My goal this week is to send my book proposal to 2 publishers. If their stories are to be told, I beg God to overcome my own limitations, and let it happen. No one knows how totally lost and inadequate I feel. It is a constant battle.
Archive for July, 2009
my goal this week
July 10, 2009Hidden Words: new topic!
July 8, 2009At least once a week, I will post a short writing from Baha’u’llah, from a little book called “The Hidden Words”. They are supposed to contain the essence of all the Holy Books of the Prophets, “clothed in the garment of brevity.”
O Son of Spirit!
Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable, and everlasting.
Eclipse of the Moon 2
July 7, 2009Eclipse of the Moon 2
The Earth,
slowly turning,
places herself
directly between the Sun
and the Moon,
She stands there,
hands on her hips,
refusing to move,
her beauty mirrored
in a shadow
for all in the world to see,
Slowly, she reaches her arms across
the cheesy Man in the Moon,
wiping that silly smile
right off his face!
But the Moon
makes the Earth
step aside once more,
for He has work to do,
He pulls the deep waters
of the mighty Oceans
to and fro,
to and fro,
The tides rock us
Back to sleep,
like a baby,
while Wynken, Blynken and Nod
set sail,
off in their wooden shoe,
onto a river of crystal light,
onto a sea of dew.
–CF Black
as a child, I loved hearing the poem of Winken, Blynken and Nod. I wanted to sail away with them in their magic ship, onto the sea of dew.
Eclipse of the Moon
July 7, 2009Eclipse of the Moon
The moon rises,
bright and full,
over the cold and Wintry night,
Snow had fallen earlier,
covering the frozen pond,
We watch, in awe,
as the darker shadow
creeps across the Bright Orb’s light,
The shape of the Earth,
a larger circle,
slowly stretches across the moon,
It is as if
the Hand of God
-erases-
what was there before,
Contemplates
leaving us in the dark,
forever without Light,
We go about our busy lives
without a thought to where we are,
Then, the movement of the heavens
becomes a play before our eyes,
We are at the mercy
of the movement of the planets,
6 billion souls, dependent
on the light of a single Star,
6 billion souls share the space
of one medium-sized planet
that just happens to have the right combination
of water, and of air,
We would do well to remember
our insignificance,
this movement, this dance of planets,
will continue for eons
without us watching.
–CF Black, 02-20-08
Moon, for what do you wait?
July 7, 2009I am starting a new category of poetry. Some will be ones that I like, others some that I have written. I am starting with these words of the Indian poet, Tagore, in a children’s book from a set of picture books I am now analyzing. The words are rather strange sounding, rather haunting.
Moon, for what do you wait?
The night opens the flower in secret, and allows the day to give thanks.
Thoughts pass in my mind like flocks of ducks in the sky. I hear the voice of their wings.
The night’s silence, like a deep lamp, is burning with the light of the Milky Way.
The hills are like shouts of children who raise their arms, trying to catch stars.
“Moon, for what do you wait?”
“To salute the sun, for whom I must make way.”
Night’s darkness is a bag that bursts with the gold of the dawn.
“I have lost my dewdrop,” cries the flower to the morning Sun who has lost all its stars.
“Are you too proud to kiss me?” the morning light asks the buttercup.
The trees come up to my window like the yearning of the dumb earth.
The bird-song is the echo of the morning light back from the earth.
The bird wishes it were a cloud, the Cloud wishes it were a bird.
Is not this mountain like a flower, with its petals of hills drinking the sunlight?
The cobweb pretends to catch dewdrops, and catches flies,
it is the tears of the earth that keeps her smiles in bloom.
Roots are the branches down in the earth. Branches are the roots in the air.
The infant flower opens its bud and cries, “Dear World, please do not fade.”
I sit at my window this morning where the world, like a passer-by, stops for a moment,
nods to me and goes. — by Rabindranath Tagore.
my retreat
July 6, 2009My office is my retreat. Maybe in the future it will again be inside a screened-in porch at our new house, overlooking our new pond! But as of now there is no screened-in porch. 🙂
My office is my space. My room with a lock on it (Virginia Woolf) — No one can come in or out unless I give permission. For a person like me, to have such a space is not a desire, it is a need. My husband is now home 24/7, or if he leaves, he will return shortly. I have no control over when he returns. It doesn’t help when he takes a nap. I also have no control over when he will awake. It is important to have time where you know you will not be interrupted. In the summer here, it is incredibly private. I occasionally hear other professors but hardly. If I am here at 4pm, such as now, everyone else is gone. The place is deserted.
All my books in one place. That is something I have dreamed of for years. There are many good things about having this job.
In “Memorials of the Faithful,” ‘Abdu’l-Baha describes one believer:
Here too he was a friend to the prisoners and in the Fortress he continued to practice his skill. As usual he was inclined to solitude, apt to stay apart from friend and stranger alike, and much of the time lived by himself.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Memorials of the Faithful, p. 143)
HOWEVER, ‘Abdu’l-Baha says in “Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Baha”,
O maid-servant of God! This day is not a day of seclusion and solitude, but a day of proclaiming the manifestation of the light of the Beauty of thy Supreme Lord.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha v3, p. 520)
how can I reconcile this? 🙂
my relationship with money
July 1, 2009Someday I will write a complete essay on my relationship with money. Suffice it to say right now, that money is the source of learning detachment from all things but God. What a gift.
In our married lives together, we have sent all our kids overseas on very little money. Time and time again, through numerous examples, we have stepped forward on faith alone, and survived, when the answer was not in sight. We have lived without things we previously thought we could not live without. Somehow you get to the next day and the next step and an answer comes forth. The time when you think you must buy groceries, is the time you figure out some very good, creative meals with what you have left until payday.
We are now on the verge of each of us earning good income, which is something we have not had in many years, if ever. With my Phd, I am now earning decent income, paid LOW by university standards and academic jobs but it’s a decent job in these hard economic times. Al was unemployed for a full 8 mos. after moving here. His first paycheck is now expected in the mail. We are beginning a new chapter. The trick is detachment, so that if it stays or if it goes, your faith is unaffected and unshaken. Money is not yours to keep anyway. The only permanent thing about it, is the memories or opportunities you leave behind, from how you used it when it happened to pass through your hands.
“O Son of Man! Should prosperity befall thee, rejoice not, and should abasement come upon thee, grieve not, for both shall pass away and be no more.”
“If poverty overtake thee, be not sad; for in time the Lord of wealth shall visit thee.” –Baha’u’llah.
Doctor Grandma 