everything was made of words

In my dream
There were no quotation marks
The words were my own
They doused and tumbled and shook and whispered and caressed and tinged 
In my dream the creatures of the depths 
visited the shore
They kissed the foamy mouth of earth 
And then slipped back into best-kept-secrets
In my dream the barnacle pebbles 
didn't roll my ankles
And the colors were expressions
In my dream the stones stayed oven-warm when the air grew cool 
In my dream
Men cut the glass water with noise
In my dream 
God's elbows rested
in the mountain crevices
Because He'd left His heaven throne
To come visit man 
In my dream 
I was awake 

Deadheading

This is the time of year to deadhead the rhododendrons.

If you are confused by this pronouncement, I will explain. I was equally confused when, several years ago, my grandma notified me that the rhododendrons planted outside our house had finished flowering and that we needed to neatly lop off the shriveled-up blooms to make way for those of the following rhododendron season...clearing away the old to make room for the new, so to speak, so that the rhododendron bush could put all of its prolific plant energy into forming new buds instead of expending effort in shedding the old blooms.

Deadheading a rhododendron is surprisingly therapeutic, and has become one of my favorite, compulsive outdoor chores. When the extravagantly bright red and hot pink blooms of our rhododendron bushes fade away, I go out and gently snap off all of the top stalks. In my hand they look slightly skeletal, like large green daddy-long-legs.

Recently, as I deadheaded the bushes, I savored the solitary nature of my task, and reflected on its analogical significance.

There come times in our lives when we must clear away those withered parts of our soul that hinder new growth...there come times to clear away ugly attitudes and habits to allow for  fresh buds of thought and practice to expand and eventually blossom in brilliant color. 

Being careful not to break off the fragile new growth underneath -- the promise of future flowers -- we all must undergo, at different points in our lives, an internal deadheading. We do live, after all, in God's garden...

Reads

The older I get, the more I begin to feel that weekends and summers are just illusions of rest, like mirages of water on a long stretch of hot asphalt freeway. But in reality, weekends and summers disappear in a frenzy of drive-by time. Every summer, I make grand plans to devour stacks of books in the high hopes of fortifying my mind with a banquet of spiritual and academic enrichment and a large measure of literary nutrients. Regrettably, most people don't enjoy the luxury of actually doing what they would like to be doing all day long. But both the utilization of one's actual innate gifts and life passions as well as the development of forbearing virtues and gracious attitudes, I'm sure, have their value.

If going into a bookshop sends you into the same conflicted state (a combination of profound euphoria, creative inspiration, heady anxiety, and panicked insecurity) as it sends me, then I am sorry. Once, to ease my perturbation during a semester heavy-loaded with what seemed an impossible amount of academic reading, someone told me to always look at a stack of books -- metaphorical or real -- from the top down, focusing on the topmost book or task first without giving a thought to how tall, thick, or heavy the stack actually was. I realized that allowing my to-do or to-read list pile up in my mind's eye only filled me with the fear that the tower would tumble down to crush me and my mental faculties altogether.

Whether or not I actually get through my summer booklist, I have a carefully curated, promising-looking stack by my bed that I fully intend to read in the next aggravatingly fleeting couple of months. There are so many others on my list, but lest I overwhelm myself just thinking about it, I'll begin with my bedside stack.

I thought I'd share a portion of that stack with you -- their titles, at least -- just in case you're looking for an interesting summer read and something catches your eye. 

• Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices that Can Transform Your Life and Relationships by Curt Thompson, M.D. 

I've started in, and thus far it seems that Thompson (who I once heard speak at one of our college chapel services) accessibly integrates Christian spiritual life and science to offer practical and restorative exercises for rewiring your mind and its connections to others and God. The hope of finding a very pragmatic approach to transforming my spiritual and relational life is simultaneously comforting and rousing. 

• Nurtured by Love: The Classic Approach to Talent Education by Shinichi Suzuki 

Yes, I have to read this in preparation for my Suzuki method harp teacher training course this summer, but it's a quick, fascinating, and edifying read for anyone interested in teaching children or just learning in general. Suzuki's holistic approach to music, practicing, memory, personal character, and beauty is totally inspiring. 

• Cross and Crescent: Responding to the Challenge of Islam by Colin Chapman 

This was highly recommended to me by one of my favorite history professors, who lived in Egypt and taught at the University of Cairo. She seemed to think Chapman's work was comprehensive, tasteful, and full of significant theological questions for Christians. When she'd mentioned a couple of Chapman's books in our History of the Modern Middle East class, I wrote them down right away. 

• Snow by Orhan Pamuk

A well-admired yet often controversial Turkish novelist, Pamuk crafts his novel (I'm almost finished!) with an insightful political relevance. Tinged with beautiful melancholy and humanness, Snow successfully weaves often sardonic, gritty observations about life in rural Turkey with alternately fresh and gritty descriptions redolent of my own experience living abroad. Pamuk delves into themes of darkness, violence, lust, loneliness, quiet, religion, and artistic expression. Snow is seeped in the subtleties of poetry and Turkish political intrigue, which I've found makes it an actually worthwhile poolside novel.

• Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr 

My mentor highly recommended this one to me. He said it teaches us to go beyond a search for identity to realize that our failures, discomfort, and anxieties actually help us to grow spiritually. In other words, when we think we're falling down, we might actually be 'falling upward.' Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation, and I get the sense that his book is highly illuminating and explorative for Christians facing new problems and new directions.

• Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott

Judging by the way my history professor quoted Anne Lamott and even read a portion of this book at the beginning of one class, she was evidently deeply influenced by Lamott's writing. I for one could definitely use A LOT of help with my prayer life... 

• Pensées by Blaise Pascal

Of all the philosophical writings I've explored in my philosophy classes, I think that Pascal's has affected me the most. I love the way his Pensées are often jumbled jottings, because you never know when you'll stumble upon a gem of theological or existential thought that will challenge the way you see the human predicament. Even if Pascal's writing sometimes exhibits discontinuities, I feel that it better reflects the way we actually wrestle with the soul-wracking ruminations that lead us to a better understanding of God, ourselves, and our relationship to all of mankind. I've been waiting all year to delve back into his thoughts! 

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I've been waiting a long time to read this classic, first published in the mid 1860s, and when I found an old copy in a used bookstore for four dollars I knew it was time to sink my teeth into some more Russian lit.