Elizabeth Adams's Blog, page 120

Comment je m'appelle?

This calico beauty has a new home. With us. She came to us after being hit by a car, looking pretty bad indeed, and has made a remarkably rapid recovery. The vet thinks she's OK. She's now leaping around the studio, climbing onto the top of the piano, jumping up onto counters, chasing a string for as many hours as I'll play with her, eating well, and generally taking over.

What she needs is a name, and somehow the perfect one is eluding us. We think she speaks French rather than English (but she's smart!) and it might be nice for her to have a French name, but we're open to all ideas. Short. One or two syllables. So -- suggestions? And even a reward: if we pick your name I'll send you your choice of any book from the Phoenicia list, or a copy of 'Walking With Zeke" by Chris Clarke.

And I promise --no, I really promise-- this will not become a Cat Blog! (Ok, just once in a while.)

Cassandra in words (and pictures) at The House of Words

The indefatigable Marly Youmans has just published the first part of a two-part interview with me at her blog, "The palace at 2:00 am," illustrated with (to my surprise) some of my own paintings. In the interview, we talk about the strengths of small-press publishing, and what makes it satisfying to a creative person like me, even though it's expensive and time-consuming. Hope you'll take a look. And when you do, be sure to go back and read some of the previous posts in Marly's recent series, "The House of Words," -- they are all fascinating takes on writing and publishing by different people who are involved first-hand.

Notes from an Urban Retreat - III

K. in St. Anselm's chapel.

Saturday evening: I linger in the cathedral after evensong. For a while I sit in the little chapel behind the choir stalls, practicing in my head the passages from Genesis that I'll be reading tonight. The readers have all been very good so far - they've clearly taken it seriously and prepared beforehand - and I don't want to screw up. The verger is mopping the black-and-white tile floor of the nave, back and forth, back and forth. Before I leave, I notice the candle-stand as I walk past, then turn around and decide to light a candle for my mother and father-in-law, neither of whom would have done such a thing themselves. There's another candle burning beside mine, and someone has drawn a heart around its base, which makes me smile. With my finger I trace "Allah" in Arabic, from right to left, in the sand.

Before dinner I sit down at one of the art project tables, and take out the question sheets that Paul gave us after the second and third talks. Nothing's compulsory! he said. Work with these if they seem helpful, ignore them if you want.

Each sheet is divided into four quadrants, for the various characters in the Jacob stories, with an adjective and some questions: "Bound like Isaac: What do I bring from my childhood/past that still binds me? How does this show itself?" "Fiery like Esau: Where/how do I satisfy my passions? What do I sacrifice for my passions?" "Birthing like Rebekah: What am I trying to bring to birth in my life/creativity? How do my hopes and dreams struggle with one another?" "Deceiving like Jacob: What do I long to possess above all things? Who do I use/misuse in order to possess it?" These are significant questions. I spend the time before the meal pondering them, and making some notes; I'm surprised to see some truths emerge that I hadn't admitted to myself before.

Paul has put on music during each of the meals, usually liturgical chants or hymns, but for this dinner, he surprises us with a flute trio playing funny arrangements of familiar showtunes, and soon we're all grinning.The tables are covered with tablecloths and some of V.'s collection of colorful printed and embroidered linens; there are daffodils in small glass vases and a bouquet of yellow tulips. There's wine, too, and at our table we silently propose a toast to one another: it's a celebration. The participants have done another good thing: without being asked or prompted, we've all changed places for each meal. It's odd how much we've learned about each other without talking. After the small glass of wine, one of the women across from me - about my age - suddenly starts peeling off layers; she's having a hot flash. The woman next to her follows suit, and then I'm hot -- and we all start laughing again. The first woman gets up and opens a window. The other tables have caught on and they're silently laughing too; then we all settle down, but the humor has been good for us.

At 8:30 we gather for the final reading and talk -- Jacob wrestles with the angel -- followed by Compline. It's dark except for the three candles and a dim glow from the outer rooms. We've walked with Jacob from the shallowness and dishonesty of his youth, through his long years of labor in order to win Laban's daughter Rachel in marriage, and now he has sent his two wives, two maids, 11 children and all his flocks and possessions across the river Jabok, and stands alone to wrestle through the night with an unnamed man, perhaps an angel, perhaps God himself. And though he prevails - the man cannot overcome him - Jacob is wounded in the hip, so that forever after, he limps. But during the struggle, as dawn breaks, Jacob refuses to let his assailant go unless he blesses him. The man asks Jacob's name, and then gives him his blessing along with a new name: "Israel," the one who strives with God. Tell me your name, Jacob asks, but the man refuses, and as the sun come up, he disappears. Jacob walks ahead to rejoin his household: limping, but blessed.

We're silent after Compline, and unlike the other nights, no one moves from their seats. Paul rises and tells us softly that he has brought Oil of Chrism, and if any of us woudl like it, he would like to anoint us and ask for a blessing. It's not the consecrated oil we use for the sick, it's the oil we use for baptism, he explains, and in this case we call it the Oil of Vocation.

There's silence. None of us have done this before, or so it seems. We hesitate. Then someone gets to their feet and stands before Paul. He places his hands on her head and prays so softly none of us can hear the words, and then puts oil on her forehead. Then he takes her hands, first one and then the other, and puts oil in the shape of a cross on her palms. Vocation. And I think of the words of St. Teresa of Avila: Christ has no body now but yours,/No hands, no feet, on earth but yours. Another person rises to her feet; again I feel tears in my eyes, and eventually I get up too.

This is why we have ritual, I tell myself. To go beyond ourselves and beyond ordinary reality into the symbolic world. Here we have stepped apart from our normal everyday lives into our personal solitudes, but we cannot remain indefinitely. The point is to go back, but remembering, processing, and changing even if it's not a transformation we can immediately see. Ultimately though, the transformation is not just about us, or even for us, but for the world. And a retreat is a concentrated period in which we can, ideally, deepen, re-learn, or re-commit to a daily practice in which we turn inward toward what is holy, and then back out to the world.

When I look down at my hands in the weeks to come, I am going to remember this moment, and maybe I will actually be moved to do something about it. The bread and the wine are weekly reminders, too; a chance to renew myself, to speak in my heart about the things left undone, and those I ought not to have done; to look forward with hope, intention, and renewed strength for the journey. But as powerful as that weekly ritual remains for me, this is something unexpected and deeply personal, meant to seal in each of us whatever we have learned during these short days. I'm quite moved. I sit for a while, and then go home into the night.

---

On Sunday morning we gather again for morning prayer at 8 am; I'm one of the last to arrive and come rushing up the stairs with my bicycle helmet - it's a gorgeous day - to find the whole group gathered on the old pews that line the long sunny hallway that joins the office tower to the cathedral. They smile and I sit down. After the prayers we go to the dining area, and the silence is lifted! Everyone talks, smiles; we've all made new friends in total silence, how strange! We enjoy our meal together, and then Paul asks us if, before leaving, we'd like to share anything about the experience we've had. There will be a request for practical feedback later, he tells us, so not that -- just -- the other stuff! But only if you want. One by one, the participants offer a few words. I was afraid of the silence, says one, I've never done anything like this, but then I realized we were all supporting each other, and it became easy. I'm grateful. A number of us speak, several people commenting that the anointing the previous night had been unexpected and moving. After we finish, Paul says, yes, it was very moving for me too. But at the end, I was standing there alone, and the thought that came into my mind was, what about me? Does anyone have a blessing for me? And two people did come up and speak to me, they had realized this, and that meant a lot.

This seems to be the last word; but it feels too unfinished to me. I raise my hand and look around the room: Let's gather around V. and Paul, and thank them and say a prayer before we go, can we do that? Everyone immediately gets up and forms a cluster; we are all holding one another, with bowed heads, and there is silence. I realize they are waiting for me to speak, so I take a breath, and say a brief prayer of thanks for each of these people who has given so much, and ask God to bless them. I see tears falling to the floor, unchecked, from several pairs of eyes; then we slowly let go, and head down to the cathedral to rejoin our families, the choir, the community.

 

 

Notes from an Urban Retreat - II

 

  A friend comes in, sits behind and to the side of me on a chair, and meditates. I'm not sure how long she's there; half an hour at least. The quality of energy in the room changes perceptibly, and I know we are supporting each other in our meditation, in a somewhat different way than the presence of others does during the daily offices. Alone is good; together is good. Coming out of solitude into proximity and community is a big part of what makes a retreat powerful, if one can open to it, and this awareness is also meant to carry over into daily practice, into our separate solitudes and our comings together.

---

I'm thinking a great deal about Merton. Obedience; struggle with the strong intellectual self and church/monastic authority. His desire for silence. His passion and vocation for reading, thinking, speaking, teaching, and connecting -- and his loathing, at times, for his facility for those things. His desire for purity and humility; the way his attraction and increasing knowledge of the East helped him, paradoxically, stay in the Church. He's always been a companion. I find I'm remembering certain things he wrote more intensely right now even though I haven't opened the books for a long time. One of my other friends here is reading "New Seeds of Contemplation," in the same edition I have, with the black and white photograph of grasses on the cover.

---

The noontime Eucharist is very beautiful. The talk, given at the time of the sermon, is the story of Jacob's dream of a ladder, rooted on the earth, on which angels ("messengers", in Hebrew) are ascending and descending. He makes the point that they are carrying messages in both directions, and suggests that maybe they are not heavenly angels with wings, but the rabbis and teachers and wise ones. Jacob begs for a blessing, he says. What or who would you wish to have blessed, if you could? At the time set aside for intercessions, he asks us to take the card at each of our places, and, if we wish, write on it our thanks, or people's names, thoughts or concerns; then to place the sealed envelopes on the floor near the altar. Don't worry, he says, no human eye will see what you've written! And at the end of Compline tonight, we'll all pick up our envelopes and take them home.

I'm taken aback. Usually I find these sorts of things impossibly hokey, but as I think about what to write, it's names that come into my head - the people closest to me, including those two who've died. And so I write my short list. I read it over, hesitate, and then add, "and me," and tears start running out of my eyes. I look around furtively: is anyone else feeling so emotional? Does anyone notice? Do I care? I take some deep breaths and seal my envelope and place it on the altar.

 We give each other the consecrated bread and wine, passing them around our circle, speaking to each other by name; the last person gives communion to the priest. I love this; it's the way the early morning prayer group I joined, many years ago, used to do communion, when I was so reluctantly making my way back to church. The gentleness of the mostly-female community and the warmth and openness of our discussions helped make me feel perhaps there was something there that I could not only be passively receive, like a dumb sheep, but share in. Today, I hadn't expected this, and after six years in this community, it suddenly feels like coming home.

---

In the afternoon, I go back into the chapel, and when I've gotten tired of the cushion, I draw for a while. Then I lie on my back and watch the passage of huge billowing clouds, pure white and high up, and, to my surprise, migrating hawks over the city, riding the thermals around once or twice just for the pleasure of it, and then continuing north. They are the highest; the gulls occupy the middle space, and then the lowly pigeons. There's a breeze on what must be a very mild day, and above the tops of the skyscrapers I can see three flags - one the red and white maple leaf of Canada, and two with the blue and white cross and fleur-de-lys of Quebec, just like the bright blue sky and snowy clouds.

I stand up and look down into the courtyard below; people are eating, drinking coffee, smoking, talking, walking through between Union and University Streets; traffic moves down the streets and around Phillips Square. It's like watching an old silent movie, except the scene is all in color.

---

4:30: a cup of tea. I open the book I've brought: C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters," which I've never read. It's an old paperback, and when I open it, the cover snaps right off with a loud crack, and I manage not to follow the sound with an audible "shit!" I read the introduction and am not sure if I want to read the book; anyway, I'm saved from making a decision: it's time to go down to the cathedral for Evensong.

 

Notes from an Urban Retreat - I

Last weekend I attended an Anglican silent retreat, held on the second floor of the skyscraper in back of the cathedral, where the diocesan and cathedral offices are located. From Friday evening through Sunday morning, we were there, having all our meals together, listening to talks, going to the daily offices (morning, noon, evening and nighttime prayers) and spending the rest of the time in silence. There were about 25 of us in attendance, with a few people having to come and go.

Friday night. So far, a most unsilent silence. Evening prayer in the cathedral, only attended by about half of us, was lovely. But an awkwardness in the larger group -- what are we in for? -- leads to lots of chatter before and during dinner, which began considerably later than the scheduled time. A few kinks in the kitchen, maybe. After the meal, we go into a darkened room that is our meeting place, and sit in the wide circle of chairs arranged around a small table, draped in a white cloth and holding three candles. There's a potted palm - a reference, I think, to the cathedral's new tagline as "a spiritual oasis in the heart of Montreal" and a screen in back of the table, at neck-height, shielding the digital projector from view, covered with some beautiful lengths of sari-silk.

We begin with a welcome by my friend V. who has organized the retreat; then a meditation on Psalm 139 with slides and music, then the first talk by Paul (the Dean of the cathedral) on Genesis 25:19-34: Jacob's dysfunctional family/Esau sells his birthright. The talk leads directly into Compline  - we were running a bit late -- then, at last, silence, although the periods of quiet were interspersed with recorded music, mostly Taizé chants. At 9:45 I got up to go and, before heading downstairs, stick my head into the actual chapel, where it's dark and there are cushions on the floor and the downtown city alight and glowing in the huge windows. I shut the door and the music disappears, and then I immediately sit down on two cushions and stay there until 10, when the retreat suspends for the night. It's the most collected I've been.

Walking out into the city and driving home, though, shows me how far from it we've been -- all those young people thronging the sidewalks, waiting in lines outside clubs, lurching across streets, hurrying, pushing, shouting and laughing to one another or no one. And yet I feel a lot of love for them - not in a braindead "I've been praying for two hours and I love everybody" kind of way, just, more, "This is my city, all of it, this is life laid out in all its confusion and craziness and diversity, of which I'm simply one small part, it's nice to see it a little more clearly than usual."

----

11:00 am. I woke at 5:30, cold; J. got home at 1 am from dinner with a friend and I had already been asleep for an hour. We made it to the cathedral by 7:30; he has agreed to be a helper for breakfast. I went to morning prayer in the choir stalls at 8, then breakfast, accompanied by more Taizé chants on the CD player - there seems to be an aversion to real silence - why? At breakfast one of my friends decided to leave, for other reasons. I didn't try to stop him; it's his decision, but I'm sad he's gone.

Now I'm in St. Anselm's chapel again. I've been sitting on two cushions, meditating (and thinking, I admit) since the second talk finished at about 9:20. I just got up and had some lemon-ginger tea and walked around a bit to loosen my hips. The sun streams in from the south through these big windows; smoke rises from the skyscraper in front of the cathedral spire, and a yellow crane, motionless because it is Saturday, rests against what must be the thirtieth floor of a flat black glass facade.

On the copper roof of the eastern wing of the cathedral, green with age, I've been watching a row of pigeons - the same ones we hear cooing, no doubt, when we're inside the east transept in the choir.It all strikes me as very beautiful: the greyish-brown cut stone, the carvings around the windows and on the roof-towers, the green roof, the light blue sky, the quiet birds resting, like me, in the welcome sun.

I am the only one here; everyone else is reading, doing art projects, or off somewhere journaling or praying. A few seem to be working - corecting papers or editing - I hope not.

---

In a corner of this room is a small Chinese fountain, in a ceramic bowl, and a white orchid.

---

The Jacob story is a rich one even though I am tired of stories about patriarchy. Paul's reflections open up new ideas. My resistance to the emphasis on Scripture is due to my Zen leanings, and probably some pride -- in addition to being tired of patriarchy I have limited patience for being told how to look at texts by priests, especially male priests. But Paul has plenty to say, and plenty that is worth listening to.

---

Thoughts of my mother keep coming up in meditation and at other, more unexpected times. I wonder if there's unfinished grieving; maybe this will get clearer. And I laugh to myself, realizing how much Isaac reminds me of my father-in-law at the end: anxious for "tasty food" prepared "the way I like it." These two departed souls seem to be much on my mind, perhaps because it would be impossible to explain to either of them what I am doing here.

(to be continued)

 

 

A Pause for Silence

From this evening through Sunday morning, I'm going to be participating in a silent Lenten retreat at the cathedral. We'll be returning home to sleep both nights, but will spend the rest of the time in silence except for some talks that will be given on the retreat's theme -- Jacob wrestling with the angel -- and those biblical texts, and the daily offices. We'll be eating all our meals together, but in silence, or with perhaps with some texts read aloud. I haven't done an Anglican silent retreat for a long time, and it's going to be interesting; I am much more the Buddhist type when it comes to meditation and contemplation and I suspect that the difficulty for me will be not with the silence, which I usually find fruitful, open, and helpful, but with the community, many of whom are not accustomed to silence at all. I'm also not used to meditating on scripture - so that's going to be interesting too.

We shall see; I go with an open mind and every intention for patience and calmness -- without cell phone or laptop -- and with a pencil and notebook.

 

Any Priest Who Bikes is a Friend of Mine

If you haven't been following the ever-brilliant and creative Natalie d'Arbeloff's illustrated story, "La Vie en Rose," now might be a good time to start. There was a hiatus, but Natalie has started up again, and I, for one, am anxious to find out what's next for Susan and her unlikely friend, Père Lafitte.

---

I don't think I've ever seen a priest or nun whizzing by on a bike, but if it happens anywhere, Montreal would be a good bet. Today was the first day I rode to work on my own bike this spring, and it felt great. Unfortunately, it's supposed to snow again tomorrow!

Sexy Writing on the Two Sides of the Channel

I listened to a BBC podcast the other night, while exercising (trying to get in shape before bike season) from their series Books and Authors. It had a segment (Feb 20, 2011) in which "authors Muriel Zagha and John Baxter discuss how the the art of writing about sensuality is poles apart in French and English literature."

Yes, judging from the French titles I saw arranged on tables in mainstream bookstores for Valentine's Day, I'd say that's probably an understatement!

John Baxter is a British writer who has spent many years living in France; Muriel Zagha is the opposite. In the interview, John said that he felt that the British were very good at sniggering about sex; that basically it remained at a schoolboy level even in literature, while the French are completely comfortable with, and even expect, creative sex scenes that would make most British readers blush.

Muriel, who grew up in France and is the author of a novel called "Finding Monsieur Right", said she remembered a conversation with her British editor, who seemed a bit upset about a particular scene in the manuscript. "When I thought about it from her point of view, I realized that the scene wasn't just al fresco, but involved a blindfold," she said. "My publisher shook her head and said, "I don't think so."

I wonder what they'd say about America.

A Sunday Evening

It's been a long day in which I've spent too much time formulating logical arguments in an online discussion with a young idealist, and not enough time writing. It was a good discussion, but I'm vaguely irritated at myself, and to try to forget about it I'm lying on the bed, reading The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, which was a gift from another young woman who is losing some of her idealism, which I suspect makes her sad and even discouraged sometimes, but in a way that feels familiar. Behind the partially-closed door of the bathroom I can hear my husband's regular breathing, asleep in the tub. He wakes up and calls to me: "Are you there? What are you reading?"

I tell him.

"Are they good?" he asks.

"I'll read you one," I say, and search through the volume for something very short; my favorite so far is a longish story, which, for Lydia, means not very long, about a person who has bought land and wants to build a house but only draws and redraws a blueprint. Instead I read him a story that is only a paragraph called "Fish," and another, the one that begins, "Last night Mildred, my neighbor on the floor below, masturbated with an oboe."

"Sounds painful," he says, after a pause, when I finish reading.

"And I was thinking it wouldn't be too good for the oboe, either," I add, opening the book again to the page where I had left off.

Lydia sounds a lot like Libya, I think to myself.

In a little while I hear the water draining out of the bathtub and, on the other side of the room, beyond the shuttered window, the wind howling in the ruelle. I look up from the book at the crazy quilt hanging horizontally on the wall, and at the open door of my closet, noticing that the fragmentary colors of the silks and velveteens arranged so randomly in the quilt are exactly the same as in the collection of sweaters and t-shirts stacked neatly in the closet. I decide these represent the two states of my mind.

A rare interview with Mary Oliver

I have always loved Mary Oliver's poetry, but this famously private person has seldom given interviews. If you read nothing else this weekend, read this recent, rare interview she did with Maria Shriver. Her comments about spirituality, and nature, and why she writes, feel very familiar and true.

Thanks to Dave Bonta for the original link, over at FB.