READING FOR THE NEW YEAR

Among the readings I’ve been doing to prepare for the New Year is the recently published book, A Resurrection-Shaped Life, Dying and Rising on Planet Earth by the Rt. Rev. Jake Owensby, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. The book arrived two days ago, and I didn’t put it down until I finished it early this morning.

A Resurrection-Shaped Life arrives at the dawn of the New Year and is a wise, profound introduction to the idea of recovering what Bishop Owensby describes as our resurrected Self. The 110-page book of hope and insight gives Christian readers, emergent and seasoned, a sense of dying and rising again and again, moving from their brokenness and past shame and failures, through Christ’s grace, to become transformed humans. I was reminded of the Scottish preacher George MacDonald’s words in an anthology of his work by C.S. Lewis: “We die daily. Happy are those who come to life as well…”

For those who belong to this “pain avoidant culture,” as Bishop Owensby defines our present-day country, this book isn’t a panacea for sufferers who want to avoid suffering at any cost, but, instead, offers a message of hope for those of us who often forget that the cross is the symbol of our redemption. Owensby suggests that we devote ourselves to a higher purpose, citing Biblical stories, as well as quotations from contemporary authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, the author of The Outliers, a book that reaffirms what I believe as a writer — to master anything (including spiritual peace), ten thousand hours of practice are required to reach one’s higher purpose… and suffering is always a part of that practice!

Bishop Owensby reflects compassion and empathy but does not sugar-coat his spirituality, citing examples in his own life that reveal his humanity. His writing is not dogmatic but easily conveys his faith and transformation from issues of shame and blame to a believer in forgiveness and justice. Owensby shows us that there is a power in the universe greater than we are and greater than the afflictions we're suffering. He also presents a vision of the destiny we want to live out. 

As one who can readily identify with his story of abuse, I especially appreciate his candor about the messiness of our lives and am reminded of reading The Drama of the Gifted Child by the Swiss psychotherapist, Alice Miller. A close friend asked me what the book was about, and I replied: “Grandiosity,” which is not the theme of this book at all! I had subconsciously avoided its true meaning, which was to offer consolation and hope to those who had been abused as children. My friend was astonished and suggested I re-read this book about surviving an abusive childhood to overcome feelings of alienation and to discover a higher purpose.

I’m accustomed to writing reviews in which I cite numerous passages by the author, but in respect for Abingdon’s copyright rules, I have only briefly reviewed this Christmas/New Year’s gift of witness from Bishop Owensby — his meditations, spoken from the heart of his own experience, will help readers achieve transfigured lives of intimacy and resurrection with the risen Christ.

This is an honest and life-changing book by the enlightened leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana.

ONLY THE ONE SKY

When I received and read a copy of Pinyon Publishing’s recent release of a volume of poetry, Only The One Sky by Dabney Stuart, I kept thinking about another book of poems entitled Call and Response, an exchange in poetic form written by Louisiana poets Darrell Bourque and Jack Bedell. Both books represent a kind of counterpoint and harmony that flows between two poets to create a spiritual synthesis, embracing past and present in a medley of poems. In the case of Only the One Sky, Stuart has a conversation that focuses on joy and loss with an ancient poet from the Tang Dynasty of eighth century China.

Stuart names his connection “the old poet,” and transcends the boundaries of time, reaching back to antiquity for his subject, Wang Wei, who once wrote to his friend P’ei Ti about walking “hand in hand, composing poems as we went…down twisting paths to the banks of clear streams.” Although the poets have diverging personalities and sensibilities, they share communications that complement each other and in their listening and speaking, the reader is treated to meditations on nature, breath, family, Stuart’s musings about “the filtering years, ineffable ways/that have gentled us to this life: magic,/ grief and error, the lifting of veils./ Gratitude. Elation./ A butterfly, an unfolding shadow.”

In the old poet’s poem “Something Like That,” Stuart likens his feelings about longing to a passage from a Conrad novel, lamenting “I have no idea what I long for. /The old poet shifted on his dinghy seat./Only that I long for it./I don’t long for it because it’s impossible/ to attain, but because it’s impossible/for me not to long for it, whatever it is…”  I was reminded of the Sehnsucht of Simone Weil’s passage in Waiting for God: “When we possess a beautiful thing, we still desire something. We do not in the least know what it is. We want to get behind the beauty, but it…like a mirror sends back our own desire for goodness. It is a…mystery that is painfully tantalizing.” In Stuart’s passage there is a sense of the poet remembering fleeting joys, yet he is aware that we seem to be separated from that which is desired, as Corbin Carnell points out in Bright Shadow of Reality, “a ceaseless longing which always points beyond…” Stuart masterfully uses the “old poet” to personify this quest for the secret that remains hidden to us.

Stuart captures the images of wandering and nature in an exquisite poem, “Not the Same,” as the old poet ruminates about his life by the river. “It is always, the same and not the same./The cluster of willows at the near bend/turns yellow in autumn. Its bare branches/flow in the small breezes. He dreams of them./ Sometimes he wakes, uncertain in the darkness,/lies quietly on his cot, listening/for the silence to break, an owl leaving,/the river bearing itself, the willows shushing.”

Using a more contemporary voice, Stuart roots us in his home place with “Porch Screen,” providing the reader and his old poet friend a glimpse of domesticity: “Once your hair fell across your face, tilted aside./My finger to your chin, a brushing kiss…/Someone to talk with, to share the rabbit stew,/the porch screen flaring with late afternoon sun.” The poet crosses the divide in time between the old poet and the younger one with dialogue featuring affection that connects both poets in the shared blessing of an evening meal.

In Only The One Sky Stuart speaks to poets, living and dead, who have transported readers into a spiritual dimension, creating his own inscriptions about a journey filled with the sight of  radiance everywhere, the sacrament of poets’ connections, and the “atmosphere of infinite suggestion.”* 

Dabney Stuart has been a resident at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy, has held a Virginia Artists Fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2006 he won the Library of Virginia Poetry Prize. His work is in the audio and video archives at the Library of Congress.

Only The One Sky is available from Pinyon Publishing, 23847 V66 Trail, Montrose, Colorado 81403 and from amazon.com.

*A.C. Bradley. Oxford Lectures on Poetry.

RETURN OF THE KAJUN KWEEN??

While packing up papers in anticipation of returning to Tennessee for a short visit to my home on The Mountain, I came across an old book entitled Of Other Worlds by C.S. Lewis. It includes an essay concerning his speculations about the famous Narnia stories for children, as well as those about his science fiction trilogy. The short essay that interested me, “It All Began With A Picture,” focused on how Lewis came to write The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, in which he explains that all of his seven Narnia books and three science fiction books began with seeing pictures in his head; e.g., the Lion began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood.

I experienced a sudden “aha” in my own head when I read this line, remembering how Kajun Kween, a young adult book I wrote several years ago, originated with a picture in my head of a six-foot, two-inches tall, 13-year old girl with feet that required size 12 shoes. The entire story, in comic book form, unfolded in my head. It featured this giraffe-like girl who interviewed for an actual comic strip publisher and beat out more ordinary jolie catins in a contest for a character who would become the heroine of this comic strip. Her job was to provide true adventures about her native Cajun French Louisiana; e.g., an encounter with a mama ‘gator protecting her egg nest; a stand-off with a giant snapping turtle; and an experience with a loup-garou late at night in a cypress swamp. The pictures in my head were described for and beautiful executed by Paul Schexnayder, New Iberia artist, for Kajun Kween.

Sketch by Paul
Schexnayder for Kajun
Kween

The picture that came into my mind as I planned the trip back to Tennessee was one of Petite Marie Melancon fulfilling the last line of Kajun Kween – she would be exploring new kingdoms. Thus, she might consider The Mountain at Sewanee in Tennessee. Pictures of adventures flashed in my head: ghosts appearing to Petite at Rugby, Tennessee where a Brit once tried to establish a Utopian colony; Petite attempting to hike to Fiery Gizzard;  a “See Rock City” trip to Chattanooga where she plunges off a cliff; an experience in which she becomes Queen of the Moon Pie Festival at Bell Buckle, Tennessee…

Since I’ve just completed a book of poetry, Street Sketches, which should appear in a few weeks, the pictures that appeared in my head about Petite Marie seem like they want to tell a story in 2016. Like Lewis, “I don’t know where the pictures came from, and I don’t believe anyone knows exactly how he/she makes thing up. Making up is a mysterious thing…” All I know is that the pictures will persist until the story is told. In Petite Marie’s case, four or five years passed before she was birthed. We’ll see how she responds when I return to the winter cold on The Mountain next week; that is, before we move on to Florida for a few days. Pictures of her exploring Florida may become cut lines for a comic strip based there -- elusive crocodiles in the Everglades, Disney World experiences, glass-bottomed boat rides, explorations of coral reefs… Petite has begun to travel a lot.

As Lewis notes, “the right sort [of stories] work from the common, universally human ground the stories share with the children, and indeed with countless adults.” Meanwhile, I’ll just enjoy the pictures forming in my head.

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS AND FRIENDS

Mary Ann and Darrell

The Greek word philia means affection or friendship, and C.S. Lewis wrote one of the best treatises about this special relationship with others in The Four Loves, my favorite book by the great Anglican apologist of the 20^th century: “It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as Emerson said, ‘Do you love me?’ means ‘Do you see the same truth?’”

Pistachio cake

The Christmas season provides fertile soil for commonality among cherished friends, and lately I’ve been blessed to have been invited to a few celebrations in which I’ve enjoyed the “real glory of friendship,” as Lewis puts it. The most recent of these celebrations took place this week when I and my friends Vickie Sullivan and Mary Ann Wilson, went over to Church Point, Louisiana for dinner especially cooked by Darrell and Karen Bourque. Darrell, a former poet laureate of Louisiana and acclaimed poet (as well as my mentor in poetry), had prepared a succulent pork roast, fresh asparagus, quinoa with chunks of sweet potato; and Karen, master glass artist, had created an artistically-arranged green salad with thinly sliced avocado and homemade dressing. The piece de resistance was a beautiful white pistachio cake with coconut frosting, pictured here.

Karen and Diane

As we sat around the table, I thought about Emerson’s words: “Do you see the same truth?” Most of the conversation centered on common interests: books, art, and politics, but table talk soon turned to concerns about a mutual friend who has been diagnosed with cancer, and we discussed the humanitarian work she has done during her almost-80 years. Our friend, Jane Bonin, a former professor of English at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, was affiliated with the Hunger Project for many years, presenting talks to various groups to raise the consciousness of people regarding the problem of hunger in both Acadiana and Washington, D.C. where she migrated after leaving Lafayette, Louisiana. She was dedicated to the sustainable end of world hunger and to the maxim of “Creating An Idea Whose Time Has Come.” A few years later, she joined the Peace Corps and served in both Malawi and Niger, Africa for six years. Her experiences in Africa have been recorded in The Color Of A Lion’s Eye, released earlier this year.

The note of solemnity that had begun the conversation about Jane’s condition, changed to one of shared acknowledgement as we talked about Jane’s resilience and strength. And after a few moments, we were laughing about adventures several of us had experienced with her; e.g., “The 6-Day,” a leadership training course in which we rappelled off the side of a mountain and endured the famous “Tyrolean Traverse.” During this exercise, we were strapped at our waists and had to propel ourselves, hand over hand, across a wire strung above a ravine yawning beneath us. What we remembered was how long some of us (Jane and I included) hung in the middle of the wire and, finally, those who had made it to the “farther shore” sat on the end of the wire so that it sloped downward, and we could get off. These efforts of fellow participants underlined the support we had been promised when we entered the rigorous program. We were greeted by cheering supporters who massaged bound muscles in our arms and told us how accomplished we were to have moved across the wire. Actually, the Tyrolean Traverse is a good metaphor for the support of friends.

It was late when we drove away from the dark countryside near Church Point, but the three of us left the celebration at the Bourque’s table feeling not only the warmth of strongly-supportive relationships in which all of us “saw the same truth” but were buoyed by the “real glory of friendship.”

And we just know that Jane is going to make it across that yawning ravine again.