The Impressionists

My mom loves the impressionists. We grew up with prints of Degas and Monet on our walls. She is partial to ballerinas and haystacks.

I've never really liked the impressionists. I have a pretty eclectic taste in art, but the impressionists have never been high on my list. They're too sunny. Too full of flowers and haystacks (sorry, Mom). Too blurry and pastel. I like photographs, bright colors, abstract art, modern art, and sculpture. I love paintings with a Christian story, provided they're not Thomas Kinkade. I will drive miles out of my way to see a Rembrandt, Chagall, El Greco, or Mondrian.

Anyway, this weekend Daryl's dad and step-mom were in town, and they treated us to a variety of wonderful activities. On our Saturdays alone in town (all three of them since August...) we tend to do exactly nothing. We're exhausted. Daryl watches a little college football. I bake some bread for the week ahead. We putter around the house, do some laundry, harass the cats.

When people are in town we do things. This is a good thing for us. We get out and about, we explore Nashville, we find new things and are inspired by old ones. This Saturday Tad and Deborah took us to see the impressionist exhibit at the Frist Museum.

I was excited to go. I like museums, even if I don't love impressionist art. At least, I didn't love it. This exhibit taught me to fall in love, and I wanted to share some of the awesomeness with you.

Edgar Degas:

It was that ballerina in the bottom-right corner that I really fell in love with. She is exhausted. But she isn't giving up. The shoes are still on.

Gustave Dore:

The riddle of war - the woman of France questioning the Sphinx about the French Revolution with an epic landscape in the background. Independence Day has nothing on this disaster. Daryl loved this one, too, though we both agreed it's a little bit dark and death-y to put on the wall...

Edouard Manet:

 

Paul Cezanne:

Photos borrowed from: www2.bc.edu, http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/26/8926-004-CA37FB0D.jpg, http://christophervolpe.blogspot.com/, http://www.rebeccanemser.com/wp-content/uploads/1991/07/BERTHE-MORISTON-1872-BY-Manet.jpg, http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/manet/fifre/manet.fifre-2.jpg, http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cezanne1.jpg. Also, if you're in Nashville, you should really go see these in person. The Internet hardly does them any justice. Fo' real.

Sunday Poems - W.H. Auden

No, it's not Sunday. Yes, life is a little bit crazy right now with on-call shifts, final CPE evaluations to write, and a whole bunch of other good but busy-making stuff. So here's a poem. Because it is dear to my heart, and so are you.

"As I Walked Out One Evening"

As I walked out one evening,
    Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
    Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
    I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
    "Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
    Till China and Afica meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
    And the salmon sing in the street.

"I'll love you till the ocean
    Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
    Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
    For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
    And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
    Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you
    You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
    Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
    And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
    Vaguely life leaks away,
And time will have his fancy
    To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
    Drifts the appalling snow
Time breaks the threaded dances
    And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water
    Plunge them up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
    And wonder what you've missed."

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
    The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
    A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
    And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
    And Jill goes down on her back."

"O look, look in the mirror,
    O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
    Although you cannot bless."

"O stand, stand at the window
    As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
    With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening
    The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
    And the deep river ran on.

--W.H. Auden

Beauty Tips for... Me

Beauty Tips for Ministers became one of my favorite blogs after my friend and fellow chaplain Marie pointed it out to me over a year ago. It helps me answer many of questions I have because, prior to seminary, I've had very few female role models in ministry, and really none that were in their 20s or 30s.

It's amazing the amount of questions about physical appearance that come up as I think about myself in ministry.

What type of jewelry is appropriate? When do fun accessories cross over into the realm of distraction?

What can I do with my hair on a bad hair day? Ponytail? Updo? Cute hat? Scarf?

What says, "Young professional pastor" and not "Frumpy weird pastor," "Creepy spiritual person," or "Waaayyy too trendy to be a pastor"?

How do I tread the line between approachable and professional? I sat across from a friend over coffee awhile back and saw that she had a gorgeous French manicure and perfectly applied eye makeup. My first thought was, "Wow, I feel disheveled and unpolished. I should definitely get a manicure." My second thought was, "No, I should not, because I don't want the people to whom I'm ministering to feel like I'm feeling right now."

It's a tough call, and audience plays a big part. When I sit in people's living rooms and pray beside the bedside of their dying family members, I want to communicate that I'm a professional, but also that I'm a safe person. A person who doesn't take notice of dust on the mantle, dirty dishes in the sink, or people in their pajamas because it's just been an awful day for them.

This is all on my mind because I bought *gasp* some new makeup today. I spent almost $30. It almost killed me. $30?!? On MAKEUP?!?!? Couldn't I have used that money to do something much better, like feed the poor/care for the homeless/buy Daryl some new slippers so his feet aren't so darned cold in the morning when he gets up to make me a breakfast smoothie?

Sigh. This is how my mind works.

Yet, as dear PeaceBang (as she calls herself) reminds those of us in ministry: Appearance isn't everything. Your heart and soul are what matter. But you should still look appropriate for your age and your job. Clothing and makeup and skin care and hairstyle matter. Not as much as the inside, but they are necessary to help you present a professional appearance.

When you're officiating a funeral, standing by a dying patient's bedside, celebrating a wedding, or preaching a sermon, you want to project an image that says, in essence, "I love Jesus, and I'm here to be the minister." Loving, professional, polished, human. What a balance! I'm certainly still learning.

These are the products that graced my Target shopping basket today:

Rimmel's Kohl eyeliner pencil in "Jungle Green."

Maybelline's Volum' Express mascara. I'm super excited to try this, as I usually go for the boring standard mascara. Also, this version is waterproof, which I desperately need. I tear up probably once a day with my hospice patients and families, and I don't want to continue fearing the dreaded "Tammy Faye Baker" moment...

L'Oreal's eyeshadow in Desert Sunrise. It has numbers, for folks like me who are a bit makeup challenged... I think my youngest sister got all the artistic makeup genes. I fall into a rut all too easily. I usually don't gravitate towards browns, but I like how subdued and polished the colors are, without being too juvenile. Also, I bought jungle green eyeliner... so clearly I know how to have some fun.

Finding lipstick that is gluten-free is tricky. I've worn Clinique for years, but they can't give a definitive statement on whether their products are gluten-free. This has forced me to do the dreaded trial-and-error with some Clinique products I'd already purchased. I love their lipsticks, but last time I put one on the tummy gurglings began. Boo. Enter Burt's Bees, a company that does disclose gluten. Since nude lips are in, I purchased their lip shimmer in Peony. More glossy than lipstick-y. Totally my style.

I suffer from the dreaded shiny-face. My skin hasn't yet heard that I'm no longer a teenager, so I get shiiiiiiny with lovely afternoon oil by around 1pm. Yuck. Enter: blotting sheets. Cheap, simple, and they soak up oil without smudging makeup. Hooray, hooray.

And my impulse purchase... Gunmetal gray nail polish, which went straight onto both my fingers and toes. It looks rad. Does it look appropriate for chaplaincy? I'm not sure. I may take it off my fingernails before tomorrow morning. Or I may dress super-professionally (hellloooo, blazer and heels!) and just let my nails be a spark of excitement. I wouldn't wear this in the pulpit, but chaplaincy is a bit more informal. We shall see...

What are your favorite products for looking polished, in life or in ministry? Does anyone know of a good matte powder that helps eliminate shine? I usually use Bare Minerals, but I haven't been too happy with it lately. Perhaps I just need a new applicator brush... But that would mean $15 more dollars. And that's certainly not in the cards for me in the near future. A girl can only go so far.

Sunday poems - "Let Evening Come"

I haven't kept up with my Sunday poems, but I'm determined to do better. I love running across a new poem or poet.

I fell in love with this poet my first year of seminary. I took a class with Dr. Donald Capps called "Poetry and the Care of Souls," about the place of poetry in pastoral care. It was incredible, and there I fell in love with several poets who were new to me - Billy Collins, Donald Hall, and Louise Gluck, to name just a few. A poet who Daryl and I both immediately fell in love with in that class was Jane Kenyon. In fact, we named our second kitty after her (though the kitty's a boy) because we've started a habit of naming our cats after poets. Cats are quite poetical animals, if you think about it.

Jane Kenyon's poetry is simple and beautiful, full of images of nature and ordinary life. She struggled with depression throughout her life, so I'm reconnecting with her poetry as I write my final paper for my second class with Dr. Capps - "Ministry and Mental Illness." It seems right, somehow, to begin and end my time in seminary with such a wonderful professor and with such a wonderful poet.

This is the poem I'm citing in the final paper I'm writing on pastoral care and Alzheimer's disease. It comes back to me when I'm at the end of something - an internship, a summer, a graduate school program. In times of transition, even if that transition is hard sad, God does not leave us.

"Let Evening Come"

by Jane Kenyon

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don't
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

The Play's the Thing

The show opens tonight!

The seminary's performance of Brecht's "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" begins this evening, and I am super excited. I'll post pictures of the cast from the dress rehearsal after Sunday's show, but for those who are coming to the performances, I don't want to spoil the surprise of the costumes!

It's a great story. If you can't see it because you aren't in the area, it's a great read. Brecht was a complicated man, but he had some great insights into power, sacrifice, and the "terrible temptation to do good."

I'll be away from blogging until Tuesday or Wednesday. With the show, my parents in town, and Daryl visiting, I'm going to be one busy (and happy) girl.

Blessings to all! If anyone needs ticket information, drop me a line and I'll hook you up.

Making Confession

I've been thinking about confession lately. I'm in a seminary class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I'm doing a final project on his work Life Together. Apparently Bonhoeffer was a big proponent of following the biblical practice of confessing our sins to one another. According to Geffrey Kelly, Life Together's editor, this did not go over so well with Bonhoeffer's community of seminary students.

Notes Kelly: "[Bonhoeffer] suggested that they might want to confess their sins privately to each other or else to him as the director of the community. This surprised them and, for some, even stirred up resentment, since it was not considered the 'Protestant' thing to do."

Still, he persevered in advocating for confession, both to God (who is the one who forgives) and to one another, as a way to help break the illusion of perfection and to free people from the secret shame of sin. And eventually he won over his community, and they began to confess to one another, to forgive one another, and to grow together.

While I was attending an Anglican church back in Chicago, during Holy Week the pastors and deacons would offer confession. Not because they could forgive, but because Christ forgives and because speaking our sins aloud, to one another in the presence of Christ, is freeing and healing.

I'm still mulling all this over during this Holy Week. What does it mean for us to "confess your sins, one to another"? All of my thinking about confession brought to my mind a poem by one of my former professors (and favorite poets), David Wright. It's in his book "Lines from the Provinces" which is filled with poetry about Chicago El train rides, liturgical practices, and the lonely plains of his home state of Illinois.

Making Confession
by David Wright

Confess several sins right off, first date--
           Your selfishness, your love of candy
           The child you fathered in high school
           How much you hate your mother's cooking
           How much you love your mother.

Later, see what tolerance she has for real depravity:

            if she empathizes and forgives too quickly

            if she looks understanding but keeps a list

                        of flaws to help you overcome

            or if she simply sees through the ruse

                        of safe sins and habits of the past

                        if she knows how they will mask

                        tomorrow’s or today’s snarled lip

                        rolled eyes flared nostrils

                        that will wilt clichéd roses

                        you deliver to reconcile things done

                        and undone unforgivable in the present.

At last, confess your future faithless words

            impatient hours of pretending to listen

            making up wisdom on the spot

            having sex when you should make love

            making love when sex would be enough.

And if she calls them by name, sin, and confesses

            they will matter will make her wonder

            why she chose you a rock in her shoe

            working its way into her tough heel and sole

            then kiss her refill her coffee knowing

            just how much cream she takes

            and tell her all the wicked news she can stand

            never letting go of her small angry hand.

On Slow Learning

On Slow Learning

by Scott Cairns

If you have ever owned

a tortoise, you already know

how terribly difficult

paper training can be

for some pets.

Even if you get so far 

as to instill in your tortoise

the value of achieving the paper,

there remains an obstacle--

your tortoise's intrinsic sloth.

Even a well-intentioned tortoise

may find himself, in his journeys,

to be painfully far from the mark.

Failing, your tortoise may shy away

for weeks within his shell, utterly

ashamed, or looking up with tiny,

wet eyes might offer an honest shrug.

Forgive him.

Snow Day

I've never seen snow like this. I grew up in Wisconsin and have lived in Illinois. I have family in Minnesota and Michigan. And I've never seen snow like this. It's snowed over a foot in 12 hours and it's still a whiteout outside. So what to do, when class and work are canceled and it's much too treacherous to leave the immediate area for activities? PLAY!!!

Thanks to Lana, who had the idea for a grand apartment complex snowman tour (there are probably fifteen different ones in our two-block area). As everyone who lives out here is a part of the seminary community, these are some crazily creative snow folks.

 

 The enormous snowman in my front yard built by my apartment neighbors. Almost a whole story tall! It's totally going to flood our basement in about a week when this all melts, but isn't it cute?

  

The back of the monstrous man of snow. 

  

The folks across the street took the challenge. This is them diligently working on an even bigger version of the one in my yard.  

  

The Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa version. 

  

The Wisconsin version (Badger and Packer apparel included!). 

  

The Pottery Barn version. It's hard to see in this photo, but this one even has a sculpted Casper-like face. Classy. 

  

The Tree-Hugger Snowman. Both twig arms wrapped around the tree. This one also sports an adorable cartoonish nose. 

  

Cambria and Lana Snowpeople. 

  

Our version. In all the seminary there was not one snow woman. We took it upon ourselves to remedy this. 

  

Isn't she lovely? We dubbed her Snowfia. Notice the tiara?

 By the end of our excursion the blizzard had started up again, so no doubt Snowfia will put on a few pounds before morning...

Thanks for sharing your photos, Kelly!

Because we all need a laugh on Monday...

Having a case of the Mondays?

This might help.

A college comedian takes on Pachelbel's Canon, playing the cello as a kid, and the musical sameness of modern pop and rock... And it's hilarious.

Sunday Poems - Billy Collins's "Marginalia"

I've decided to post a favorite, thought-provoking, or just plain fun poem here each Sunday. Today's inaugural poem is "Marginalia" by Billy Collins, a wonderful, wonderful poem that only gets better when read aloud. Enjoy!

Marginalia - Billy Collins

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

Well Worth a Trip to NJ

Yesterday, my final full day with Daryl before (sniff, sniff) dropping him off at the Philly airport this afternoon, we decided to explore a landmark we've wanted to visit for months: Grounds for Sculpture. It was awesome. As Daryl said several times, "Why didn't we do this sooner?"

Grounds for Sculpture is located about 10 minutes from Princeton in the industrial part of Hamilton, NJ. It's $8 for students, $10 for adults, and it's an enormous 35-acre landscaped park full of sculptures. It's so cleverly laid out that you'll often be confronted with an enormous work of art when you climb over a hill or turn around.

There's a warming hut, a gazebo, a Wind in the Willows themed restaurant (with dinners starting at $35 we contentedly ate fruit snacks while checking it out from the bridge), and over 200 sculptures of all types, shapes, and sizes.

 

Some of the sculptures are modeled after impressionist paintings. Recognize the one above, with the red poppies?

 

This one made me walk around quoting lines from "So I Married an Axe Murderer" in a faux-Scottish accent, much to Daryl's annoyance.

"HEAD! Pants, NOW!"

"Honestly, that kid's head is like Sputnik! It's round, but quite pointed in places!"

There are also several indoor galleries that have rotating exhibits. For the next month they have these beautiful and intricate metal sculptures by Albert Paley, who I had never heard of before, but now love.

Daryl always hits on the 19th century women... I think it's the hats that really draw him in...

An 8-foot tall King Lear. It was windy and gusty all day, so I loved how this giant metal man actually looked like he was reacting to the elements.

I especially appreciated the fact that the whole place seemed to have a sense of humor. I love art, but the snobby parts of art culture get old pretty quickly. This place was the anti-snob version of every nose-in-the-air art museum I've been to (except for the ridiculous Princeton-esque father dragging around his four kids and making comments like, "Now you see the angle on this one signifies that the artist was commenting on the idea of light. It is meant to be viewed from this angle, here." The kids looked like they wanted to kill themselves).

But aside from the odd stage-father, it's a great place to enjoy art, enjoy nature, and just play. It's fun to see the sculptures change as the daylight does. There are no guards or ropes or security cameras. Just hundreds of sculptures spread out among trees and flowers and ponds. You're allowed to climb on many of the sculptures, for crying out loud. You don't have to stay on the trails. Any little alley that looks fun is open for exploration. And they seem to have thought of everything. It's open year-round, which seemed odd, as it gets pretty cold and snowy here by February or so. But by the time Daryl and I were getting chilly (he packed to come out so quickly that he only had a hoodie to keep him warm!) we stumbled upon a warming hut with a big fire place. Can't beat that.

Well worth a visit.