Tag: wendell berry

Poetry & Words, Theology

She’s outside of time. We’re in it.

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

One week and three days. That’s how long it’s been since Holly left this earth. Thirty years she lived on this side of eternal life.

“We are not alone / We are more than flesh and bone / What is seen will pass away / What is not is going home…” –Andrew Peterson

Donations to Ethopian school Ziway Adami Tulu in memory of Holly Lutterman[Donate in Holly’s memory to the The Ziway + Adami Tulu Project]

And now, she’s home.

She’s dancing in the pure Light, healed. 

She’s outside of time. We’re in it. She’s free, and we’re trapped, feeling deeply the ebb and flow of new grief, constantly aware of life’s frailty.

The thing about death, you know, is that the living keep on living.

“The living can’t quit living,” Wendell Berry writes. “They can’t because they don’t. The light that shines into darkness and never goes out calls them on into life. It calls them back again into the great room. It calls them into their bodies and into the world, into whatever the world will require. It calls them into work and pleasure, goodness and beauty, and the company of other loved ones.”

And so we can’t quit. We don’t. We keep on, changed. Our perspectives shift, our priorities shift, our vision is altered. But we don’t quit.

We mourn, but not without hope. We grieve, but not without hope.

Hope is the anchor.

Hope points me to the “holy shores of uncreated light“, and the One who lights the way.

“‘Praise, Praise!’ I croak. Praise God for all that’s holy, cold, and dark. Praise him for all we lose, for all the river of the years bears off. Praise him for stillness in the wake of pain. Praise him for emptiness. And as you race to spill into the sea, praise him yourself, old Wear. Praise him for dying and the peace of death.

…Now that I can hardly walk, I crawl to meet him there. He takes me in his chilly lap to wash me of my sins. Or I kneel down beside him till within his depths I see a star.

Sometimes this star is still. Sometimes she dances. She is [Holly]’s star. Within that little pool of Wear she winks at me. I wink at her. The secret that we share I cannot tell in full. But this much I will tell. What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.” -Frederick Buechner

Inspiration

INSPIRATION :: “Every day do something that won’t compute”

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Jesus Storybook Bible

“So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it. …

Ask the questions that have no answers. …

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

…Practice resurrection.”
-Wendell Berry

Poetry & Words, Theology

1997-2004 :: On Grief and the Golden Thread

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Oaxacaborn - Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread
Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread
Oaxacaborn blog - Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread

God, who are we
to moan and weep
when it is not he
but we
who sleep?

GABRIEL B., NOVEMBER 12, 1997 – JULY 10, 2004

I remember where I was sitting when I heard it was coming, and how I got up out of my chair and ran down the hallway, blind from hot tears, not knowing where I was going, and I remember how the sun burned down when I stood there on the porch, and I looked up, and knew in an instant he was gone. It felt wrong for the sun to be so bright, it felt wrong to be breathing; and later, it felt wrong for berries to be so vividly blue, it felt wrong to taste their broken sweetness, twisted as they were into the batter of the pancakes we ate out back, under the deep-rooted oak.

But color doesn’t fade when grief comes; it is only blurred for a moment because our vision trembles. But it doesn’t fade; it doesn’t rust and it doesn’t crumble, because “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed”.* It shines, and it is brilliant in color, and it is love, and “Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”**

My vision trembles from time to time, again, even now over the years; I see the blur in a memory, in notes of a song, or in the way sun shoots down through the woolen clouds even when it’s most dark. I see the blur, and I know it is well with my soul.

Today is different than that day because I’ve learned it’s not wrong for the sun to be so bright, it’s not wrong to revel in the taste of the blueberry or the way the daffodil splits the earth in the spring.

“The living can’t quit living…They can’t because they don’t. The light that shines into darkness and never goes out calls them on into life. It calls them back again into the great room. It calls them into their bodies and into the world, into whatever the world will require. It calls them into work and pleasure, goodness and beauty, and the company of other loved ones.”**

*Hebrews 10:39
**Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Poetry & Words, Theology

The Muse of Realization

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

“And what do you do?”

“Well, um, I like to write.”

“Oh, interesting! What do you write?”

“. . .”

The Muse of Realization - On yearning but not knowing what to do - via Oaxacaborn

Someday, I want to have an answer to that question.

Right now, when the words “I like to write” slip out of my mouth, I hear instead “Well, I like the idea of writing something someday.”

But no person ever became a writer by thinking about it.

I think about plenty, though. It’s just been a long time since I’ve written.

Today I thought about how today’s sky was softer than yesterday’s sky; how today’s sky made Florida less of a seven-letter-word and more like something that might even be able to someday remind me of home. I thought about how the back of Aveline’s head still smells as pure and perfect as it did two years ago, and how when I go home my own momma pulls me close and breathes in and says, “Mmm, you smell good.” I thought about how I wanted to be able to do the same thing years from now, and then I thought about how, really, years aren’t given. Years are loaned, and years aren’t ours alone to hold.

I thought about heaven and how the soft sky would one day split, and I thought about the colors that would pour down. I wondered if there would be more than cerulean and midnight blue and the lavender of heather after the dew.

I thought about how music notes are really alive on their own, and I thought about how individually they dance, and how together they become something new every second, something beyond corralling with words.

And I thought about this earth, and the countries on every part of these sphere, and the children on the streets and in the orphanages, and the children with no homes. And I thought about how I don’t know how to help them and I don’t know what do, except that I need to do more. And I thought about all the tears I’ve cried over this, and how a burdened heart alone can’t change the world.

And I thought about all the times I’ve thought and not written, and thought but not acted, and thought but not done.

And then I remembered Wendell Berry, and the Muse of Realization, and thought about how maybe this place in the journey is exactly where I am supposed to be.

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

I want to sing.

Life in Photos

LIFE IN PHOTOS :: Beach Day (With BMX Brother, Without Toddler)

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Reading Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry Reading in the car — Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. So sad. So good.

Patches on backpack from Europe travelsThis backpack has been a lot of places.

Xtreme Surf Shop, Cocoa BeachThe town of Cocoa = ubiquitous surf shops and signs with strange grammar.

Cocoa Beach Shark on SignImpaled shark on sign post. Also, brother. The glasses did not make the trip home; they were swallowed by a wave.

Off Price Shells Cocoa BeachNot sure what “off price shells” are, but they are selling out.

Sans toddler!Sans toddler! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for our very first full day away from Aveline. This was the first time in a long while that we both sat down simultaneously while at the beach. ;)

Filming SchultzFan of YouTube - BMX videoJosiah filming my brother (SchultzFan/John Busakowski rides BMX on YouTube)

BMX VIdeo Channel on YouTube - SchultzFan being filmed at Cocoa BeachThe kid is crazy. (SchultzFan/John Busakowski rides BMX on YouTube)

SchultzFan on YouTube - John Busakowski rides BMXAmazing to have my brother here (from 1,500 miles away!) for Spring Break!

26:PM - Missile Monkey Developer - Josiah MunseyHusband. His hair’s getting long again.

California Sun Date box Snacks. And I didn’t even notice the cheerio until just now!

Board Walk near Lori Wilson Park Cocoa BeachOnce John edits the footage he took while he was here, I’ll post a link! Until then, you can check out his YouTube channel.