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!

Stepping Stones

This is a post from Sara, a woman who inspires me greatly!!

She writes:

"No moment from my God is a rock of burden. It is just a rock wanting to be broken apart into stepping stones."

http://gitzengirl.blogspot.com/2008/10/stepping-stones.html

Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

"Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen
listen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrLk4vdY28Q

performed by Rufus Waynwright, Jeff Buckly and
Leonard Cohen—there are several versions

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

*(Leonard Cohen’s version starts here)
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The Holy Dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
and all I ever learned from love
was how to shoot out someone
who outdrew you

It’s not a cry you can hear at night,
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

(Most versions end above, Leonard Cohen’s version continues below)
You say I took the Name in vain
I don't even know the Name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The Holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Note: 3/5/10
I’ve been obsessed with this song today. The melody completely draws me in. The lyrics are pretty. I believe the original author was Leonard Cohen; however, it’s been covered by a variety of artists and lyrics have been added or manipulated. I can’t say exactly what the original intent was with all of these lyrics. But, it’s beautiful. Clearly there is an allusion to King David, the Psalms, and Samson in the Bible. It conjures up images of a loving, albeit, strained relationship with God, mostly. But there is a carnal feeling to it, too. As I listen, I conjure up images of a sweaty run or bike-ride, a sob in the rain, raw physical affection, or falling down on one’s knees dirty and bloodied from a harrowing experience (e.g. birth, miscarriage, battle, a terrible accident). Sometimes our experience of God is so full and fresh, it’s exhilarating and palpable. And we all have those experiences where our faith wanes and we feel terribly alone. But that is a Holy place too. I think this is about those waning times—those times of longing. We can praise God in both of those places.

Hallelujah is a Hebrew word, meaning, “Praise Yaweh”. It’s primarily used in praise and thanksgiving. The author speaks of the “cold and broken Hallelujah.” I interpret the Cold, Broken Hallelujah as those time when we cry out for God but feel He is a million miles away—when we ache for His presence, but can’t seem to feel it. When we want to yell and scream. When we embrace, tearfully.
I’m curious what you think? Any different interpretations or thoughts? I’d love to hear what others come up with. Love listening to this and the various versions. Feel free to comment, if you like.