In the Mood of Tesseract*

My mood is from time folding, as described in A Wrinkle in Time , a young adult science fantasy novel written by  Madeleine L'Engle. The novel was published in the times I'm folding back to, but I'm sure I didn't read it until the end of undergraduate college days, 10 years later.  Here's how Wikipedia writers describe L'Engle's tesseract:  

In the novel, the tesseract functions more or less like what in modern science-fiction is called a space warp or a wormhole, a portal from one area of space to another which is possible through the bending of the structure of the space-time continuum. This meaning is unrelated to the mathematical notion of a tesseract, a shape analogous to a cube in a space with four spatial dimensions.

Schlegel diagram
of the mathematical concept

The mood and its music is anxious and emergency and nostalgic simultaneously as the conditions that moved me in my youthful anti-Vietnam War work seem to be recurring in the expanding War on Terrorism the USA has engaged in since the 9/11/2002 attacks on the USA.

Origami rabbit ear fold.

What's new in me is awareness of white supremacy, particularly how it shows itself in European and upper-class and male privilege. Back in the 1960s, I was a barely-emerged feminist with a lot of experience trying to have Black community without understanding why I was distrusted.  Ha!  That's a book waiting to be written. I am still in the process of transforming while learning how to, in Amanda Kemp's words, "hold a space for transformation to occur."

What's new out there is (1) the area of the world hardest hit by hatred and extremism, and (2) social media which spreads video and words almost at once.  The USA otherwise is much the same, with less opportunity and more contradictory and often fake news. There are too many words obscuring truth.  What cuts through it at all is youth--once again, youth--this time the issues may still be categorized under freedom of speech, but much more is at stake. This includes our democracy and two-party system.

I am relieved to be 50 years older and no longer a leader.  At any moment, I can go online and find several ways to be involved praying on my feet.  I am relieved to be less impulsive and innocent, to be waiting on direction from God, to be willing to speak in spirit language that includes my faith and expresses faithfulness.  I am relieved to have support in faith that doesn't measure faithfulness in terms of religion.

On this Saturday noon, I'm sitting home and listening to the old songs. I wrote a poem earlier: "Morning After," and yesterday: "Writing Into Transformation," and wrote this reflection today. That's more than I've written for a while, so I feel more satisfied today than I have been able to for a while.  I'm sending this to Jennifer Elam, my writing partner, who is far away in Doha, Qatar for two months of awakening and health.  While she is gone from February through April, I have given myself a writing retreat, an imperative and joyous permission to work on my novel.  This is as close as I've come.  I'm trying to be grateful for what I can do instead of frustrated that everything I've learned is just a beginning. Though I suppose it's better to have everything beginning than ending. Oh, yes, beginning is a gift.  Each day we wake is a gift. I want to live it with complete awareness of God's presence, the meaning of the life of Jesus.

I'll write more as way opens.

#

Writing Into Transformation

A Summary of  "Say the Wrong Thing: Strategies of the

 H.E.A.R.T. for Racial Justice and 

Authentic Community"
 

a workshop with Dr. Amanda Kemp

To hold the space for transformation, we are 
learning, can be more important than

to make a point or to be certain that “those others” don’t 
mistakenly believe

we are with them.  We want a larger we. We want to grow able 
to love and to

critique ourselves simultaneously—a muscle that is 
underdeveloped.

So DANCE.  Find out where you each hold your breath and feel it ease under loving attention. How you create the space for transforming is by discovering that you are frozen

in formal bias and letting it ease within loving attention.  Oh.  

WE ease

and Melt THEM, breathe and direct attention to them, 
opening up the door to love

without conditions or defensive moves. In this homebase for transformation, we

give “those others” a chance to change, we take a chance on 
trusting an unfamiliar

procedure.  Oh.  We melt.  We speak our truth in order to 
connect, to hear their truths,

to meet them in space for transformation. If I say it often enough, it’s true. I think we can, I think we can.  To climb to transformation peak, to grow ourselves.

Exercising critique and love muscles in us, we contemplate 
and wait on God.

We take care of our soul and their souls, too. Oh.  How 

wonderful the parallel acts:

of releasing bodies, of holding space for transformation, 
and of opening

the door with time with curiosity with God and them and we--
expanding we.  I see.

☙❧

Just Saying

Over at 1sojournal, Elizabeth offers prompts for these challenging post-election times.  Her first 3 were Fear, Love and Acceptance. Today's is a poem and question.  Here's my answer:


Just Saying

for Elizabeth on Day 4

DO I know what I mean by saying “Just
Saying”?  I mean "I meant what I said, but
let me disparage it before you do
because I do not want to hear any
critique or commentary of my point
OR view."  And that’s true.

"The words, images,absolutes just crept
out of my mouth, like fish moving through an
aquarium toy, maybe a castle
with open doors and windows—my image
of what you must be—receivers of no
concern of mine, things for me to weave webs
around and to eat later during my victory
two-step and my twirl.  And why aren’t those fish
aquarium toys edible? Cakes are
and bird seed patties and the ground I stand
and the masses, faceless but nourishing none-
the-less."  (My brother taught me this meaning
and I haven’t used the words since he did
because he was savvy. I’ve become better
at listening and interpreting lines.
Trust a businessman  to know the lingo.)

Just saying.
With love, Susan

I love Elizabeth's directions for this series of prompts:  

The Challenge here is to use your creative talent to bring light into the current distress in the world around you, in whatever form that talent takes. Please remember that we are reaching out to a world that is facing upheaval and possibly a great number of changes. Let us reach out to that world and bring it the lessons we have learned by becoming artists and writers.  You may use images, photos, music, poetry, prose, short story fiction, personal essay, or whatever suits you best. I will post one word a day, adding a few of my own thoughts about the word. The rest is up to you. You may post as many times as you like, and may use old or new pieces, as you choose. When you have finished creating your post, return here and leave the URL in the comments section below. Then post it to whatever social media you are involved with. If you are not connected to some form of social media, consider joining one now. If not, say so when you post, and I will attempt to post it on mine, which is Facebook.

Visit her.  Visit me.

Election Day

Oh, Ye of Little Faith*

Image by jclk8888., posted with the Richard Rohr Meditation referenced below

My writing is the prayer that opens me

up to the meditations I read and/

or hear now each and every morning .

A discipline of sorts, it heals my sins

of Absence, Addiction and Attachment.

As a child I competed to get A’s—

But, now, Alone time is the only A

I seek.  Not even Absolution is

preferable to Love, Unlimited.

Writing is the prayer that opens

me—paradoxically opens me—to

in-pouring Love of which words are mere trace.

Out-pouring is the call that I am more

or less obedient to, ministry

I do not understand and so resist.

My writing is the prayer that opens me

beyond logos to roiling listening

and eventually to giving back.

And I hereby exhort myself to write—

despite not feeling it—despite what we

excuse as writer’s block, despite boredom.

Oh, yes, I bore myself and turn to film

and other diversions—most of which are

empty occupations which lead me back.

To where if  I were willing and able

to write through reams of dross, I’d think past

what I can write now into faithfulness.

If I could know the story’s end before,

how easy it would be to follow course—

how little faith I would need, then, to write.

*Matthew 8:26  He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.  (New International Version)

Inspired by today's meditation by Richard Rohr: 

Twelve-Step Spirituality: Week 1

In Need of Healing Sunday, May 29, 2016 Quote:  "Nine of Jesus' healing stories are actually exorcisms. Although we may think we are too sophisticated for such stories, the fact that there are so many speaks to their importance. I understand "possession by devils" as a primitive but absolutely truthful way of referring to what we now call addiction. In each case, the person is in some sense trapped by a larger force, and is powerless to do anything about it. The only cure for possession is "repossession." You have to be repossessed by Something Greater than the disease." Find the entire meditation HERE.

And I haven't written either blog posts or chapters since ... since .... Perhaps this is a new beginning.

It generated a series of poems:  

• Step One:The Paradox of Powerlessness
• Step Two: Going for a Walk with Truth
• Step Three: Rest
• Step Four: Taking Stock
• Step Five: Calling the Dance
• Merciful Presence: a sonnet
• Steps Six and Seven: There Are Truly Gifts Inside
• First Do No Harm:  Steps Eight and Nine: Reparations
• Step Ten: Consciousness
• Step Eleven: Remember the Day
• Step Twelve: Good News

In case you are interested, here are The Twelve Steps of AA (from Great Britain).

My blog poems are rough drafts. 

Please respect my copyright.

© 2016 Susan L. Chast