A struggled mix of proximity and distance confused and minutes pass as sleep evades.

Three hours and miles ahead. Roads will greet the sun as northern travel goes and I along will be grateful for light. Hands thick with air want water and three has come sooner than expected. It seems thoughts come at the suggestion of friends or music or dreams, and today has had much of each. Words with shared glances and silence. I listened to a friend’s song so beautiful it was all I could do to stay confined to chest without explosion from ache. And surprising wisdom and question from a friend left vision for a time and end of which I’m still unsure. How can I miss the place I’m in?

distracted by storms that beat on streets and lights that fill the sky with branches of fire, so here's a few days ago.

Weekends flow slowly, winding through streets and slowing the course of time reminding us to rest and breathe. I spent much of today making needed repairs on a damage of which I was unaware. The knowledge came only later, when I returned and found it wanting correction. I hadn’t even noticed the injury; it must have come under a sky of blue and deeper gray, a beautiful following to unexpected storms enjoyed on a porch with friends. A sky that cleared with time and rose with the sun. Or maybe down a road that lead to stones with ancient dates and names put in the ground.

A night with new friends made me grateful that community was not exclusive to Eden. Thanks be to the forgiving Lover.

I woke with the sun and remembered a dream of one who took the face of a distant acquaintance. Remembered of how easily we use and are used and that easy is often embraced at the sacrifice of meaning and hope. Towards, I was scared and staggered. I thought it was desire, but the desire wasn’t real and the desire was not for me. And then I woke. I’ve been told lately to let things be what they are instead of what they can do for me. And of letting words be what they are and not trying to make them into what I want or think I need them to mean - in an attempt to be less self-consumed. I could use a lot of that attempt.

and Pygmalion and Galatea by Gerome because it's beautiful

I’ve wanted to leave this with something, have written several times and left them saved and folded away. Of coffee and how I wished we could share this conversation over a fresh pot. Or a mug of bengal tea, as I’ve been drinking much of that lately. I wrote once of a dream of storms and how it left confusion and an exhaustion that was relieved only after time and thought that what I had been so convinced was reality had no foundation in fear and the sun and earth I rested on was sure again. I told it to a friend in a tone of mockery and wondered if I would have benefited both by keeping silent. A cheap joke. A visit to friends, probably you, left me with thoughts of aching and books and measured time. Mostly gladness. And a letter on return. I hope to tell you more, but this was tuesday, and it might not make sense, but it’s what I have to say today:


Dark clouds and weeping skies dance in the windows whistling a song of mourning echoed by strings and wind with a voice of love and longing. And I remember the dream of fear that woke me in the early hours and left me in a cold sweat and an empty room – a dream of fear for something so unknown and threatening. The thunder taunts downpour needed to wash our sins and remind that a peacock’s feathers mean something just within our grasp to know and comprehend. And faces and honesty and vulnerability even when acted leave an aching for something not promised or recognized as promised, but I am not so confused as I lean in. This music is new and full of future and creativity and science meets sound, here where those of history may someday join. News and gladness. Apropos. And let us not fill with darkness but complexity and desires to avoid sloth, to appreciate rest and knowledge and the greatness of this journey on The Knowledge Limited, clicking on tracks of books and words, clicking tunes with voice and key and melodies of spice and a fullness in flavor as all we need is You to save us.

aiming to avoid clanging

Thinking about love today, as everyone else is I suppose, but have been frequently of late. It seems important, even without a higher knowledge of its essence. I find it is everywhere - cinema, books, music. I find it is inescapable. C.S. Lewis classifies four loves, I started this earlier. Still haven't finished his thoughts. I was interrupted with Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity. Interesting read. I am swimming in thoughts not quite congealed on what she said. Most of what I took away had nothing to do with romance. Today I heard that hearts are failing. What does this relate of our ideas of love? I suppose we have missed all if our aim is morality.

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals with human eloquence and of angels with angelic ecstasy, but don't have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions to the poor, and if I hand over my body to the stake to be burned as a martyr so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing, have gotten nowhere. No matter what I say, what I believe, what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love is patient - never gives up; love is kind - cares more for others than for self; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. It bears all things, putting up with anything, trusts God always, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."


Dallas saw the most beautiful sunrise I have known in ages this morning.

a path to writings not my own

I took a trail that lead past rocks and water, and had the feel of nature but was most certainly enclosed by fence and planned. Walking along, I climbed stone steps and reclined to re-begin a book I had picked up some years ago. The author spoke of nearness to God. It seemed familiar, closer than just a glance of a read from the distant past. The nearness-by-likeness seemed like an echo of something I had heard from a friend. And then I remembered her story - It’s still one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. In reference to the Introduction of C.S. Lewis’ “The Four Loves” - he speaks to things I have felt were beautiful but never knew why. “Read it. I know you’ll love it.”

A View from the Fondamenta Nuove Looking Towards San Cristoforo, San Miebel and Murano, and you must come to Dallas if you want to see it.

There is much of this place I want to share. I found an old writing and thought it a good place to begin.

11.2.07
“Went to Dallas with mom and dad last weekend. Time is significant and I was glad for the journey. There’s so much to tell of late and it was difficult to wait for the right times in conversation to relay. And I had a fear of telling them how I feel like I’m failing and am. It always seems like after that’s out, after I tell of the bad news and rebellion, there is a breath and relax. It’s strange, the aging together. I wonder what they think about it. Mom said shes made an attempt to give room. Thank you, I said. Some don’t and I’m not sure what is good or not I just know that I know they love me and that is enough. We are family. The school is good. The building is not much architecturally, but there is a great backyard and it is connected to the dorm. We ate lunch in a really scene part of town and I don’t want my time there to be that. I don’t know if I could get into that again, but I want what I’ve learned here to continue, and to find a group that wants to learn the same. Everyone is just looking for people like them, I guess. Aren’t I? I did find a pub I’d like to visit and I’m glad to be able to.”

So I’ve moved. I live in a new city with new people and weather and buildings and street names. It’s strange how something so new and confusing can begin to seem almost familiar. I’m asked what direction I’ve headed and I say to and away from downtown. Seems right, doesn’t it? I’m told it can’t be so. Certain things here make a space recognizable in moments. A tapestry, pictures, maps, books, lanterns. Good advice from a friend about words. It hasn’t rained yet, and I feel like I am waiting for the consummation. Time here has been filled with people and talking and roads. A familiar stranger.

We went to the art museum in the first days and I broke away and stood in front of a painting by an Italian long dead and scribbled down the name so I could look it up again. Wondering if the view from the foundation had been familiar, had been home, and who must have lived or died there, and if they loved. Or if he only wished for such a place and view and love. And wondering what he meant. Thinking of all this, David walked up behind me and asked my opinion. I couldn’t reply so well because I really didn’t know. In these thoughts, of a scene of reality or not, I felt what Giovanni must have been. And of a friend who told me once how hard it is to write because when or how it will be read cannot be controlled. I wonder that Giovanni knew his painting would hang in a room with a dozen others I would walk by in beginning in this city and that someone would pause to stand and look at his and what he might say to that. If he had a message, it came through a glass fogged with time and place and circumstance, but I held on to what I thought it might be and was grateful for the scene he offered.

Now returned from a weekend of familiarity and comfort. Words of kindness and love and pajamas and sleep. Back in my room, the rain was silent and I hardly noticed it was falling. After looking out the window I realized I had known for some time.

A Christmas Circular Letter

In a desire to share with several this text, I am placing it here. I hope you enjoy it. Wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas, though a day late.


Christmas Trees, Robert Frost

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods-the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn't thought of them as Christmas trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I'd hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, 'There aren't enought to be worth while.'

'I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.'

'You could look.
But don't expect I'm going to let you have them.'
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded 'Yes' to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer's moderation, 'That would do.'
I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.

He said, 'A thousand.'

'A thousand Christmas trees!-at what apiece?'

He felt some need of softening that to me:
'A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.'

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell
As may be shown by a simple calculatin.
Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.
I can't help wishing I could send you one
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.