Hope has feathers -- and talons

Hope, wrote Emily Dickinson, is the thing with feathers. Which feels a bit like something you might cup in your hands,  careful not to ruffle it or outright squash it. Or perhaps not. I saw this description on social media (but haven't been able to track down the source - so if you know, please share!): “People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s [sic] webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”

Should hope have feathers, I imagine it as a hummingbird dancing just out of reach, heart beating ferociously. Or maybe she is a red-tailed hawk come screaming out of the sky, her talons out and ready to defend her young. 

I have been thinking a lot about hope lately. The presidential campaign has something to do with that, certainly, but also my kids are at what mathematically I would call critical points -- big changes in direction are coming. Crash Kid is shopping for a house -- on the other side of the Atlantic. Math Guy (formerly known as The Egg) is defending his doctoral dissertation this semester. But mostly I have been thinking about hope because a few weeks ago I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. I know, I buried the lede. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I have not gotten any better at telling people other than to simply say it.

It’s a challenging diagnosis, and a disease with an unpredictable course. I am doing well at the moment, and am mostly hopeful and grateful. Grateful for good medical care, and a treatment plan that has helped my day to day functioning in a way I can only describe as a miracle. Grateful for a physical therapist who suggested a weighted pen that let me write out a grocery list again and scrawl an outline for an essay on a yellow pad of paper. (Bonus, my handwriting is no longer microscopic, which drove my teachers batty back in the day. Which I now totally understand as my eyes have aged.) I am utterly grateful for each day. 

And however illogical it might be, I am hopeful. I contemplate Alfred Delp SJ’s question as he awaited his execution, “So is it madness to hope — or conceit, or cowardice, or grace?” It seemed illogical to entertain hope, he wrote, yet he could not stop returning to the question. Nor can I. It gives me and God something to talk about.

Hope is not fragile, nor is it always gentle. Sometimes it is a bit gritty. But it is always a grace. 

---

Read a tangentially related reflection on the Holy Spirit and feral pigeons here.

Trapped in the multi-verse

I am trapped in a writing multi-verse. I am working on a book review due in two weeks. I have read the book (it was great!), made my notes, sketched out the points I want to hit in the review. I know more or less how I want to wrap it up. If only I knew how I wanted to start it. So far I have ten different ways in. It's the opposite of writer's block, but just as painful. I have leaned on Taylor Swift, radioactivity, crafted mother-daughter analogies, evoked rom-com scenes, tread closer to personal grief than one should in this sort of writing. I am no closer to getting that first paragraph out than I was at 10:30 this morning. 

I just. Need. To. Pick. One.

  

Bibliophilic blind dates

 

When I was visiting Crash and his partner in London I paid a visit to House of Books in Crouch End which has a delightful assortment of books to "blind date". Wrapped in brown paper and twine they remind you not to judge a book by its cover. Clues to the content are printed on the wrapping, but no titles or authors. I bought two - both tagged Noir. I was intrigued by the biopunk set in Thailand and what was Tartan Noir going to be? 

I unwrapped the surprises last week while at the beach on vacation. I am halfway through the biopunk novel, which turned out to be The Windup Girl which won both Hugo and Nebula awards in 2010. It's set in a world where global temperatures and sea levels have both risen. Reading it on a steamy summer day at the beach adds to the atmosphere which Paolo Bacigalupi evokes. A world with no ice, no AC, and where generippers try to stay ahead of the plagues.

Tartan noir? It is a mystery by Ambrose Perry!

In Torrents of Light

For a fleeting moment the heavens opened, and God’s glory spilled forth. Time itself gave way, the ancient prophets Moses and Elijah come to converse with Jesus. Hearing this account two millennia later, I feel as if the entirety of the Gospels has collapsed into this one moment in time, fragments of encounters swirling in torrents of light. 

Hovering behind Peter’s wild desire to hold onto the moment, I see Jesus in a garden gently telling Mary Magdalene not to cling to him. Listen to my son, says a voice from a cloud, and I see spit and mud and a deaf man who can suddenly hear and be heard. Ephphatha! Be opened! Rise, says Jesus, and Peter comes to him across the water, a paralyzed man rolls up his mat, and a young girl gets up from her death bed. 

And always, do not be afraid. Resounding over and over. On a storm-wracked sea. To a worried father. To his disciples gathered for one last meal. To the multitudes. To all of us. 

I wonder what the conversation was as Jesus walked Peter, James and John down the mountain. Or perhaps I don’t, for all these Gospel stories end the same way. We want to cling to the God of glory, to fall at the feet of the divine. Instead Jesus reaches for us in the dust and says, get up. Be opened, that you might hear my voice, that you might be my voice. And above all, do not fear. Walk with me and be transfigured. Walk with me and transfigure the world.

From Give Us This Day August 2023

Blisters, irony and mercy

It is cold and rainy in London. Yes, it is July. Yes, I brought my umbrella. And yes, I’ve been walking everywhere or taking the buses. Yesterday I wore my “conference flats“ which are great for walking many miles in city streets. My day was ending with a visit to the theater, so I thought perhaps an upgrade from my sneakers was in order. 

My trusty flats have never given me blisters. That is until yesterday. Fifteen minutes into a twenty minute walk to the Underground the back of my heel was hot. By the time I got to Russell Square for a lunch meet up, it was raw. I grabbed a bandage from my little first aid kit in my bag and patched it. By the end of lunch, I’d patched the other heel. On to my next meeting. By the time I arrived, I had another blister. You would’ve found me sitting on the (very clean) floor of the  bathroom of the very prestigious journal publisher patching up my foot. 

When I left, I hit the button on my app for navigating the city for “less walking“ and was relieved to find I could catch a bus right in front of where I was that would take me straight to dinner.

By dinner, two more blisters had blossomed on my now sopping wet feet. My feet have not been such a hot mess since I did ballet in graduate school. As we headed home from the theater, my companions pointed out the perch I could lean against in the bus stop. “Ah,” I said, “a misericord. A mercy seat.” For sure it was a mercy for me at this point, at least as much as its predecessor must’ve been for the elderly monks of old. “Not really,” responded one. “ It’s unwelcoming urban architecture. No place for someone to lay down and sleep.” I sighed. There is an irony in having  a mercy seat that doesn’t offer mercy to those most in need.