mean appreciating a finished artpiece or even watching a rehearsed performance, although they are inspiring in their own right. But have you witnessed the sacred moments when inward conception becomes outward expression?

A writer pauses between sentences, squints ever so slightly and stares to the upper left.

A painter steps back from their canvas and analyzes shape, color, texture.

A musician sits quietly, attentive to unplayed melodies waiting to be voiced.

A few weeks ago I experienced anew the wonder of the creative act at a performance by The HALO Ensemble's Time Canvas. The concert was a melodic tapestry, weaving together classical and jazz traditions. A cello solo composed by Bach. A guitar and bass improvisation. More Bach. Another improv. Fugues and new ideas flowed in line, informing and enhancing each other.

The entire show quickened my spirit, brought a peace that only art can. Yet it was the improvisations that sent my mind on a thinking adventure.

I have heard in regards to music that silence is as important as sound. I knew this to be true in a new way as I watched a guitarist, violinist, bassist and celloist anticipate their first note. I waited with them and they with me, trusting inspiration would not falter.

The room was full of robust silence. Ached with it. A silence that sits on the edge of its seat, expecting beauty to emerge at any moment, wondering what it will be and when it will begin, but knowing it will.

And out of the longing, yearning silence, the line begins.

Slowly at first.

Anticipation is not yet satisfied as the other voices listen and reply until all are fully engaged. Conception and expression meet, an original creation set forth into time and space.

I know these emotions well, the wellspring of life that accompanies an idea becoming art. I know this moment as an observer and a creator. And I have come to realize these moments emerge from stillness, from spaces set aside for waiting.

The expectancy I feel when listening to live improv is what happens when I settle in to write. The final product is uncertain, but I trust if I show up, the stirring within me, the longing to create, will materialize into something new, maybe even beautiful.

As my mind explores the wonder of creativity I am led to the memory of a conversation with the very guitarist whose improv inspired this post. Full-time students at the time, we has an unclaimed afternoon on our hands and a question before us.

What about humans make them the image of God?

We made suggestions, dismissed some and explored others until we rested temporarily (for we were quite aware of our philosophical limits) on the conclusion that it is humanity's capacity and aspiration to create that reflects the divine.

I wonder, how does our experience of creating compare to God's?

I think it not too unlikely of a picture to imagine God, in his threeness, as a musical ensemble. Each Person with a stringed instrument in hand, pausing, breathing in the silence, the absence, that yearns to be full and alive. Waiting, listening, anticipating what their love will call forth.

And lifting his bow, the Father speaks, "Let us create!" The vibrations of his voice and of the strings hold power that sets stars ablaze, fills the earth with oceans and gives breath to creatures. The Son and the Spirit listen and join in bringing hope, resurrection, power and life with each melodic phrase.

"We do not first get all the answers and then live in light of our understanding. We must rather plunge into life--meeting what we have to meet and experiencing what we have to experience--and in the light of living try to understand. If insight comes at all, it will not be before, but only through and after experience." 

-John Claypool

How do you create?

Hope for the Poor? Not If It's Up to Me

My eyes grew wide as they absorbed the onslaught of visual information. Diverse faces and hunched bodies hurried past as I tried to focus on my mother's strides creating a crooked path through the Manhattan sidewalks. Her hand clutched protectively around mine served a better guide as my attention diverted to the towering feats of architecture in whose shadows we shivered. These behemoths of man's innovation dwarfed any building I had previously seen and simultaneously reworked my naive definition of "big." We scurried from one climate controlled store to another, this November winter feeling less forgiving here than in the open fields back home.

It was on this journey, inundated with foreign sights, sounds and smells that I met them. Our encounter was so brief as to scarcely be worthy of mention except for the questions they raised in the mind of a hopeful little girl.

A man and a woman. Huddled under how many layers? Three? Four? Seven? Each held a book in hand, escaping from the harsh reality of an impending Northeast winter, aloof to the brilliant sights and intrusive sounds that overwhelmed my senses all day. "My wife and I are HIV+," read the impeccable handwriting, black permanent marker on a cardboard canvas. "Please help." They never saw me staring. My unhesitating legs must have blended in with the ever-preoccupied crowd. But for me, all else faded into the background as we rushed past them and across the street.

"Mom." I tugged at my mother's sleeve as soon as the image of the woman's long brunette locks were out of view. "Mom. Why are they homeless if they can read?" My innocent question incited a response that shattered any previous notion my developing mind had concocted about the poor. Educated? Skilled? And still homeless?

There wasn't much time to think. We were in a hurry to catch the matinee show of the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City. The Rockettes, with their perfect height, impeccable kicks and shimmery leotards screamed for my attention, but all I could see was that man and that woman, cold, sick, ignored.

And we ignored them like everyone else.

I had never been warned that giving money on the street was unwise. I didn't know how often people abused the system. I had no learned excuses to relieve my conscience so I might enjoy the dazzling scene in front of me. And so I didn't. Until intermission when my mother assured me we would make a donation to a New York City homeless shelter when we returned home. With that promise, I was able to marvel at the second act, but a bitter aftertaste lingered.

How many homeless individuals have a walked by since then? As I enjoyed a day in the city, unwilling to be inconvenienced? While being consumed and distracted by the little universe whose center runs straight though me?

In the distant recesses of my mind there is a hint of a whisper, "What you do for the least of these...", but it is as easy to dismiss as an echo. The speaker of those words doesn't understand the modern system, a system that makes people untrustworthy, childish, manipulative. So I walk on by, hundreds, thousands of times declaring with my steps that I think those words irrelevant. And each step dulls the painful sting of compassion.

"Don't let yourselves be robbed of hope."

Pope Francis' words were directed to young prisoners, sure to be labeled, stereotyped and ignored by most. At first hearing of this exhortation, I received those words as if directed to me as well. For I, too, thirst for a hope that will not disappoint, a melting of my aging and jaded heart.

But, then, in horror, I see that I am the thief. The one who ignores. The one who labels. The one who daily fails to see the image of God in the eyes of the cold, the dirty, the unlovable. 

Kyrie eleison.