Celebration of Women and Their Music I

Celebration: n. marking one’s pleasure at an important event or occasion by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.

Today I heard the voices of women.  Women from all kinds of places, at all kinds of crossroads, and moving through all kinds of moments.  And as they were moving, they let me move, too–alongside them, ahead, and behind them.  And that, my friends, is an important event.  And that is what prompts celebration–not only when our voices are heard and we are made known, but also when we hear the voices of others and they become known to us.

(More on Celebration of Women and their Music–Fargo, ND soon.)

Openness

“It is often true that an open mind opens you up to a blessing.”

-Words we speak while working at the mall. Yes, even mall employees encourage one another.

F.W. and the message of Persuasion

“Miss A. E–

I can listen no longer in silence.  I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach.  You pierce my soul.  I am half agony, half hope.  Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever.  I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago.  Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.  I have loved none but you.  Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.  You alone brought me to Bath.  For you alone I think and plan.  –Have you not seen this?  Can you fail to have understood my wishes?  –I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine.  I can hardly write.  I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me.  You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.  –Too good, too excellent creature!  You do us justice indeed.  You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.  Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in

F.W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate, but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible.  A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening, or never.

Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from.  Half an hour’s solitude and reflection might have tranquillised her; but the ten minutes only, which now passed before she was interrupted, with all the restraints of her situation, could do nothing towards tranquillity.  Every moment rather brought fresh agitation.  It was an overpowering happiness.”

–Persuasion (Jane Austen and some other lady), page 184

To Anne Elliot: I know the feeling.
To you:
I read this whole book just to read this passage.  It was worth it.  Every story has its own beginning, unassuming and natural, but the ending is up to the writer in whose hand the story is tossed.

The Gift of Time

A number of years ago, I told my niece I didn’t have time to read another story because I was on my way to work.  She said, “You don’t have enough time?  You can have some of mine.”  If only it worked that way.

I found this sketch via my sister who found it via Becky C. Murphy.

Skype Me, Thailand

After a most gorgeous conversation via Skype with my dear friend in Thailand, I feel energized, encouraged, lifted up to high heaven, and just so much love.    And so, I’m going to bed without a love song video for today and I’m okay with that.  I will live in this moment and enjoy the rest that comes from of years and miles of friendship.  Feel free to check out Victoria’s work with at-risk children in Thailand via this webiste: www.victoria.missionsplace.com. I know you will be encouraged as well.

May love be in your eyes, your heart, your hands, and your words, right now, in this moment.

Saints

It is known that some saints never existed, but that does not make their stories any less true.

–Kathleen Norris

Speech

“We are looking or listening here for speech that will affirm and open the way to life, for a speech that can be playful and not just useful, for words that disturb and change us not because they threaten but because they ‘fit’ a reality we are just beginning to discern.  If communities of faith took language this seriously, they would be extraordinary signs of transformation.”

–Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another
New Seeds Books, Shambhala Publications, Inc.
(c) 2005 for A World Community of Christian Meditation

Williams writes this in the middle of a section on fleeing from the tongue, from one’s own mouth and words.  He equates silence with those moments when the sun is rising and we don’t want to say anything for fear of ruining the beauty.  He also relates fleeing and silence to the process of writing poetry.  Truly, I have seen poets wait in long bouts of silence for the most direct, most penetrating words in order to miss triteness and hit truth.  This is a stark reminder to me to be ever thoughtful of my speech so that I can indeed be blessed with new reality for myself and my neighbors as my days proceed.

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