What will you give up for this season,
to help life along
in its curious reversals?
As if we had a choice.
As if the world were not
constantly shedding us
like feathers off a duck’s back—
the ground is always
littered with our longings.
You can’t help but wonder
about all the heroes,
the lives and limbs sacrificed
in their compulsion toward the good.
All those who dropped themselves
upon the earth’s hard surface—
weren’t they caught in pure astonishment
in the breath before they shattered?
Forget sacrifice. Nothing
is so firmly tied that the wind
won’t tear it from us at last.
The question is how to remain faithful
to all the impossible,
necessary resurrections.
-Lynn Ungar
I am back from my journey east and very tired both from the travel as well as the intensity of the program and the shedding and resurrecting that has been happening in my soul. There is much for me to ponder and hold in my heart, but for now rest and renewal. I am so deeply glad to be home with my beloved and Petunia on this wondrous spring day, in a city I love with all my heart.
What are the “impossible, necessary resurrections” you are making room for this Lent?
-Christine Valters Paintner @ Abbey of the Arts
7 Responses
Bette, this is just a beautiful poem. I love that my photo inspired this! One dewdrop at a time is a marvelous image. Blessings on your cleaning and resurrecting!
Just one dewdrop
clinging to your soft cheek,
yellow crocus–
the darkness between us
always resurrects our love.
b’oki.
Beautiful photo, Christine. Glad you had a great time and now its time to rest. The impossible resurrections in my life lately have been “cleaning” the rooms in my house and in my life. Slowly slowly. One day at a time – One dewdrop at a time, my friend :)
Thank you Kayce, I love that line as well. I have only been able to get over to your site briefly. I am having some big computer problems (virus on the main one) so I am using my laptop which has a dial-up connection and is so very slow. Anyway, I hope to read more about the lament stirring in you very soon.
Thanks Jennifer! I’ll get over to your blog shortly too and hear about your Lenten process! It will be interesting to hear how your commitment it bears fruit.
Karla, thanks so much for sharing those wonderful images from your reading, I may have to find myself a copy as it sounds very rich!
Thanks tess, I do adore Seattle so, and when our place circled over the area before landing I found my heart swelling at the mountains and water that I love so much. What a wonderful image of loosing our control and allowing new life to enter!
Blessings, Christine
“Nothing is so firmly tied that the wind won’t tear it from us at last”. I think that whole question of not seeking to control so tightly is part of my resurrection.
Welcome home – how wonderful to live in a city that you love so much.
I love this Christine, thank you! The connections that are “finding” me recently truly amaze and ground me firmly in the Presence of my “still speaking God.” This concept of impossible, but necessary resurrection ties in closely with what I just read last night from “Lifegiving…” In order to have a healthy, flourishing, lifegiving garden, we must not only allow God to prune the overgrowth, but to welcome His crop rotation as well…to go willingly, even joyfully away from the comfortable and into the unknown where we can grow and share life with new people in new places! Be it ever so painful, my whole work situation seems to fall in this category. This poem is a blessing, a salve, and a gentle reminder to me that I must “remain faithful” and trust that resurrections will come! –Karla
welcome home! glad you made it back safe and sound. I have mis-chosen my Lent practice (about which more at my place, whenever I get done at here) and it’s instructive in its own way. I’m sticking with it to see how it grows on/in me anyway, but maybe the resurrection I’m waiting for it being done with my Lent practice! :)
Love, J.
welcome home, christine.
i must ponder the line “the ground is always littered with our longings.” loss seems to be a profound theme for me right now and there is so much i dream of being resurrected…some possible and others not.
i pray for you to have rest and renewal and more spring days! blessings-k