A poem for the new year

Thanks to my students, I recently discovered Denise Levertov's poetry, and for Christmas I received a used copy of her 1982 volume, Candles in Babylon. This poem, "Beginners," speaks to a hope that endures in the face of sin and much hopelessness. It seems apt for another year's beginning.

'From too much love of living, hope and desire set free,
Even the weariest river, winds somewhere to the sea -'

But we have only begun
to love the earth.

We have only begun
to imagine the fulness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
- so much is in bud.

How can desire fail?
- we have only begun

to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision

how it might be
to live as siblings with beast and flower,
not as oppressors.

Surely our river
cannot already be hastening
into the sea of nonbeing?

Surely it cannot
drag, in the silt,
all that is innocent?

Not yet, not yet -
there is too much broken
that must be mended,

too much hurt we have done to each other
that cannot yet be forgiven.

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,

so much is in bud.

2010 in Michigan

This is a photo of the Michigan wall map inside the Michigan Historical Museum in Lansing. Free, full of interesting Michigan history, and easy, cheap parking right outside. I couldn't help but wonder as I was "designing my own" really cool concept car, what the Michigan Historical Museum will have on hand in 30 years to demonstrate the radical changes in the state's identity during this apparently post-industrial shift. My way has been paid for by GM because of my dad's 40 years on the payroll there - will my children find meaningful work in sustainable energy? Without the jobs and income for families from the auto industry and its spin-offs, how long can schools and colleges stay viable to keep people like me at work? Here's hoping for a turn for this fair state sometime soon.

Creative Eastown

Two things have conspired to prompt this post. First, I just finished re-reading "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott, in an attempt to inspire some writing this year. Get over the fear of bad writing by knowing that bad writing has to come to get to the good writing. Second, I just heard a short presentation on some of Grand Rapids' interesting neighborhoods, and I overheard a remark that "Eastown is sometimes compared to something like the East Village for Grand Rapids." This struck me as funny, but it also reminded me of this short writing project I did last spring. One of my student staff members at Calvin presented a short exercise for new staff members to get familiar with each other by spending 5 minutes writing, with no preparation, about a place from their lives that holds some importance. I decided to join the exercise, and I wrote about Eastown. This is what I wrote, as uncut as I can make myself leave it.

"Eastown is the place where I feel most like I'm in Grand Rapids. My memories of this place go back to about 1984, when I began mentoring my "little brother," Tierre Rogers. Our first meeting was at the McDonald's just west of Fuller, on Wealthy, one of the only McDonalds to ever close a few years later. Ironic that it was a McDonalds that first drew me to this neighborhood, since the real appeal has ever since been the many locally-owned businesses. My other memories of Eastown include bowling at the old bowling alley behind "Just Breakfast" which is now Wolfgangs, seeing the "Return of the Jedi" at the old Eastown Theater, which is now the Uptown Church, meeting friends at Just Breakfast, ice cream at the old Baskin Robbins, which is now the Chinese Restaurant, and of course many many trips to Yesterdog's over the years with friends, my wife, our kids, and even this week, with visitors from Mexico. The smells, sounds, rituals, taste, and general feel of Yesterdog's are a wild combination of about 30 years of memories, ranging from high school craziness to recent recent recent experiences bringing my kids there for birthdays and other occasions - our photos on the wall from the early 1990s become more and more interesting as time goes by. My other memories include running through Eastown on my morning runs, having my UM diploma framed at the Eastown Gallery, eating at the Pita House with SLC staffs, eating at Don Rafavs for Mexican in recent years, beginning new traditions at Brandywine, and taxes..."

Then I ran out of time.

Earth-careful hope

I recently finished reading Lionel Basney's little book, An Earth-Careful Way of Life: Christian Stewardship and the Environmental Crisis, and I moved immediately to N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I love how the two connect. Wright's reason for writing Surprised by Hope is to counter ages-old misconceptions about what kind of a "place" heaven is. With a host of other observers, Wright observes that the less your idea of heaven connects with earth, the less you are likely to care for the earth. Why bother, if its all going to burn, and besides, what really matters are our spirits, right? Wrong, and shockingly so.

Basney offers a hopeful little commentary on the relationship between nature and culture that defies easy categorization. He covers a lot of important ground, explaining why our connection to the earth, not vaguely but in actually touching dirt in the growing of productive gardens, enables us to a fuller humanness. He has all kinds of potential to sound off prophetically about the wasteful ways most American Christians consume in blissful and self-centered ignorance. But for the most part, he contains his cynicism and stays hopeful. Hopeful for a world that turns upside down, mostly through local communities and their growing connections to earth. He also avoids any hint of pantheistic earth-worship that worries many Christians about their friends who are "into the environment."

Wright’s contribution to the conversation is primarily in reminding us that the weight of scripture points to a future in which earth and heaven are reunited. He spends quite a bit of energy countering the popular notion that heaven consists of an existence that is ethereal, or non-material, drawing on C.S. Lewis’s description of heaven as a place where our bodies are actually “more solid, more real” than they were on earth. Again, if this is so, and if this earth will be transformed rather than burned up, then Basney is right to encourage us to get to work on this transformation of the earth.

If you’ve paid attention to some of the work that Calvin students and faculty have been up to over the past few years, you will recognize in these projects (rain gardens, native plantings, invasive species reduction efforts, LEED certification programs, and re-forestation projects to name a few) you will recognize the influence of contemporary prophets like Lionel Basney and N.T. Wright.

A visit from the Chimals

Earlier this month our family had the unique privilege of hosting friends from Mexico, Reverend Andres Chimal and his wife Maria de la Luz Gonzalez (aka Paty Chimal) at our house during their first visit to the United States. The Chimals were our hosts for 6 months during the summer and fall of 1993, back when we were young, childless, and much more mobile. They were phenomenal hosts, turning their dining room into a bedroom for us for half a year, and patiently teaching us many many things, including how to really speak Spanish, and what Mexican food really tastes like. We have since made two trips to visit them with our children, in spring 2005, and winter 2007.

Fittingly enough, they arrived on Cinco de Mayo, and we promptly introduced them to Dutch Tulip Time festivities in Holland, Michigan nearby. The privilege for us was in seeing our lives, their joys, frustrations, opportunities and temptations, through new eyes. From the overwhelming abundance of opportunities to obtain more stuff, to the rapidly changing spring weather patterns, to the relatively very quiet urban neighborhood in which we live, the absence of any walls around any homes, and our inability to introduce any uniquely American food (with the exception of mom's good old fashioned beef-roast, mashed potatoes and green beans on Sunday...), we found ourselves ranging in emotion from gratitude to shame and back to surprise.

Maundy Thursday 2008

Today is the day to remember Jesus' washing his disciples' feet.  This night he proclaimed peace, and a new commandment - to love one another.  Coming this year the first day into the sixth year of a tragic war, and amid all kinds of other signs of unfaithfulness on the part of God's people, this day, this reminder, is a good gift.  The rhythm of Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter brings appropriate opportunity for reflection, repentance, lament, waiting, and finally, joy unspeakable.  So many conversations, even today, have reflected the deep longing for the One who will finally bring Shalom - Come, Lord Jesus.

three-tiered wonder

So I don't know quite how to describe it, except that it was one of those, "I'm not worthy" moments. We were riding our bikes, from the Jenny Lake campground to the Visitor Center, inside Grand Tetons National Park. Over my shoulder flew a beautiful butterfly, a Western Tiger Swallowtail as it turns out. I was immediately struck by the layers of beauty in front of me - first the butterfly, then my 8-year old daughter Abbie, and beyond her, the grand vista of the Teton range beyond the crystal blue water of Jenny Lake. I wondered then, and many times during our three-week trip in the west, about the beauty evident in the world, and the many ways in which it is revealed to me.

From vast lunar landscapes in the Badlands, to boiling hot crystal clear geysers in Yellowstone, to the arid red-rock of Arches, the multi-hued hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, out-of-place orchards in the water-pocket fold that is Capitol Reef, towering cliffs named for the Biblical Patriarchs in Zion, the breadth and depth of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley's strange collection of reddish stone monoliths, Mesa Verde's remnants of the Anasazi cultures in the cliff dwellings, Ouray's natural hot springs, and Rocky Mountain National Park's 12,000+ foot highway in the clouds - our family saw, heard, smelled, tasted and touched the beauty of the American west this summer.