Improv for Dinner

Improv for Dinner by Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

I am fairly confident

that my tastebuds just heard jazz

delivered by a salad strewn with voices

in a creative tension of flavor, texture, and color:

Strings of zucchini, curled and coiled

next to the jigsaw that once was chicken and

the netsuke sphere of purple cabbage, tucked

in-between orderly cubes of sweet potatoes

that balance on the rhythm of kohlrabi rhyme...

all wrapped in an riff of melted goat cheese

and building to the final crashing cymbal 

of vinegar-soaked onions.

Choo-choo-cha-BOOGIE...

On the Map

~I wondered about McRory-Smith’s journey north.  What questions had he asked of those he had met on his way?  What ghosts had he been in flight from, or in search of, that had brought him to this land?  What had decided him that he should settle here?  Perhaps it was only that there was nowhere further north to go.~

p. 138, The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane.

Aside from this quotation being from an exquisitely painted book…one into which I do not dip so much as sigh, settle, and steep…there are two things I love about the above quotation which I read this morning while in the farmer’s market.

First, the idea that there was no where further north to go.  ("Travel as far north-west on the British mainland as the public roads will allow..then carry on, along wild mountain tracks, over a sweeping river and across a wide swathe of barren moorland, and you will each the cottage of Strathchailleach...") And that 'no where further' was reason to stop.  End of the line; No more; Here, or head south again.  And it seems like heading south would have put him in closer proximity to what he was trying to leave behind...be that a fullness that became too much or an absence that became a yearning too keen to ignore.

And then the wondering about ghosts...whether they were behind him, baying after him on the moors, so to speak...or were they images, imaginings, that he sought to concretize?  Visions he was hoping for?  Either one can be reason for pulling up stakes and heading onward.

Later on in this same chapter, The Cape, Macfarlane speaks of cartography...grid maps and story maps.  One followed to prevent mystery, the other composed to express it, to give it contour.

If I look at my life as a story map and give name to the glaciers, waterfalls, and wiggly bits of roadway that I have navigated...Yes, there is Mystery.  It’s a mystery that all of that topography has ended up in the same map; it’s a mystery that this journey has landed me in my current cross-section of time and geography; and, yes, there have been ghosts behind and before me—though fewer as the years go onward.

No less mysteriously—in fact, most mysteriously of all, God too has been behind and before me; charting this incredible journey...accompanying me through fields of peace, delighting me with rushing waters of awe, offering a calibrating balm when my spirits ache from the exertion of an uphill climb.  

McRory-Smith stopped when there was no where further north to go.  I don’t know that I’ll ever be quite that content when the journey into the Heart of God is never without further to go...until at last we Arrive.  

And even then, into lands I can not yet know or even imagine, the story-map continues, with paths of Mystery lit with the sunrise of Grace, dappled with shadows of Glory. 

No ghosts, though.  Only God, only God, only God.

If, Then, Maybe, Maybe Not

From SOULSpot

I saw this posted the other day and at first, I knew that I'd modify the first paragraph--Actions are terrible, not people...and maybe I'd even say that "I know that there is evil out there..." And then I moved on to paragraph two and it made me chuckle.  

I saw it AFTER I’d been walking down Spring Garden Road and noticed a man—I’ll guess in his 70s—heading toward me.  He was in khakis, a button-down and tie, and a glorious Panama hat/straw fedora that he clearly enjoyed wearing.  He had bounce in his step and light surrounding him.  I couldn’t help but begin to grin. He saw me notice and started to smile in return.  He got closer and I told him— You look *fabulous* in that hat!  His grin got bigger and he simply said “Well, thank you very much!” And we both kept going.  

This was the same day that I’d been through the Public Gardens to see the dahlias in their last glory for the season.  The light was full…not piercing, not hazy, just pure and clear and, well, luminous.  Because of that, the colours of the flowers stood out and the petals seemed to tighten up their exquisitely mathematical arrangements, proudly posturing to all who would wander by.  

It was the same day I noticed a random rainbow coloured line in the middle of a patch of sidewalk and had a bird hanging out and watching me about three inches away from my notebook and the pen in my hand while I wrote about the fact that there was a bird about three inches from my notebook and the pen in my hand.

That image was posted on the Facebook page for vocations that is maintained by one of my sisters in the province.  It garnered many, many, likes and a whole lot of shares.  And, it received a comment that stood out:  “You should drastically reconsider your social media posts.  A return to our Lord would be great, IMHO.”

I wondered, if it had been that person wearing the hat when the compliment had been paid and received freely, in peace and with joy, would the response have been the same?  If that person had a chance to sit with friends at a meal, talk about what was happening and where they were going, what was happening in their hearts, and the craziness of the world, would the response have been the same?  If they’d beheld a beautiful gesture, a wonder of creation; if they’d laughed or cried and had someone who listened, who understood... Would the presence of a God who is love, the presence of Jesus who was in the midst of it all, lived the chaos and the beauty and the fullness of humanity twined with complete divinity... have been apparent to them?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In the end, I thought about what I knew of love.  How wide it is and how free.  How inviting and how encompassing.  The sweep of the skies and the depths of the seas do not compare, and yet, when I stare at the heavens or beyond the point where the harbour becomes open ocean, I can not but think of that love and feel no need to return to anything—instead the call is to go, to go, to go, to go...in Love, and with Love, and for Love, and to Love.

Oratory

I went to Church this afternoon.  For five hours.  I went to Church as I folded sheets and brochures; went to church as I read the news notices coming into my phone about the latest political messes around the world.  I went to Church with a friend who was 3,738 miles away.  As I caught up with emails and some editing, I went to church and prayed and sang and yes, even clapped and thumped the desk once or twice.  It was the funeral of Aretha Franklin and it was Something.  

It was Something and it did Something.  And I am grateful.  

I am grateful in a similar way that I was grateful for the Met when I lived in New York City, odd as that might sound.  Now and then I would recognize that I was in need of a beauty fix and would take the community museum pass and go steep myself in favorites.  

I am grateful in a way similar to what I would feel sometimes at Xavier...when I simply needed to stop and let ritual wash over me.  I needed to not think and just steep myself in familiar ritual.

Yesterday, watching Aretha Franklin’s funeral, I recognized that I had been missing the power of oratory.  Speech that seeks out the dips and curves and heights of the currents flowing through room and syllable and rides the ‘footless halls of air...’ so that in that ‘high untrespassed sanctity of space’ we might each ‘put out our hands and touch the face of God.’ (lines in quotation marks taken from John Gillespie Magee’s poem High Flight.  Nothing to do with Aretha’s funeral—the images just speak to me.)

Oratory is an art that literally and figuratively speaks to my heart and is for me more than flourish, more than emotion...it is a calling forth of the very power of the word and the Word.  Treating language to that sort of dimension is to free it into fullness...it is a glimpse within at what it contains....

It is prayer to hear it done well and it is my prayer to have the freedom to practice it when it is called forth by mood, by occasion, by Spirit.

Oratory

There are times when Oratory is called for.

When God is to be proclaimed, not spoken of.

Proclaimed straight-up

to joy up, raise up, lift up, those who are

too tired, too worn, to remember

what it feels like to look at Love and 

dance; to look at Love and

say Yes, I believe; to look at Love

and rest in awe and be filled 

with the faith that sustains.

There are times for Oratory

that celebrates and honors,

that respects, dignifies, and gives glory

in fullness of voice and confidence of heart;

confidence of heart, and mind, and being;

and in passion that sees a mountain and says

I will climb; feels the wind and says, I will stand.

There are times for Oratory:

to offer it; to receive it;

to let it cleanse and let it heal.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

The stone in my pocket

Why there is a stone in my pocket 

The weighty round reminder of gravity’s constancy, centering me down, placing me,

in time and geography

is rather oddly a tethering that frees me.

I am, it says.

And you are 

and so too are We.

So go. Do.

Make your discoveries

in this world.

I will bring you home

to tell your tales of awe and curiosity.

And the stars and stones will listen,

and the wind will bear them,

and tides receive them

in a wild and passionate grace

that befits this tumble of heart and mind and being.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ

Night Music

7:11 PM. In the back of Saint Mary’s 

 cathedral, listening to an organ recital by Robert Summerby-Murray, the president of Saint Mary’s University. GLORY BE, is it H O T in here. The music is spectacular, though. Not quite the cosmos effect of listening to the University of King’s College Chapel choir at All Saints…somehow, there isn’t the same sense of internal space, the room to move among the parts and gaze at the wonders in motion within the beauty being created.  Maybe that is the difference?  This music is beautiful from the outside—like a machine can be beautiful in function and design—e.g, a motorcycle’s aesthetic perfection. Listening to the choir was a chance to be inside something beautifully alive, a system, an “organic” system…a galaxy, or an atom with its protons, neutrons, and electrons in elliptical circulation, giving form and substance to Being.  This music tonight is Energy, pure, raw, bold, and unabashedly itself, even the gentler pieces.

I find it so fascinating that all of these natural images keep coming to me when I bring the two experiences together.  Plants and metals; fiber and stone; atoms and universes, mass and energy… Natural images and contrasts of size… It sounds a bit messy and disparate when I read this, yet it intuitively makes sense to me. Because, though the images seem at extremes from each other, maybe it isn’t about placing them on a line—maybe those images are where the circle comes together and it’s about the diversity of what is held in common: Rhythm, movement, flow, inner/outer of one whole, breath, voice, communication, Life….all present in each, yet such different images are generated.

It all makes me think about the epitaph of Ignatius… Non coerceri maximo, continuo minimo, divinum est:  Not to be confined by the greatest, yet to be contained within the smallest, is divine.

What is at play among the harmonies and contrasts; the lift of a note that hangs at roof peak and the roll of weighty might that pours music into the pews and spreads until it finds its level…. It’s the same thing that sparks between syllables for me and wondrously binds mustard, oil and vinegar in a dressing, and what happens in a meaningful conversation with stranger or friend…  It’s Rhythm, proportion, science, language, math, music…beauty…passion…creativity, interest…generativity…For me, this is the Stuff of God… in so far as God is of Stuff: …essence…element…mystery…wonder…Source, origin.

And the diversity of ways that this is all revealed!  Through chorus, through organ, through tear, through silence, landscape, literature, poetry, relationship to self to other, to Source… The fullness of truth in each of those things does not limit or diminish the fullness in any of the others…

Somehow, believing that makes things all the more incredible, more free, more ‘and with Ah!  Bright Wings.’  (G.M. Hopkins)

  

A meal made of Enough

When I found your words, I devoured them. Your words were my joy, the happiness of my heart. 

If you come back and I take you back, in my presence you shall stand; If you utter what is precious and not what is worthless, you shall be my mouth.

-Jeremiah 15: 16, 19—from lectionary readings on 01 August, 2018

How do we get from ‘not enough for everyone’ to an abundance beyond our imagining?  What does it mean to go from scarcity and fear to generosity and care?

-A question that arose from the Religious Formation Conference and cited in the 30 July, 2018  posting on the blog All This Life and Heaven Too, a blog written by Silvana Dallanegra, a member of my religious order, the Religious of the Sacred Heart.

I have had a chance to be away these last two weeks.  In that time, I’ve seen people I love and don’t see often enough, I’ve done work, walked long a river, consumed a fair bit of coffee, made customs officials smile with a chance reunion in the Toronto airport, and read some good books. I’ve seen amazing maps hidden in quartzite and granite slabs while helping someone pick a countertop, helped a friend arrange and hang artwork, and seen the documentary about Mr. Rogers. 

But when I read the combination of those two italicized pieces this morning, I thought of something else.  I thought of the opportunities I had to sit with people.  On couches watching movies; on porches, in pajamas, conversing over coffee; at lunch tables in a gymnasium; in cafes and restaurants; over Scrabble and Settlers of Catan.

I thought of the words of deep, wide, love that were shared in different ways…according to relationship, to age, to context.  Words that sounded like laughter until weeping; that sounded like gentle teasing; words that were full of truth and challenge; words that sounded like an ache being shared; words that formed questions to get to know someone better; rhetorical questions posed in safety and meant simply to be heard; queries about whether someone wanted the last slice of pizza or mug of coffee or “Anybody else need a drink while I’m up?” And sometimes, words that were not spoken but equally present…in silence and sometimes given active dimension in deed.

These words, I devoured… Words of care, curiosity, Love, abiding presence, abiding welcome.  Words from people who have been my company and stood strong in the winds of time and circumstance; and words from new kites who invite me to risk, to fly still further.

Words from people in whose presence I wish to stand; in whose company I do stand and I do act. And sometimes that happens to be face to face and I understand all over again the closing line of Les Miserables, the musical:  To love another person is to see the face of God.

So long as I do something meaningful, valuable, precious, with that fullness of understanding…so long as each of us who has the good fortune of knowing something of that swirling company of Love that sings in so many unique lyrics, breezes, swells, and alleys of life does something to see it move on and touch another, then I can’t help but believe that we will bit by bit move from scarcity and fear to generosity and care.

God is infinite and wondrously beyond the scope of my imagining.  And so is the good that Love can do when made manifest in the gloriously wild diversity of humanity.  

To try and stop that would be heart less.  Would be worth less.

We have a banquet of words set before us to devour, to share.  Let the meal and the table we offer be a meal and a table of Love, not a meal and table of conditions and appendices of exceptional cases.  There is enough.  Enough room, enough love, Enough.

For me, I think the real question might be, Do I believe that?  What would happen if I chose to act as though I believed that I was loved beyond measure and reason? If I chose to act as though there was room for another…perspective, thought, way of understanding…need that is greater than my own…And that there was enough.  And that this truth of room, of welcome, of infinite love, was a truth for Us All?

What that is worthless has that as its foundation?  

Let us eat well of love’s rich and varied vocabulary and make of that meal something generative, something beautiful, something as expansive as has yet to be imagined.