Lines Composed on a Birthday

I keep forgetting that I wrote this. It was about six years ago when someone on Facebook suggested I write a few lines on my birthday. At the time I called it "a first draft stream-of-consciousness let-the-words-fall-into-place attempt." It was composed on Facebook, and for a while, it only existed on Facebook. I am re-posting it on my blog today as I make one more complete circle around the sun.

  

Birthday Lines

Years are passing
Sights are fleeting
Thoughts are bleating
In the meadow.

Days are ending
Someone calling
Night is falling
In the glen.

Forward looking
Sometimes seeming
Like the dreaming
Of a lark.

Looking back
Across the lake
The foaming wake
Disperses soon

In the moment
Breathing deeply
Nothing cheaply
Enters in

Moving forward
Careful choosing
No sense losing
In the flood

In the circle
All is counted
Faith comes mounted
On a steed

Quiet times
Though days are numbered
Unencumbered
Spring rolls in

Finding grace
When time is swirling
Love’s unfurling
Fills the day.

                       ~ CK

 

_____________________

Photo: Shades Creek, Birmingham, Ala.
Credit: Charles Kinnaird



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Saturday Haiku: Living in the World

to live in the world
is to have profound sadness
along with glad hope

 

____________________

Photo by Serhii Nemyrivskyi

(Getty Images)

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Celebrating the Spoken Word: Church Going by Phillip Larkin

Our Continuing Engagement

“Poetry is not a means to an end, but a continuing engagement with being alive.”  -  Kim Addonizio

Here's to our continuing engagement!

Phillip Larkin said a poem “represents the mastering, even if just for a moment, of the pessimism and the melancholy, and enables you, you the poet, and you, the reader, to go on.”

So here is Phillip Larkin reading his poem, "Church Going."

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When I Die - A Poem by Rumi

Rumi's poem recited in his native Farsi, with written English translation

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Finding Christmas

I enjoy the Christmas season and when I discovered the liturgical season of Advent as an adult, that sacred time of waiting gave the season even more meaning for me. At the same time, I realize that there are many who have difficulty participating in the festive season. Some have painful memories from the past; some have been hardened by life and cannot make their way back to hope. Others have either lost faith, were nurtured in a different faith, or were raised without a strong faith tradition.

My hope is that everyone can find reason to celebrate the season and that we all can have hope for the days ahead. The following essay is one that was first posted in December of 2010. It was first written and presented at the request of Rev. Karen Matteson, a Unitarian Minister. She wanted me to take part in a Sunday morning service in preparation for Christmas. Many in that Unitarian congregation felt that it was very important to have a big Christmas Eve celebration. Others had a problem with Christmas because they came from different backgrounds, and most had a problem with affirming the divinity of Christ. The minister wanted to have a service to help bring everyone in to the celebration of the season while acknowledging the different places that many were coming from. "Finding Christmas" was my contribution to that service which I was honored to take part in.

   Finding Christmas: A Post-modern Christian Revisits an Ancient Holiday

by Charles Kinnaird

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me 

                                            there lay an invincible summer."

                                                   ~Albert Camus

In the Jesus story, the Gospel writer at one point has the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, asking the question, "What am I to do with Jesus?" It is fascinating to me that from that time until this, most of us in Western Civilization have had to ask that very question and in some way respond to the question. When I was in high school, there were two Broadway musicals, Godspell, and Jesus Christ, Superstar, that represented one way that my generation was responding to the question of what to do with Jesus. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, Handel's Messiah, Zulu Zionism in South Africa, Base Communities in Latin America, and the Jesus Seminar in Santa Rosa, CA, represent a few of the many varied responses to the same question.

In my own journey, I am always re-evaluating and redefining. I took a computer course once where we were working with spreadsheets. I loved the visual effect of having the spreadsheet all laid out, then typing in another number and watching the whole screen change in response to the new data. A living philosophy has to be that way. When we are confronted with new information or new experiences, our perspective will change in some way. There may even be a shift in our world view.

The Risk of Incarnation

A few years ago, I was attending a Eucharistic service at an Episcopal Church (some traditions refer to it as Mass, or Holy Communion). It was at a time when I was re-assessing what the Christian myth meant to me, given my world view. It occurred to me that however the person of Jesus fits (or does not fit) into one's theology, the Jesus Story dramatically illustrates the risk of incarnation. It was an emotional moment and I immediately connected with that notion because I knew first-hand the risk of incarnation.

In my work as a registered nurse, I often have to ask patients to sign a consent form for the surgeon to operate. I always ask the patient "Has the doctor explained to you the risks and the benefits of this procedure?" If the patient answers affirmatively, then I know that he or she is ready to sign the consent form. That day during the Eucharist, I knew that as I drank from the cup, I was affirming my own participation in the risk of incarnation. Knowing the beauty of being alive, I was also fully aware of the risk.

Celebrating the Light

Christmas is about light and life. It is a celebration in the middle of winter that the light will come and the darkness will end. It is a celebration of the promise of new life beginning. We call it Christmas, a time when Christians celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus as the incarnation of God and a light to the world.

The celebration existed, however, long before the Christians took it over. Winter Solstice had long been a time to celebrate the dawn on the darkness of winter. It was a time to extol the evergreen that proclaimed the promise of life in the dead of winter.

Christmas for us can be a time to celebrate the joy and beauty of incarnation as we know it. If we have lived long enough, we understand the risk, but we also know from our collective experience that the darkness will end. We sense the persistent hope of new life. We know that life on this planet is worth the risk. We can use the Christmas season to acknowledge our own participation in the incarnation of Life.

Our light has come.

Our day has dawned.

We can joyfully celebrate

Life is up to something,

    and we are included!

Life is full of surprises,

    and we are a part of it!

-

Life Is a Seamless Garment

Serengeti National Park in Tanzania (Public Domain photo, courtesy of  pixabay)

Life is a Seamless Garment

Life is a seamless garment... 

   To be worn by the Queen of Heaven

   when she comes to her oceanic court

   under a bright crescent moon.

   That sways across the Serengeti Plain

   gathering members for a wild nighttime orchestra.

   That covers an old man in his feverish delirium

   as he is cared for by other men's children.

Life is a seamless garment...

   Worn by a joker, tailored by a thief

   who can turn the world upside down and inside out

   until things level out again.

   Run up a rusty flagpole

   by myopic adolescents in heady celebration.

Life is a seamless garment...

   To be worn by the Cosmic Christ

   when the galactic wheel turns around.

   Stitched with a genetic code

   that was born in a primordial sea.

My grandmother called it a patchwork quilt,

      put together by a motley crew.

   Diverse and beautiful in its own way,

      tiresome but adequate in the end,

But I know life as a seamless garment

   Whose surface patterns may change

   In the hands of shamans and poets,

      alchemists and chefs,

   But whose essence is of one piece.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That is constantly being gambled for

   By soldiers as they do the emperor's bidding.

   Unfolding under starry nights

      and blown by desert winds,

   Whose story cannot be told

      in less than three generations.

   It has been borrowed, bartered,

      stolen and discarded, 

   But never lost.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That covers a banquet table

      where even the outcasts are invited,

   For it was a joker and a thief who cast them out

      in the first place.

   That wraps around a mother and her infant child

      as they steal a few moments of sleep in the afternoon,

   Their breathing in synchrony

      with ocean waves and cricket wings.

Life is a seamless garment...

   To be enjoyed by lovers in the night.

   Adorning mountain tops and river beds

      with beauty and mystery.

   Knit into the sinews of the tiger

      as she hunts along the steamy banks

   Of an Asian river valley.

Life is a seamless garment...

   With jewels about the collar,

      mud at the hem,

   Its span is higher than knowledge

      and further than remembrance.

   Woven into redwood, oak, and pine;

   Stitched to dragonfly and hawk,

      tubeworm and toad.

   It leaves its indelible imprint

      upon your skin,

   And the cells of your bone

      will always remember

   Flights above the forest

      and migrations in the sea.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That stretches from father to son

   Even when they claim they do not know each other.

   Covering concert hall and circus tent,

      tavern and cathedral,

   Bringing us together.

      hinting at something beyond.

   Woven in the mind of God,

   Stitched into the dreams of children.

Life is a seamless garment...

   That flows from city lights

      to candle light

      to dying embers of old forgotten fires.

   That provides a mantle for saint and guru

      and a cloak for the one whose development

         has stalled.

Life is a seamless garment

   Woven in the mind of God

   Stitched into the dreams of children.

                                                                    ~ CK

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Saturday Haiku: Fish Pond

a tree's reflection

bends to a koi's bright graces

the world welcomes life

_______________________

Photo by Larry O. Gay



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Persistence

  

  

Persistence

Moving ahead

Often involves

A certain ability to look

Beyond the bird poop on the windshield

To see the curves

In the road

While remembering 

The graceful
Airborne beauty

Of a flock

In flight.

                       ~ CK

____________________

Photos courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Upper: Winding Road Down to Beeley Village, by Alan Heardman

Lower: Måsar flyger, by Fredrik Alpstedt

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Margaret O'Bryan Brodnax, Teacher Extraordinaire

I came late in learning of the passing of one of my English professors, Dr. Margaret Brodnax. She died at her home  on March 30, 2013 at the age of 80.  There was a nice obituary in Samford University’s Seasons which came in the mail this week and gave me the news.  She lived a full life with academic achievement, lay leadership in the Episcopal Church, and was an early advisory board member for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  I knew Margaret Brodnax as one amazing teacher. She knew her topic and she kept her students engaged in the material. My first encounter with her was in a World Lit class my sophomore year and she certainly helped to make that a memorable year.

“It Was All about Sex and Jesus”

Margaret Brodnax did two things to shake up my world that semester.  The first shake up came when my first written assignment was handed back to me full of red marks. There was a “C” grade  and a note to see her after class. I went to her in shock, not accustomed to C’s, wondering what was wrong with the work I had turned in.

“For one thing,” she said, “it wasn’t written very well…” My head must have been spinning by then. “Not written very well!” I could not believe what I was hearing. The bottom line was that she wanted me to re-write the brief paper addressing all of her comments in the margins.  I think she wanted me to realize that I was just skimming the surface of the reading material, responding with some cursory answers. She wanted me to delve into the reading assignment to find the nuances of meaning and to take note of some core life issues.  After I did the re-write, she gave me a better grade, smiled and said, “That was so much better, Charles.”

The second thing she did was the astounding way she brought ancient Greek literature to life. I was a 19 year old ministerial student who had not seen much beyond my rural Baptist environment in Tallapoosa County before arriving at Samford. It seemed that with every Greek drama or myth that we studied, Dr. Brodnax brought it home to us by appealing to our adolescent hormones and our Sunday School lessons from home. I was in no small way unnerved by that. Back in the dorm I told my friends, “No matter what our reading assignment is, she relates everything to sex and Jesus!”  Years later, after I had finished grad school, traveled the world and was on my second job, I took it upon myself to read Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God series. Campbell opened up the ancient world and their grounding mythologies to explain not only their world but the heritage we have received from those ancient times. As he explained the ancient fertility rites and the spiritual concepts of our ancient forebears, it hit me: “Margaret Brodnax was right! It all comes down to sex and Jesus!”

It Was All about Being Fully Engaged in Life

Well, in my early college days, I was glad to get out of Dr. Brodnax’s class with a decent grade, but I was afraid she was a little too much for me to handle. Then came my senior year when I needed one more elective to complete my English Major. Dr. Brodnax was teaching a graduate level course on Edmund Spenser, with the bulk of the course addressing The Faerie Queene.  She granted me permission to take that graduate curriculum to be counted as a 400 level course  in order to fulfill my academic requirements. I was a little bit intimidated at first. There were only five in the class and I was I there with those graduate students! In addition, we had to actually present our term papers in class.

Throughout that course, Margaret Brodnax was nothing but supportive.  One of the texts that she wanted us to use was a specific edition of The Faerie Queene. She told me, “You don’t need to buy that one; I’ve got an old copy you can have.” The course unfolded into a wonderful experience.  My paper dealt with Sir Gawain and the Red Night, and my research actually became for me a process of spiritual enrichment.  Her final note to me written on the last page of my paper was, “I hope you enjoyed writing this as much as I enjoyed reading it.”  That was a long way from the first comment she had made back during my sophomore year. It also indicated progress that I would not have made without dedicated and engaged teaching.

That is the way she was.  Nothing was routine or matter-of-fact for her. In her classes, she did not simply impart information. She made connections with the students to bring the subject matter to life.  Literature was intensely important and she took her role as teacher very seriously. She intended to see that every student was awakened to the essence of life that was reflected in the stories we read. She wanted us all to be fully engaged in life.  Margaret O’Bryan Brodnax, teacher extraordinaire! May she rest in peace.

*

A Brief Word of Thanks

Email to God

Subject: The world

Message: All in all, a remarkable project.

                  Thanks for letting me be a part of it.

                                                                      CK

When an Estate Sale Becomes a Memorial Service

Touring the Estate of the Late Harry E. Tibbs while Contemplating Life and Death

I went to an estate sale last Saturday at the residence of the late Harry E. Tibbs. Dr. Tibbs was well known in the academic and music community. His talents as a church organist and college music professor were legendary. Touring his estate turned out to be a reflection upon a life well lived.

Items for sale at the estate included a lovely grand piano, bookcases, fine china and works of art that the professor had gathered from around the world. I had gone to the estate sale looking for a pedestal dining table, which was not to be found. What I did, which is usually what I do when I come upon an estate sale, was to tour the house and consider what the deceased owner’s life must have been like.

Over a year ago I went to an estate sale in a nearby neighborhood. Though the house had obviously been in a state of disrepair for some time, as I wandered through the house and adjoining garage I kept repeating to myself, “Here once lived a craftsman!” I saw so many tools and items to be used in making all kinds of things. At that sale, I ended up buying a small red metal tool box filled with an assortment of tools. I also bought a slab of black marble, probably the remnant of some counter top project.

On this day as I toured the Tibbs estate, I marveled at the view overlooking the city from the mountainside of that upscale Altamont Road residence. Two stories and a full basement were filled with artifacts that spoke of a full and elegant life. In addition to the piano, fine china and art work, there were wine racks, kitchen equipment, a vast array of cookbooks (including one on medieval cuisine). There were many scholarly books and classical recordings.

I found three items to purchase:

1. A hardback copy of the Viking Portable William Blake.
2. Machlis’ The Enjoyment of Music, a comprehensive reference book that had a library card holder labeled, “Dr. Tibbs Reserve.” It had apparently been in use at the university library for Professor Tibbs’ students to use. The card inside contained the dates and signatures of the last students to check out  the  book.
3. A CD of various classical Christmas music recordings.

I spent exactly five dollars. As I left the estate I said to myself, “My death will definitely be less complicated than that of Dr. Tibbs.” That is what I tend to do at estate sales – I treat them like a funeral, contemplating the life of the deceased while at the same time reflecting upon my own life. Self assessment seems to go along with respect for the dead.

As I left the estate, I got into my Ford Ranger and put in the CD I had just purchased. Though it was the end of March and a bit warm, the weather was gray and overcast with a slight mist. I turned on the AC and for about 20 minutes listened to some of the finest classical Christmas compositions and imagined it to be a December day.

Contemplating the passing of a remarkable man and considering my own brought to mind a poem I had written almost 30 years before when as a young man I had tried to broach the subject of my own demise:

                     I Shall Go Quickly 

                     I shall go quickly from this world

                    With traces left behind;

                    As a fragrance lingering

                    To be dispersed by the wind;

                    As an image upon the retina

                    To fade as new sights are seen.

                    Today, mine is a slow and steady gaze.

                    I stand still before the flow of creation

                    Pulsating joy and wonder in stillness of thought.

                    Today I linger in the greenwood and listen,

                    But I shall go quickly from this world,

                    With traces left behind.

                    11/82                                Charles Kinnaird

*

Walking in Mystery

(Part 8 in the series, Experiences of Mystery and Wonder)

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The very existence of life is grounds for mystery and wonder to me. Consider the fact that life arose on this planet and has evolved in such variety and with such tenacity that every square inch of the planet - land, water, and air - is occupied by some life form. That in itself is a wondrous phenomenon. Even more mysterious and wondrous is the fact that you and I are present to talk about it. We are representative of the arrival of human consciousness. With human awareness, Life became capable of observing and reflecting upon, as well as participating in creation. With 6.8 billion people in the world it is safe to say that not a single sunrise or sunset goes unobserved, and on an increasing basis, hardly a sparrow goes unnoticed.

Why do we have those direct experiences of mystery and wonder? We walk in mystery and wonder every day. For practical reasons, perhaps, it is easy to ignore the wonder or to take the mystery for granted. Then on occasion the curtain is torn for a brief moment and we experience the impact of the vast mystery and wonder that is around us, beneath us and within us.

However and for whatever reason we experience mystery, it seems to be human nature to celebrate it. This is why some television audiences have been enthralled to hear the now familiar French horns followed by the voice-over narration, "Space...the final frontier..." It is why many flock to see the latest horror flick on the big screen. For others it is the eager discussion of UFO's or lost civilizations. Still others prefer the symphony, or a spiritual commitment as a means of celebrating mystery. The examples I have given in this series have been attempts to hint at the essence of mystery and wonder. Early on I talked about a little boy who thought he saw a ghost. Later I related a dream sequence about the creative anima. One illustrates an outer mystery, the other an inner mystery. I have spoken of music and storytelling, seeing lions and watching movies, worship events and natural wonders. All are approximations that are relatively easy to describe. All are illustrations pointing to a greater mystery. Whether we set out to explore the outer world of universe or the inner world of the human heart, we will come up against that awe-inspiring mystery and wonder.

There are a thousand and one ways to culturally and/or religiously celebrate the mystery and wonder about us. We humans are naturally adept at making meaning out of our lives, and doing it in a palatable manner. At some point, or at some level there is the realization that all of our activities and celebrations only hint at the Great Mystery that is beyond words, beyond deeds, even beyond silence, but somehow underlies existence itself.




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