Rapturous Delight

In honor of tomorrow I thought I would post this photograph. It's a bit of art gracing the sidewalk outside our building which was created by a neighbor's child. I believe it captures well how I feel and, more (and I don't think it's inacurate to say), how God feels today, tomorrow, and every day hereafter:

All Shall Be Well

Today is, according to some, the feast day of St. Julian of Norwich (the w is silent)--though others say May 8th.

Quite fitting to have been offered a job today after more than a year of resumes and cover letters--though we shouldn't forget St. Jude the patron saint of lost causes.

I like to think of Julian sitting there stroking her cat and saying, "All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well."

Her meditations on Christ, her work as a sort of spiritual director, and her deep rooted spirituality make her a great model for everyone.

So for Amber Noel, for cat lovers, and anyone who needs to hear it again, "All shall be well."

Balancing the Budget

The following is a rant. You are forewarned.

Among the ranks of the underemployed, I consider that I am pretty well off. Besides living in a country with comparatively good public services, I am married and my spouse is still employed. In fact, while I continue the job searching, I have, in the past year, enjoyed a significant amount of employment. Much of this was contracted work for which I had to literally write the check to the government to pay my taxes.

Honestly, I don't mind paying a lot of my taxes. I think it's great to have roads, parks, public transit, basic health, food and housing programs, social services, libraries, (some) police, firefighters, public schools, public utilities, judicial systems, regulating bodies--you get the idea.

I really hate paying for wars, be they international or domestic (drugs, ICE, Wars on USAmerican health). I have yet to swing fully over to the side of war tax refusal. Though I have certainly looked into it quite seriously. Ultimately my goal is to live on less money than would put me in the situation to pay such taxes. (It's not that I don't think any wars can be justified. In fact, I'm sure that justifications are possible. It's that I cannot see any way to support war and follow in the way of Jesus Christ. Call me crazy, but there's a vibrant two thousand year Christian tradition on both sides of this one--I just can't see a way of treating others the way I want to be treated and doing violence. This doesn't mean refusing to do anything about injustice. It's a lot more complex than that--a conversation for another time.)

Anyway, What I'm saying is, taxes are a pretty certain part of life--unless you are a massive, exploitative corporation--you know, the ones who lobby congress, get subsidies and bailouts, pay their CEOs millions and exploit workers around the globe. In that case, you can likely use a tiny percentage of your massive wealth and redirect it toward tax evasion, further lobbying to preserve your loopholes, and most importantly into direct PR, foundations, and think tanks that support frenetically whipping up the public into a frenzy about the fictional glories of the market and how personal freedom is somehow bound up in never regulating exploitative capitalism.

Well, I think it's important to highlight the few voices who are willing to raise questions about this. Check out this article about the role of the Federal Reserve and the Banks who took out tax payer subsidized loans while at the same time making much higher interest loans back to other branches of the Federal government. That's right, we're paying them twice--oh and maybe they hold your mortgage as well (if so, make that thrice). Still think making money any way they legally can in a capitalist system is okay? Also, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont released this nice little tidbit about corporations who posted significant profits without paying taxes, which I think speaks for itself. And let me just say, it is a specious argument that raising taxes on a company means that they will then just pass it on to consumers. There is plenty of room for these corporations to take a cut in their profits and pay what they owe, all the consumer has to do is say, no, I won't pay that increase, I'll buy from somewhere else. Isn't that supposed to be how the market will regulate itself?

Finally, to put into perspective the federal (and many states') budget crisis, consider the simple solution of raising taxes for corporations and the extremely wealthy. It's not like they got wealthy out of nowhere, their money comes directly from consumers, from tax payers (among whom they are not counted) through bailouts, subsidies, loopholes, and lowered tax brackets. How insulting now to let their rhetoric about the travesty of raising taxes win the day.

In Washington, we recently failed to institute an income tax on our wealthiest citizens. Why? because of the triumph of fear based rhetoric that made non-wealthy voters believe their apparent freedom was being put at risk. In reality, we simply reassured that we would continue to pay far more through other taxes in order to keep the few valuable government services that we hope to save from being cut. These visuals help explain a little more why increasing tax on big business and wealthy individuals makes sense.

Finally, while the associated website that this comes from is fraught with issues that I don't care to critique right now, I find this short video to be spot on in "sizing up" the real problem of our current system.

We have got to find a way opting out of this extractive economy and becoming sustainable, local, responsible, and creative people who will work, not for personal wealth, but for shared abundance for all. To me, many of the ways to do this have little or nothing to do with the government or monetary economy. However, I believe that there are times when we need to call for real action and change in that system. I believe that we are far past that time on the issue of needing to regulate a market that has long been intensively manipulated by the wealthy and powerful. Governmental regulation does not mean interfering with the market any more than it has already been twisted and shaped to benefit the few. Appropriate governmental closing of loopholes, demands that reasonable taxes be paid, and allocation of those taxes to services that provide for all residents of our nation, especially the poorest of the poor is not an unreasonable interference with the market. In fact, it is simply saying that the market manipulation will change hands from the corporations to the people--of course, I'm even more of a fan of the people simply not buying any product or service from these corporations, but that is going to take some time and willpower of the USAmerican people to stop consuming and start creating to meet their own and their neighbor's actual needs.

End of rant.

Peace,
Daniel

The Most Wonderful Thyme of the Year!

As you can see, we recently brought in an armload of herbs from the garden. While the final bulb of last year's garlic still hangs on the wall, we are rolling in the bounty of spring. I've spent two days slowly heat drying batches of chives in the oven. The flowers (left foreground) are being kept fresh in a vase and will be allowed to open and then enjoyed in salads.

We culled the thyme, which was spreading gloriously around the garden, covering about 4-5 square feet--all that from one little sprig that we picked up at the Seattle Tilth sale 2 years ago.

Surrounding the thyme is the freshest most tender Lemon Balm of the year. This plant, Melissa Officionalis, is probably one of my favorite garden herb and medicinal plant ever. It's soothing properties help calm stomachs, ease nerves, and put this restless sleeper right to bed. It is a gentle herb that is safe for the whole family to enjoy as a delicious lemony tea, and also lends itself to culinary uses for flavoring rice, chicken, and fish. On top of all this, it packs a serious punch medicinally in that it has antiviral properties which, along with it's mild sedative effect, makes it the perfect soothing tea for those with seasonal colds and flu. I love the taste of the young fresh leaves and when we went to the garden, our two bushes from last year had made it through the winter and were sending up their vibrant stalks to soak in the springtime sun. By seriously pinching back the vigorous early growth, the plants will fill out even more with thick side shoots, making for more fresh leaves throughout the summer. I like to use it fresh through most of the year, but it is always nice to have some leaves dried ahead of time to blend in tea mixes. I have been known to foist this plant in all forms--seed, bare root, potted, dried, and in blends of tea--on many a friend and stranger.

The top row in the photo is oregano. This hearty herb is one of my favorites both for its flavor and vigor. I rescued ours from someone else's thinning, and lodged it into the rock wall around our garden, since then it has spread wonderfully. I'm drying as much as I can for next winter's use (it's flavor keeps quite well dried), since I've had to do without it for a couple of months after failing to set enough aside last year. I'll use the fresh herb all summer and in our canned tomato sauces as well. So yay for lengthening daylight and slightly warmer weather.

Well that's all for today.
Peace,
Daniel

Sick Day Haikus

We have both been miserably sick for three days running now, and today even though our fevers have broken, it seems we have wandered into some wonderful, delirium-inspired flights of fancy. They must be shared, both as a testament to the glorious inner-workings of our poetic faculties as well as to how muddle-wumpus sick we are. (though the fact that we are posting these at all probably makes that pretty clear). So, from the heart... (this post can be erased later, right?)....

Note: Daniel is taking comfort in the fact that we're publishing this under Jocelyn's log in, even though he is sitting right here co-authoring it.

Our Sick Day Haikus

Being miserably sick is miserable. Damn straight. (three more words).


Only nefarious capitalists use high-fructose corn syrup.


Is muddle-wumpus hyphenated? (It's not in the dictionary).


Some how it doesn't feel like a haiku if it's not spontaneous.

A Poem I read tonight

So there is more to the Technology rant that I started before, and maybe I'll get back to it in a bit, but, tonight I went to the artists' reception at MHGS where I had the chance to share a bit of my work that I did back in December while I was doing the residency. Along with 2 poems that I already posted in a video post, I read this one which I have been brewing up for the few months since the residency and I wrote all the words for in the past week.

Sorry about the wonky line breaks, I'm too lazy to change the page format to fit how the poem should look on the page. It was kind of a "spoken word" piece anyway, so the rhythm is more in my reading than the layout, if that makes any sense at all.

Home

When I say “I am hoping to find home,”

Don’t get me wrong.

I am not speaking of eschatology.

Because I know—with knowledge that tells me it is right to stand in awe of the moon,

That there is a way in which sign, symbol, ritual, and sacrament

Are one.

And the place is called:

“Sharing our table.” And

“Inside of your arms.”

---

The moon this week was closer than it has been since I was eight.

I watched it rise and set on the east and west horizons,

Planted root crops by its light, and

The next day, as I rode on the bus,

In celebration of the equinox, a stranger gave me a two foot alder sapling.

After all, what better rhythm than the moon

To measure our own disappearance and emergence

Through the seasons that shape all who depend

on the mineral exchange of rocks and time in soil—

on the transpiration of water from leaf to cloud?

---

I can live without facebook, itunes, plastics, antimicrobial soap, architecture, even baking,

But I would DIE without potassium, mychorrhizal fungi, pollinating insects, and roots

That hold the body of the earth together as it is baptized in the water cycle that keeps all things alive—holding us together like a womb within the body of God.

---

So I am looking for home and

When I find it, the first thing I will do is dig a hole

In which I’ll plant a seed

Of a tree from which my grandchild will pick

The first fruit.

Because I believe that seeds and roots may teach us the mysteries of how to be

People shaped by Holy Breath on clods of soil pressed between God’s hands.

---

And what might our ancestors tell us about home—the ones who kept us alive before the plow?

The ones who, before YHWH introduced that terrible question of being, knew,

That the storm cloud’s blessing can clothe the grass of the field finer than Solomon’s splendor?

---

And while we can never go back,

We can still surrender to the delirious pleasure and embarrassing blessing that we are

Bodies, bound up in skin and hair, with smells and shapes that declare

Our utter connection with the land and all earth-kind.

And though we have evolved a desert spirituality

to cope with our propensity to perpetuate desertification,

Like Francis, we find that even in wilderness,

every hill and valley swarms with creatures who proclaim the glory of God.

(And perhaps it was to the saint that the birds preached the gospel,

Rather than the way we tell the story)

---

So it is not a metaphor when I say, “The Spirit of God is at work in the world.”

And I do not mean that the kingdom of God is “like” a wedding feast.

Because eschatology is NOT about world’s end, but world fulfilled.

---

And when I begin to recognize that my body defines my place within the arced lines that

The moon and sun trace across the sky,

Inside the embrace of horizon’s arms, I begin to understand that here there are neighbors and enemies, tragedies and histories, lovesongs and harvests, adventures and heartaches,

art, life, music, story, hunger, poetry, pain, glory, injustice, sanctuary, differences,

estuaries, lovers, parents, children, rivers, seed to plant and feasts to share—

and all of it is more than I can bear

in a LIFETIME,

THEN I will know that I am home.

And all the significance that my brilliance or striving could bring, is no longer needed because

The world doesn’t need

another savior.

---

So I’ll put away my traveling clothes.

And slowly I’ll grow old,

And I’ll watch the moon from the same place where, weekly, I share bread and wine, and all of us will be communicants and sacrament;

Fractal fragments of God’s great grace, spreading out to chase the Spirit

like the wild goose she is, rampant in all creation.

Mostly it was an honor to share my work and talk with folks a little about it, but I have to say, I am still completely impressed with the beautiful people that I was able to do the residency with. These people created and poured heart and soul into arranging, writing, painting, photography, songs, poetry, and more. It was a privilege to share the space with all of them and again tonight to come together and hear the common and unique threads that flow between our individual expressions of art.

I was surprised by how much home came up throughout the night. So glad I was able to lend my voice to a beautiful chorus that we all helped create.

And now I'm off to bed, and tomorrow I'll wake up a little more at home because Jocelyn is coming home from her week long trip to Waputo, WA, which she'll have to write about sometime later.

Peace,
Daniel

Simply Elegant

This.