Where we had thought

The Hero Path 

We have not even to risk the adventure alone

for the heroes of all time have gone before us. 

The labyrinth is thoroughly known... 

we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. 

And where we had thought to find an abomination

we shall find a God. 

And where we had thought to slay another 

we shall slay ourselves. 

Where we had thought to travel outwards 

we shall come to the center of our own existence. 

And where we had thought to be alone 

we shall be with all the world.

 ― Joseph Campbell

Bridges.

40 Days.

From an email I received:
Friends, I am deeply saddened to write with the news of Landy and Jevenal's tragic accident. I don't have emails for everyone who may remember the wonderful experiences at Proyecto Amistad with this faithful couple, especially the times that Landy would drive from Monclova to Acuna just to visit us when we were there. When more details are forthcoming, I will forward them. Please keep their son and daughter and their families in your prayers.



Imagine this, dear friends: the smell of the dust of Mexico, the broken grass, the morning's rusty dew, and the sheen of the midday sun just beginning to rise. You are climbing into a van - the 15 passenger kind, where all the best stories begin. You are going on a picnic you hear. VBS (Vacation Bible School) is complete, a week's worth of mixing cement on a slab floor, of sawing away at rebar, of breaking your back with a shovel and a wheelbarrow, is about to be rewarded.

You are just 16. And the world, is a stage. Your young heart breaks for meaning, it stumbles to understand the story - Why are we here? What should we do? Why am I living in comfort?

But for now, she grips your hand with hers, and assures you, "This is going to be beautiful day." These, the hands that knead the dough - the bread you break - the hands that lay the stones, that make the walls that house the songs of joy, the tears of sorrow, and oh, all the battles of the mind. These hands with one ring, and wrinkles to match the eyes. These hands, which have grasped together in prayer, which have been kissed by children, by a faithful husband.

It is all so simple out here.

You gaze outside the windows and smile wide, "Alabare, alabare, alabare... alabare a mi Senor!" and sing to the God of Creation, hiccuping with the bumps, nudging your friends at the ribs. Along the dirt road a cloud of dust follows you into the desert and you are convinced you are an Israelite today.

The grill is fired and dozens of little foil pockets sit ready for the taking: potatoes, whole onions, meat, and fruits - this is Eden. With the smell of work on your body and redemption in the air, you take to the waterfall nearby. You are skipping stones, surveying cliffs, and guessing at how deep you might fall if you took the plunge.

You are happy. You are in wonder. You are grateful.

In one day, there are so many emotions, and so many places to feel that the heart has been tugged. I feel taken back to this time - a version of myself that is now so far away from who I am, but still, so exactly the same.

We are all aware of the unpredictability of life - we teeter on it's edge, and in a way, we are all daredevils of a sort. We are sure that what is in front of us matters, that it will be there, that it is worth our lives. When will we take stock of the whole of life if we are busy doing laundry, making money, being on hold, and pencilling in the next thing? I'm not sure when I will. I believe it will be too late.

Life: the one thing you've been given and your most prized possession - it is not guaranteed and does not come with a warranty.

It is the season of Lent, and as Rowan Williams has said, this is the season of simplicity, of being reminded of mortality, of stripping the self - not to deny oneself pleasure - but instead, to make way for the new.

It has been one of my goals for the new year to allow for this contemplative part of myself to resurface and breathe life into my days. I miss it. Like, more than I miss dairy, or coffee, or chocolate when I take time away from them... and here I am having years without a journal entry.

Strange.

It's been a long time since I've observed Lent, but it's also been a long time since I've given myself the time to think about doing so - sometimes, the time to think needs only to be taken. This Lent, starting with tonight, I'd like to complete 40 days of devotion, where devotion is defined at best in writing. Every day, I will read and/or write about how this theme of "devotion" plays out. Second to music, writing is my best medium, and a much easier way to look back and continue to wonder.

I love this piece of music.

Poetry and Paper Tigers.

Debate doesn’t really change things. It gets you bogged in deeper. If you can address or reopen the subject with something new, something from a different angle, then there is some hope.... That’s something poetry can do for you, it can entrance you for a moment above the pool of your own consciousness and your own possibilities.

SEAMUS HEANEY, Paris Review, Fall 1997

When in doubt, give thanks. Survey the surface of your life and then go deeper. There are worlds within people, within a song, within a face, within a breakfast. These intricacies are the things that make life, life.

We talk about perspicacity as the kind of thing a good coach needs to get better. It's something you can have naturally, but it's also something you learn the further you go along. You learn that a slight movement of the knee in on the first pull of a clean will snub the right muscle groups. You learn that the same loss of that movement on the push out of the bottom of the front squat will short-change the max clean.

We all learn to see as we go along. Until then, we are blind.

It's incredible to think about all the things you know without being able to voice them. I feel sometimes, that I have forgotten what that is like - to name a thing for what it is... in spite of your incomprehension of it, in spite of your fear of it perhaps, in spite of the fact that words, are like paper tigers.

I've been trying to write more poetry lately - mainly for the sake of recording some songs with a friend in the wee hours of the morning. The process feels so new, and so different than my oh-so-college-ey days back in the shed behind Mark Stevick's house. Sip a beer, pour out your words, or melt into someone else's.

Poetry, for me, is allowing a voice to speak that I am not aware of. The words fall to a page and seem to write themselves. The sounds drift together and create a harmony that feels self-taught. There is something in me that wants to speak and stanza to stanza, I let it.

Sometimes the words don't come and on those days... I know not to try.

Maybe relationships are like this... Maybe sometimes you realize it is time to call a thing what it is. Maybe sometimes you know there are no words and there never will be. Only sounds that cry like a baby, so vividly but without any clear meaning.

Either way, there is, in the mix, gratitude for the voice, for the sun, for those things you know are there even if you can't yet see them. Maybe that's called poetry. Maybe that's called faith.

"We're just holding on to nothing

To see how long nothing lasts."

-Beck, Paper Tiger