“unless they are sent by intervention from the Most High, pay no attention to them.” - sirach 34:6

Tonight my good friend Marisa and I took to the Regional Assembly of Text for a special letter writing night. The CBC was there filming a doc, so basically we were stars. Typing stars. 

Oh yeah, our monthly Letter Writing Party is taking place a week early this month so we can write our mushy, ooey gooey love letters in time for Valentine’s Day. E-mail me for the locale. Julia the Chemist (a famous commenter around these parts) is hosting it at a lovely Queen’s Park apartment. 

Clickity clack, that’s that.

Paris, 2009

Cardus, my favourite Canadian think tank and publisher of Comment magazine, where I frequently contribute, has a new online venture called After Hours. It’s a daily blog interested in ‘issues that affect the architecture of North American public life, including economics, literature, religion, politics, social and scientific innovation (and sundry other things.)’

“Slow for Good,” my first post as a Contributing Editor, went live last Thursday. It’s a bit ‘manifesto-y,’ according to my husband. I get that way sometimes. 

Anyone is welcome to contribute to After Hours. Please, fire off an e-mail if you are interested.

Blank page.

Sometimes I greet you, trembling.
you are an honest friend.

You demand nothing and everything of me.
you moor me. wait on me.

Anne Lamott reminds me that
‘Writing is an extraordinary patience…
it begins in the dark.’

So, here I sit, oh darkness, fumbling.

Lend me your hand.

“The devout of this world perform their rituals without guarantee that anything good will ever come of it. Of course there are plenty of scriptures and plenty of priests who make plenty of promises as to what your good works will yield (or threats as to the punishments awaiting you if you lapse), but to even believe all this is an act of faith, because nobody amongst us is shown the endgame.

Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying, “Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.” There’s a reason we refer to “leaps of faith” — because the decision to consent to any notion of divinity is a mighty jump from the rational over to the unknowable, and I don’t care how diligently scholars of every religion will try to sit you down with their stacks of books and prove to you through scripture that their faith is indeed rational; it isn’t. If faith were rational, it wouldn’t be — by definition — faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be… a prudent insurance policy. 

I’m not impressed with the insurance industry. I’m tired of being a skeptic, I’m irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don’t want to hear it anymore. I couldn’t care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.”

- Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat. Pray. Love.

I love being a mother. The insomnia that plagued me for weeks has been a burden but not one God is too small to bear. I find myself praying: “Lord, you are greater than sleep, than skyscrapers, than galaxies and milk. This is a small thing to you. You can give me rest.” I recite the Lord’s Prayer over and over.

Tonight, for the first night in weeks, I have stayed up after Madeleine fell asleep. Michael and I talked and laughed as I baked date squares and wore an exfoliating mask — two things I have been hoping to do all week but did not have the time. I read in Red Book last night that staying up later than the baby can thoroughly exhaust you enough to sleep. My stepmom suggested tumeric so I am sipping a cup of vanilla steamed milk with a dash of it thrown in. Red Book also suggested writing out your thoughts and worries.

God, I need to write out my worry to you.

I worry I won’t be able to sleep.

I worry I will think too much and it will keep me up.

I worry I’ve lost the ability - THE GIFT - of lying my head down on the pillow and falling asleep.

Madeleine.

I want to write about her but words fail me, and even writing that seems cheap. I adore her. Her eyes are orbits. A kind of muddy, deep blue, grey, green that stare right through you. She is inquisitive, happy, full of wonder.

The truth is, I worry that I won’t be enough for her.

That’s the true worry.

She has so much. IS so much. She overwhelms me. I want to show her everything in the world and also hide her away from every dark corner. I fear for her. Dream for her. I am overwhelmed by her. I know she looks to me, at this time, for all things. I am her world and I fear I’ll fail her.

Just today my mom and I spoke about the disappointment she feels with her family. She is hurting and recognizes her need to heal, change and grow. I don’t want Madeleine to have to heal from her childhood, her parenting. I want her to BE WHOLE.

I want to give her the world… to break open every mountain and molehill for her. I want to get out of her way and stare into her eyes, forever, at the same time. I want this impossibility. I want her to live with an impossible spirit - believing in everything - truth, beauty, love - and knowing nothing, NOTHING, is impossible with God.

I want her to know you, God — now. I bet she knows you already. She does. You visit her in her dreams. You take her to Saturn and back and you whisper your love for her in her ears. 

Like you do to me. Like you did. Like you want to.

Take us to Saturn together. 

Help me to understand, to experience (for this is the only true understanding) how you can love me and care for and see me so fully when there are billions of other people in the world. Help me to stop feeling like I am a fly and help me to start feeling like I am an ocean.

You see me. 

Help me to know it. Know your love like I know it with Madeleine. Show me in a million different ways. Give me eyes to see it, hear it, feel it. Every day. Begin tonight as I dream…

Bring me to rest, God. Nurse me in your arms, as I nurse Madeleine. Staring eye to eye. Staring into love.

The worst thing in the world is for me to look away from Madeleine. Sometimes I have to so she won’t wake up too much in the middle of the night. She gets too excited to see me.

My face makes her come alive. 

She searches out my eyes. Mommy, do you see me?

Daddy, do you see me? Let me see your face that I might live.

There are poems that I fumble through and poems I receive. This one was the latter:

Expectancy

Me, at nine months. Photo credit: Avital Kline.

You, my child.

your hands, as webs,
reach out to touch my insides.
“mommy, i am here.”

you knit my womb and heart
together with strings.
your smile already my companion.

angel,
you speak to me through your rumblings,
coursing blood, water, tears
out from my fingertips.

:::  read the rest of the poem here. published last week in catapult magazine.

Star Song

by Luci Shaw, from WinterSong 146

We have been having
epiphanies, like suns,
all this year long.
And now, at its close
when the planets
are shining through frost,
radiance runs
like music in the bones,
and the heart keeps rising
at the sound of any song.

Old magic flowing
the calling of bells,
round high and clear,
flying and falling,
re-sounding the death knell
of our old year,
the new appearing
of Christ, our Morning Star.

Now burst!
all our bell throats.
Toll!
every clapper tongue.
Stun the still night!
Jesus himself gleams through
our high heart notes
(it is no fable).
It is he whose light glistens in each song sung
and in all of us
in the true coming
together again
at the stable: shepherds,
sages, his women and men,
common and faithful,
wealthy and wise,
with carillon hearts
and, suddenly,
stars in our eyes.

My step mom’s humour strikes again. Check out my two sisters and I in action here: We Are Disco (Elves)

I tasted these date bars for the first time last month and begged the recipe off of my wonderful friend Grace. The orange zest makes them! Enjoy.

Grace’s Date Squares (from the Five Roses Cookbook)

Mix together well and spread ½ in 8 x 8 greased pan
1½ c. flour
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ c. quick oats
1 ½ c. brown sugar
1 c. margarine or butter

Over medium heat cook until dates are soft and water is absorbed, add vanilla and cool slightly.
1 lb. pitted dates, chopped
½ c. hot water
¼ c. white sugar
Pinch of salt
¼ c. orange juice
Rind of ½ orange
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla

Spoon cool date filling over crumble mixture, pat remaining mixture on top. Bake 350, 30 minutes.

(For thinner squares you can use 9 X 13 pan)

Christmas card, 2009 by Christina Crook

I’ve been wondering why I haven’t been writing on here a heckuvalot lately. For me, blogging happens in bursts. Sometimes I am spilling with things to say, and other times I’m not. I don’t want to fake it.

Plus, it has been busy. Christmas is around the corner. (Literally, I can see him peering, wiley, from behind our apartment-sized tree.)

This year’s Christmas baking included the tried-and-true: shortbread (with a red and green twist,) a newcomer: orange-laced date bars (I’ll post the recipe tomorrow,) and the kick-ass: the chewyist brownies you’ve ever laid your teeth into (I took the liberty of adding cranberries which, as Michael can attest, was a spectacular choice.)

I’ve also been back at the crafting. 2009 marked a new tradition — the inaugural year of homemade cards. Not cheesy scrap-booky-kinds but collage-y ones hacked out of magazines and pasted on beautiful cream papers from Granville Island’s Opus. I likey.

Here is one of my favourites:

Also, I made a ton of my little magnets. I love sorting through bins of paper and meticulously cutting circles… It’s a little bizarre considering the fact I normally hate this kind of monotony.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.