I originally wrote this when waiting for some medical news regarding a loved one. It applies so well to what we're going through with COVID-19. See this time as an opportunity to rest, breathe, take stock, and renew.


The Waiting Place
by Teri VanLieshout

Sometimes you pass time in
The Waiting Place
     Waiting for news
        Waiting for the day to end
           Waiting for snooze to ring
                   ...Again

And the waiting...
   (For a pot to boil
         Or a kid to come
             Or the busy to end)
                  ...puts one in a state of limbo

   In-between present
           And future--
                    Liminal space

                           Becoming
                                    Or ending
                                        A moment of suspended time

And the alarm rings
     The pot boils
             The news comes
                     The next thing starts

We run again
     Into the now
              Where waiting is over
                  And the business
                                ... is doing

Waiting in that suspended time
             Might be a gift
                    To breathe
                         And rest
                                      Before the work begins

by Teri VanLieshout
2-12-20
Impromptu poem while waiting

Into the Light by Ellie Holcomb

Into the Light
by Ellie Holcomb

I am not who I once was

 Defined by all the things I've done

 Afraid my shame would be exposed

 Afraid of really being known

 But then you gave my heart a home

 

So I walked out of the darkness and into the light

 From fear of shame into the hope of life

 Mercy called my name and made a way to fly

 Out of the darkness and into the light

 

With years of keeping secrets safe

 Wondering if I could change

 'Cause when you're hiding all alone

 Your heart can turn into a stone

 And that's not the way I want to go

 

So I walk out of the darkness and into the light

 From fear of shame into the hope of life

 Mercy called my name and made a way to fly

 Out of the darkness and into the light

 

There's no place I would rather be

 Your light is Marvelous

 Your light is Marvelous

 

You have come to set us free

 You are Marvelous

 Your light is Marvelous

 

[lalalalalalalala...]

 

So I walked out of the darkness and into the light

 From fear of shame into the hope of life

 Mercy called my name and made a way to fly

 Out of the darkness and into the light

 

[lalalalalalalala...]

Glimpses Only by Pollyanna Sedziol

Glimpses only

By Pollyanna Sedziol

Actually
it was the glory
of another autumn sunset
in which I intended to steep my soul
calling on
the constant wind
for evensong choir
and the blazing trees
as priestly vestiture.

But the reality
of children in and out,
dinner preparation
and attendant minutes conspired
to allow me ownly glimpses
of that paletted hour—
so goes forever
the Mary-Martha tension
of my life.

I am grateful for
the ability
to be grateful for
these glimpses only.

This was given to me 9/28/14 lovingly by a friend, M. I appreciate the time she took to do this and the lovely poem within. Her note is below.

Teri,

In my ‘digger & reflection’ time this week (my fall resources!) I came across this one in my journal from the late 70s!!

You see my dear, those of us destined to ‘introspection’ save, journal, debate with ourselves ~ will always strive for less and more ~ and beg nature & God to come along for the struggle—a journey—never a destination—but pulling at us always.

Enjoy the fall with this poem!!

Love,
M

The Water is Wide - Adaptation

9/7/13 - After listening to "The Water is Wide" sung by Joan Baez and the Indigo Girls(link below) , I had an idea to adapt this for church. Maybe FROG, our youth choir, could sing it. What do you think? My version follows the lyrics from the version sung by the Indigo Girls and Joan Baez.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uCehZkO7Fw

The Water is Wide
Indigo Girls and Joan Baez version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uCehZkO7Fw

The water is wide
I can’t cross o’er
And neither I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row
My love and I

 Love is Gentle
And love is kind
It’s gaze a jewel
When first it’s new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away
Like the morning dew

Music interlude

There is a ship
She sails the sea
She’s loaded deep
As deep can be
But not as deep as the love im in
I know not how
I’ll sink or swim

The water is wide
I can’t cross o’er
And Neither I have wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row,
My love and I

And both shall row,
My love and I.

The Water is Wide - lyrics adapted by Teri VanLieshout

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er (alt: o-ver)
And nor have I the wings to fly   (alt: And neither I have wings to fly)
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, Jesus and I.

A ship there is, and she sails the seas. (alt: There is a ship, and she sails the sea.)
She's loaded deep, as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
And I know not if I sink or swim (alt: I know not if I'll sink or swim).

And sink or swim, I'll be with my Lord
All one in Christ, the whole world o'er
From skin & bones, to the spirit bare
One in Him means the veil's not there.

Lord wipe the clay off of my eyes
Help me to trust, it's you and I
held in this boat, where both we row
I'm never lost, forever home.

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er (alt: o-ver)
And nor have I the wings to fly   (alt: And neither I have wings to fly)
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, Jesus and I.

A Room of One's Own

Woolf, Virginia. (1929). A Room of One's Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

A Room Of One's Own started as a series of lectures written and delivered by Virginia Woolf, to the Arts Society at Newnham College and Girton College in October 1928, originally titled, "On Women and Fiction." The papers were too long to be read in full. They were expanded and put into book form in 1929.

I remember first reading this toward the end of college. It was foundational. I am happy to be nearing the end of the 'little kid' phase of parenting. My youngest is entering Kindergarten. I finally feel I have time to put into work and personal interests. I am grateful for the time I've been able to put into parenting up to this point. And I'm equally grateful that the time is opening up, kids are off to school, and there is time for other things. There is a wonderful new chapter waiting to be written. Don't worry Mother Woolf... contributions will be made!! Below is one of my favorite passages.

Text below is taken from the end of the book - Chapter 6, pgs 195-199


"How can I further encourage you to go about the business of life? Young women, I would say, and please attend, for the peroration is beginning, you are, in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort of importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into battle. The plays of Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous race to the blessings of civilization. What is your excuse? It is all very well for you to say, pointing to the streets and squares and forests of the globe swarming with black and white and coffee colored inhabitants, all busily engaged in traffic and enterprise and love-making, we have had other work on our hands. Without our doing, those seas would be unsailed and those fertile lands a desert. We have borne and bread and washed and taught, perhaps to the age of six or seven years, the one thousand six hundred and twenty-three million human beings who are, according to statistics, at present in existence, and that, allowing that some had some help, takes time.

There is truth in what you say--I will not deny it. But at the same time, may I remind you that there have been at least two colleges for women in existence in England since the year 1866; that after the year 1880 a married woman was allowed by law to posses her own property; and that in 1919--which is a whole nine years ago--she was given a vote? May I also remind you that the most of the professions have been open to you for close on ten years now? When you reflect upon these immense privileges and the length of time during which they have been enjoyed, and the fact that there must be at this moment some two thousand women capable of earning over five hundred a year in one way or another, you will agree that the excuse of lack of opportunity, training, encouragement, leisure and money no longer holds good. Moreover, the economists are telling us that Mrs. Seton has had too many children. You must, of course, go on bearing children, but, so they say in twos and threes, not in tens and twelves.

Thus, with some time on your hands and with some book learning in your brains--you have had enough of the other kind and are sent to college partly, I suspect, to be un-educated--surely you should embark upon another stage of your very long, very laborious and highly obscure career. A thousand pens are ready to suggest what you should do and what effect you will have. My own suggestion is a little fantastic, I admit; I prefer, therefore, to put it in the form of fiction.

I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in Sir Sidney Lee's life of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. This opportunity, as I think, is now coming within your power to give her. For my belief is that if we live another century or so--I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not the little separate lives which we live as individuals--and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down. Drawing her life from the lives of the unknown who were her forerunners, as her brother did before her, she will be born. As for her coming without that preparation, without that effort on our part, without that determination that when she is born again she shall find it possible to live and write her poetry, that we cannot expect, for that would be impossible. But I maintain that she would come if we worked for her, and that so to work, even in poverty and obscurity, is worth while."

People Get Ready

People Get Ready
By "The Ramblers" a band that sings for
St. Augustine Chapel at Vanderbilt University
performed on January 22, 2012
http://www.staugustineschapel.org/worship-music/ramblers-music/

Make Me an Instrument by Blair Bodine

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Make Me an Instrument
by Blair Bodine

Make me an Instrument of your peace
Make me the music of a melody
I’ll be the bass, I’ll be the fiddle
3 part harmony, make me the middle

Make me a flute or a clarinet
Make me a tune you haven’t finished yet
I’ll be a harp, made out of golden wire
Save me a spot in the Sunday choir

I’ve  got this voice, I wanna use it
I’ve got one life, I’m gonna set mine to music
And a choice, about how my time is spent
So, Lord, make me an instrument!
Oh, Lord, make me an instrument!

Make me the sound of a violin
Make me a solo on a mandolin
I’ll be the strings in a symphony
Give me a bucket, I can make a beat

I’ve  got this voice, I wanna use it
I’ve got one life, I’m gonna set mine to music
And a choice, about how my time is spent
So, Lord, make me an instrument!
Oh, Lord, make me an instrument!

Let me be the chorus that brings you back around
I can be the silence where you feel all their sound
I wanna be the reason that this song is sung
I wanna keep believin’ when the song is done

So, make me an instrument of your peace
Make me the music of a melody
I’ll be the bass, I’ll be the fiddle
3 part harmony, make me the middle
                oh make me the middle

I’ve  got this voice, I wanna use it
I’ve got one life, I’m gonna set mine to music
And a choice, about how my time is spent
So, Lord, make me an instrument!
Oh, Lord, make me an instrument!