For Desire - by Kim Addonizio

Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.

Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps met here until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and being their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.

To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.

I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to lie
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how fucking good I look.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years - Donald Miller

“People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.”

"You become like the people you interact with. And if your friends are living boring stories, you probably will, too." - p. 160

"It's like this when you live a story: The first part happens fast. You throw yourself into the narrative and you're finally out in the water; the shore is pushing off behind you and the trees are getting smaller. The distant shore doesn't seem so far, and you can feel the resolution coming... You think the thing is going to happen fast, that you'll paddle for a bit and arrive on the other side by lunch. But the truth is, it isn't going to be over soon...

I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. Bu they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story". - p. 177-179

Altars in the World - Barbara Brown Taylor

"We receive enlightenment only in promotion as we give ourselves more and more completely to God by humble submission and love. We do not first see, then act: we act, then see. And that is why the man who waits to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey." - Thomas Merton

"Most heresies come from espousing one opposite at the expense of another. Uncomfortable with paradox, Christians tend to tilt in one direction or the other, usually with disastrous consequences." - Philip Yancey in "Living with Furious Opposites" from "Christianity Today"

p. 6-7 "The problem is, many of the people in need of saving are in churches, and at least part of what they need saving from is the idea that God sees the world the same way they do. What if the gravel of the parking lot looks as promising to God as the floorboards of the church? What if a lost soul strikes God as more reachable than a lifelong believer? What if God can drop a ladder absolutely anywhere, with no regard for the religious standards developed by those who have made it their business to know the way to God?"

p. 44-45 "'Do this,' he said - not believe this but do this - 'in remembrance of me'... Duke ethicist Stanley Hauerwas [says]... Christianity 'is not a set of beliefs or doctrines one believes in order ot be a Christian... but rather Christianity is to have one's body shaped, one's habits determined, in such a way that the worship of God is unavoidable.' ... the last thing any of us need is more information about God. We need the practise of incarnation, by which God saves the lives of those whose intellectual assent has turned as dry as dust, who have run frighteningly low on the bread of life, who are dying to know more God in their bodies. Not more about God. More God."

p. 116 "In a world where the paid work that people do does not always feed their hearts, it seems important to leave open the possibility that our vocations may turn out to be the things we do for free."

p. 124 "I know you do not sleep well. It does not make any sense, since you are exhausted, but the fact is that it is very hard for your body to go from fifth gear to off just because you say so - at least not without a little pharmaceutical help. It is hard to watch the eleven o'clock news with your heart wide open, letting in the misery of neighbors near and far, and then sleep soundly through the night. It is hard to dream rejuvenating dreams or sink into those deep-sea delta brain waves when you keep waking up at three o'clock - what is it about that hour? - to think about how man y unanswered e-mails you have in your inbox, how much money you owe on your credit cards, or how odd your heartbeat sounds all of a sudden."

Wendell Berry

I've long loved Berry, particularly his poetry and beautifully challenging exposes on nature and our responsibility in the world. His novel, "Jayber Crow", may not be my favorite book of his, but it's a work of layers and depth nonetheless.

"My questions were still with me, but for the time being anyhow they weren't crying out to be answered. I wasn't yet as free as I was going to become, but I knew that I was freer than I had ever been before". - Chapter 7

"The sermons, mostly, were preached on the same theme I had heard over and over... We must lay up treasures in Heaven and not be lured and seduced by this world's pretty and tasty things that do not last but are like the flower that is cut down. The preachers were always young students from the seminary who wore, you might say, the mantle of power but not the mantle of knowledge... You couldn't learn those things in a school. They went to school... to learn to say over and over again, regardless of where they were, what had already been said too often. They learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works...

To them, the church did not exist in the world where people earn their living and have their being, but rather in the world where they fear death and Hell, which is not not much of a world... the young preachers knew Port William only as it theoretically was ('lost') and as it theoretically might be ('saved'). And they wanted us all to do our part to spread this bad news to others who had not heard it - the Catholics, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Buddhists, and the others - or else they (and maybe we) would go to Hell. I did not believe it. They made me see how cut off I was. Even when I was sitting in the church, I was a man outside.

Those world-condemning sermons were preached to people who, on Sunday mornings would be wearing the prettiest clothes... While wickedness of the flesh was preached from the pulpit, the young husbands and wives and the courting couple sat thigh to thigh, full of yearning and joy, and the old people thought of the beauty of the children. And when church was over they would go home to Heavenly dinners of fried chicken... and hot biscuits and butter and cherry pie and buttermilk. And the preacher and his family would always be invited to eat with somebody... and the preacher, having just foresworn on behalf of everybody the joys of the flesh, would eat with unconsecrated relish." - Chapter 15

Growing Older Gracefully

A beautiful book, here are just a few choice quotes from my reading:

"The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully" - Joan Chittister ACCOMPLISHMENT
"Scientists have discovered that older people, while not as quick computationally as younger people, do think just as well as the young, but differently - with more depth, with more reflection, with more philosophical awareness... the difference between between the quickness of a computer game and the quality of a logician. The young produce ideas in rapid quantity, but often without form or figure. Older people might reflect on the very same data younger people do, but instead of manipulating it, tend to reduce it to concepts."
TRANSFORMATION
"...the number of absolutes in my life [are] precipitously reduced. I'm a lot less dogmatic now about the nature of God. I'm not as sure as I once was about what is gravely damning and what is not. Most important of all, I am happy to put that decision in the hands of the God whose nature seems far more compassionate now - as I have gotten more compassionate myself."
LEARNING
"...Harvard University longitduinal Study of Adult Development... says, [constantly learning] makes the difference between healthy and unhealthy aging. It determines the degree to which life will be satisfying to us, as well as the degree to which we will be interesting, valuable, life-giving to others."
IMMEDIACY
"There are temptations for the elderly... that are particularly deluding because they sound so sensible while they are increasingly destructive. 'I'm too tired tonight...' we learn to say early in the aging process. But the others go on to the show or the party or the civic event, without us. 'She's older now and can't do these things,' they say. We teach them to ignore us and then wonder how it happened."
THE PRESENT
"There is no time to waste anymore. The now is no longer one moment on the way to another one. It is everything there is to life. When we learn to sink into the moment with that much passion, that much pure, unadulterated sensuousness, we finally learn to be alive."

Kitschy goodnes at Joe's of Westlake with J&J

Currently watching: Marked Woman starring Bette Davis

Oscar Party 2009

About 20 of us... and yet more good times.





Currently reading: Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater - Alan Richman

Winter Cocktail Event with Scott Beattie

Photo: Bleeding Orange (topped with foam, edible lavender flowers, grilled & candied Rangpur limes)

Taking a Winter Cocktail class at the Ferry Plaza Building through CUESA was exciting because lead by artisanal cocktail master, Scott Beattie, from Healdsburg's Cyrus (I wrote about it in The Perfect Spot). Besides getting educated on how to make gorgeous foams, rims and syrups, Dan and I got to imbibe and make three cocktails, the beauty of the day in taste and presentation being the Bleeding Orange, found in his book. Topped with edible flowers and a candied or a slow-roasted Rangpur lime from Scott's back yard, the drink was Charbay Blood Orange and Meyer Lemon vodkas with fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon, blood orange, Fee Bros peach bitters and homemade simple syrup of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon.

Currently watching: The Catherine Cookson Collection: The Moth

Italia

A fluffy read, Frances Mayes' "Bella Tuscany", still is a poetic ode to my Italy, where I've traveled three times yet ever craving another trip, a long residence, a second home... I share her reflections:

"[Arriving in Venice]: I am knocked silent. The beauty does not just pass before your eyes. It ravishes. I begin to feel the elation a traveler experiences when in the presence of a place supremely itself."

"Growing up in a small town, I felt the tight bit about my mouth. I couldn't wait to leave. The pull of cities was strong. I remember, however, a slight pull, too, toward life far in the country... What rings you out and, truly, what rinses you with happiness? What comes from my own labor and creativity, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it, stays close to the natural joy we all were born with and carry always. Mystic, Georgia, was not for me. I would have been hell on wheels by thirty. Oddly, oddly, I probably could live a happy, sensuous life there now."

"Life would be different if you grew up bouncing your ball against the wall of the Orvieto cathedral... In Italy, it would be curious not to be intimate with art. You grow up here surrounded by beauty, thinking beauty is natural. Art always has been outside, something I appreciated, loved, sought, but something not exactly natural. American towns often are void of art and are often actively ugly. In schools, art is usually a luxury which falls with no thud when the budget ax swings. Art, music, poetry - natural pleasures we were born to love - are expendables, fancy extras, so very non-binary. The unnaturalness comes, too, from the hushed atmosphere of museums, where most of us experience art. In Italy, so much art is in churches... Art and the mass come not from on high, but with a familial attitude."

"If you settle in, even for two weeks, live in a house not a hotel, and you buy figs and soap a the local places, sit in cafes and restaurants, go to a local concert or church service, you cannot help but open to the resonance of a place and the deeper you go, the stranger the people become because they're like you and they're not...
It can be dangerous to travel. A strong reflecting light is cast back on 'real life', sometimes a disquieting experience. Sometimes you go to the far interior and who knows what you might find there? ... But the passionate traveler looks for something... Something must change you... Change - the transforming experience - is part of the quest of traveling...
Often we take America with us. How can we not, being thoroughly products of our culture? We see what we know how to see... we are wary everywhere of being robbed and mugged. We fear the violence of America everywhere...
Travel can reinforce the primitive urge to bring the new into the circle of the known. I went to Pasadena... and walking around on a perfect day, I saw Starbucks, Banana Republic, the Gap, Williams Sonoma, Il Fornaio - all the high-end chains with identical merchandise in dozens of other cities... Nothing happened to me. And yet, surely if I'd stayed longer than a day, there are layers of Pasadena.... In America, with franchises and TV pouring their solvents over us by the second, you have to look longer and harder. In Italy, it's easier."

Currently watching: Brief Encounter - Criterion Collection

Revolutionary Road

"Revolutionary Road", the film and especially the book, are haunting me. I've been awake into the night unable to put the book down. Richard Yates is a writer with a direct voice that penetrates bulls--t. The concept of the story could sound "done" yet he expresses it as fresh and unique. A tragic, depressing ending to be sure, but that's not what I come away with.

I am struck by the image of the few turning points in life when we have the chance to do something different, to not "settle" or take a safe, expected route. Not because one path versus another in and of itself is the answer but because to not make the most alive choice in any given moment is to slowly lose pieces of our truest self, of our childhood dreams that signal more about who we really are than all our adult goals and "have-to's". I think the little daily compromises are what lead to the bigger ones. Some we have to make, but they do add up over time, until we've lost so much of our true self, we cannot find it again... or it takes years of work to get back.

To stay awake and alive requires constant work and effort. Being my life's goal and mission to do just that for myself, and thus for others, I know full well it's an ongoing struggle. But what haunts in this simple story is the cost for not doing it. Not necessarily meaning the dramatized ending, but the cost to our souls. No matter the difficulties, when I am alive, even in sadness or pain, I am ultimately happy. I feel ecstasy and agony down to my fingertips, pulsing through my veins. The gift of life created in me, gives me the freedom to, in turn, create.

May I never take it for granted, settle or walk the expected path just because it is the expected path. May I fight for what is real, even when it hurts. To commit, as I have in many areas, to the reality of daily life and relationships, yes. But never to stop reaching for what my soul cries out for, what makes me come alive (as both Dan and I are committed to). To look for beauty and make it a part of my life no matter the routine. To make time to listen to the inner, deeper urgings, which I believe, come from the Creator. And, most of all, to say "yes" to them.

Currently listening: Dear Science - TV on the Radio

Hollow

Hollow is a closet-sized, darling new cafe in the Inner Sunset (Irving near 15th). I spent the morning there, journaling, staring out the window, reading as I sipped Ritual coffee and heard Sarah McLachlan playing (how's that for 'ancient' memories when I was 19-20 and couldn't get enough of "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy")!?

Later, after a sushi lunch with my dear Manka and Karen, I brought them back to Hollow for more coffee and a long, liberating talk on where we come from, why we are forever joined to that and why we are not, how we're uniquely ourselves, made for freedom. In this little nook of bird baths, candles, chocolate truffles and friendly warmth, I sensed hints of restoration... in areas I've been talking about with my Spiritual Director for ages. Restoration that heals the wounds of old days and births them into something new.

Currently watching: HBO's "John Adams" miniseries

Rooftop Cocktails

In this balmy, gorgeous January we are experiencing, Dan and I threw a spontaneous Italian pasta, lounge music, cocktail night (Negronis, anyone?) As the sun set, we lingered on our rooftop with friends, taking in the peachy hue of a warm, city night. Lights began to coyly twinkle, air inhabited our lungs and warmed our skin. Smiles on each face. Savoring the grace of Spring in the midst of Winter.







Currently watching: Fellini's "8 1/2"

Berlin and Beyond Film Festival

Last night as I went for free (thank you, work!) to the opening night of the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival to see the German film, "Kirschbluten" (or "Cherry Blossoms"), I was hit with images and emotions that stay with me, especially the image of Mt. Fuji emerging from the mist. Old age, loneliness and compromise are presented along with rebirth, restoration and awakening. The film reminds that even at an older age, it's never too late to re-awaken to your dreams, to creativity and connection... but it's also about how much we miss out on until we do.

Currently reading: Insecure at Last: A Political Memoir By Eve Ensler

I blaze forth in peace

I journaled this in Spring of 2007, but it holds true now, hinting at my state these days:

Peace invades my life of striving
in the hurried rush of my mind
comes calm

Soothing waters rolling over my turbulent sea
and I am at rest

Still
Nothing but to be
no need to prove to you or to me

Earning is not possible
measuring worth, a joke

I flow with this calming stream
realizing it was always there

But other boats ran my waters
invaded my shores
demanded right of passage

One by one
I've denied them entrance
to now make way for what I need

and thus the passageways have begun to clear
horizons, widened
all in the name of freedom

Won by pain
effort
loss
and waiting
Most of all, by surrender

I see its approaching, no longer fearing, this freedom
It's claiming me for its own
and I blaze forth in peace

Currently reading:Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices - Brian D. McLaren

Acedia & Me

From my 12/19 post about favorite books of the year, this one has been the most impactful, Kathleen Norris' "Acedia and Me". Here are just some of the thought-provoking passages for me:

Chapter 7
"Simone Weil... declared that Hitler's rise to power would be inconceivable without 'the existence of millions of uprooted [people]' who could not be roused to care about anything except their immediate circumstances... our failure to acknowledge our inner blockages can make us incapable of recognizing the blockages we have created in the culture... we come to assume that these conditions - injustice, poverty, perpetual conflict - are inevitable, the only possible reality, and lose our ability to imagine that there are other ways of being, other courses of action.

Wendell Berry laments the extent to which economics has been elevated to a position that God once held... We have come to 'treat economic laws of supply & demand' as though they were' the laws of the universe'. If there is a religion that encompasses all the world, it is the pursuit of wealth.

True sloths are not revolutionaries, [but] 'the lazy guardians at the gate of the status quo'."

Chapter 8
"One great difference between these monks and today's pop psychologists is that the monks' process of discernment was likely to result in more self-knowledge, less self-consciousness. In our day, this is often reversed. People whose speech remains stuck in therapeutic jargon, for all the 'work' they are doing on themselves, often remain stubbornly unreflective. Even if they can catalogue their neuroses with great facility, they seem stuck within them.

Carmelite Ruth Burrows... regards any authentic religious experience as entailing 'a slow, demanding generosity,' one that does not short-circuit within us but flows outward naturally, until what we believe becomes what we do.

... 'What is integrity?'... 'Always to accuse [oneself]'.

By 'selfish' I do not mean observing the basic care of the self, knowing when to retreat, to hunker down in waiting out a storm... I may need 'time out'. I may need to 'cocoon'. But a cocoon is effective only as a means of change."

Chapter 9
"... my husband and I have benefited on several occasions from marriage counseling, I have found therapy to be of limited usefulness, constrained in ways that religion is not, because it consistently falls short of mystery, by which I mean a profound simplicity that allows for paradox and poetry.

Anthony of the Desert once said that a true prayer is one you don't understand."

Chapter 10
"To keep romantic relationship alive, one must be mindful enough to recognize the danger signs of inattention and sloth... Over time we found the accumulation of shared experiences provided us with a storehouse of memory that helped bear the worst of circumstances."

Chapter 11
"For me, the most basic definition of sin - to comprehend that something is wrong, and choose to do it anyway - is still the most useful. It frees me from the narcissism of fretting over my more trivial failings, even as it forces me to admit to those actions that have hurt others.

As I experience the repeated ebb and flow, the danger is that I will grow weary and more easily discouraged, unable to appreciate that grace is real, and as available to me, as acedia.

How might I be solid as a wall yet alive with movement? How might I build on all that I have learned yet not resist new challenges and transitions? Two vows that are unique to the Benedictines are of use to me here, the vows of stability and conversion.

We live our lives not at the end, but... in the interval between birth and death... There is good psychological basis for the impulse, borne out in many of the world's religions, to pray in the morning, at noon, and at night, at the hinges of time, when we might be most open to God but are also susceptible to acedia and its attendant despairs. The psalmist asks us to place our hope in a God who will not grow weary of watching over us at these risky moments, who will 'guard [our] going and coming/both now and for ever' (Psalm 121:8).

'Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,/ they shall mount up with wings like eagles'... [Hope] is an action... To hope is to make a leap, to jump from where you are to someplace better. If you can imagine it, and dare to take that leap, you can go there - no matter how hopeless your situation may appear..."

Chapter 12
"One of Saint Benedict's 'tools for good works' is to 'day by day remind yourself that you are going to die' (Rule 4:47).'

Commitment always costs, and there is a particular burden in loving another person, if for no other reason than the fact that this beloved will one day die."

Chapter 14
"... the word transition cannot convey my struggle with the rigors of grief, a residual exhaustion from years of steadily increasing adversity, and the promptings of acedia to respond to all of this by not caring...

The monks and mystics of my faith all teach that persevering in a spiritual discipline, especially when it seem futile, is the key to growth.

... it is one thing to pray when you feel like it, and another to make it as much a part of you as breathing... 'we don't always have to say a prayer, we can live out a prayer'.

'... God is trying to get us to accept a state where we have no assurance within that all is well... where no clear path lies before us, where there is no way...' Only when we admit that have 'no way' do we have any hope of finding one. Out of what seems desolate a newly vigorous faith can arise, a certainty that is not subject to change in moods or feelings, or the vicissitudes of life.

People often remark that they would write, or paint, or sculpt, if only they had the time. But this is pure fantasy: the artist does whatever is necessary to arrange her life so that she will have the time to write.

... my sadness increases as I am less able to see the world as I know it to be: ablaze with significance, potent with meaning. Yet I know that even if I am too exhausted to see them, the images, correspondences, connections, and metaphors that would free me are there, to be discovered, and to live as a poet means not to abandon my search for them. Such insights may come as gifts, but it is the prepared and fertile heart not the one dulled by acedia, that is best able to receive them."

Kierkegaard in "Either/Or": "I would wish not for wealth or power but for the passion of possibility, for the eye, eternally young, eternally ardent, that sees possibility everywhere."

Currently watching: Young@Heart (2008)

the way of incarnation and transformation

Some good thoughts in Brian McLaren's recent, "Finding Our Way Again"...

p. 58 "Had I been forced to choose between remaining a traditional member of the Plymouth Brethren plus nothing for the rest of my whole life or dropping out of church, I would probably be a dropout today, because as grateful as I am for my heritage, it lacked breathing room. As I drifted away from the brethren nest, I went through a few experiences of what I call a 'lateral conversion', meaning I became a card-carrying Calvinist for a while, and then an amalgam of both, holding to each tradition's practices with the same proprietary zeal with which the Brethren had taught me to hold to Brethrenism, with no learning or borrowing from others. Eventually, I felt the same claustrophobia in my new traditions, so instead of converting to yet another tradition to which I would adhere in the same way I adhered to my original tradition, I converted to a different way of holding traditions in general."

p. 69-71 "...the kind of person who wants to participate in the healing of the world is very different from the kind of person who wants to leave this world behind so she can go to a better one... by making heaven after this life the destination of our way, we are spiritually forming people who run away from fire, disease, and the violence of our world. That's certainly a major step up from forming pyromaniacs, disease vectors, or violent delinquents. But it's not as good as what Jesus set out to do... Jesus was more like a firefighter or doctor or social worker who walks boldly into the danger in order to try to stop it. If a healed and healthy earth is your destination, the way to that goal promotes involvement, engagement, risk, and participation. If the earth is a lost cause to you, then you will... choose the way of withdrawal, isolation, self-protection, and self-distancing. By choosing one destination, you will follow the way of incarnation and transformation; by choosing the other... you choose evacuation and abdication."

p. 126 "The rising numbers of church dropouts don't want to be part of a flat spiritual malformation community. In a sense, they agree with the apostles Paul & James, whom we quoted earlier: it's simply better for aspiring disciples not to gather with those who have lost their way, because by joining them and unconsciously learning from their misguided example, aspiring disciples learn malpractices that take them further and further away from the way of Jesus Christ."

p. 134 [In referring to all the Christians who fought for abolition of slavery despite the church's universal acceptance of it at the time - "most churches defended slavery as being God-ordained"] "... Margaret Middleton, wife of a naval officer... She was a consummate networker, an undervalued hero in Christian history. This circle became safe space to think, dream, and conspire for justice regarding the slave trade. Their little circle connected with a larger circle of Quakers who had heard God call them, in a time of contemplative silence, to oppose slavery... Their fledgling movement grew in the spaces between the institutional structures of their day, not within the structures themselves."

p. 145 "The Gospels weren't written until decades after the events they described transpired-perhaps because Jesus created such vitality and foment that it took decades for anyone to have time to catch their breath and write down what had gone on. Similarly, the Epistles are hardly histories of the early church, but rather literary artifacts of the early church, most of them written by a fellow who was constantly on the move and couldn't slow down enough to write until he got shipwrecked for the winter or thrown into jail. There's a breathlessness about the whole affair... How different is a breathless, history-changing learning community from a placid or contentious panel of scholars and experts who are less interested in learning anything than they are in defending what they already think they know and attacking what other experts think they know."

p. 128-129 "How do we break the cycle into which we've fallen? Is it better to try to reform our existing faith communities that have lost their way, or simply to leave and start new ones? Do we work for reformation and renewal on one hand, or for revolution and refounding on the other? My answer, as you might expect, is both... Those unwilling to be silenced, domesticated, or marginalized are thus forced to engage in dramatic revolution rather than the gradual evolution of renewal and reform... By getting distance from the groups that are not ready for them, they get space and time to experiment, learn, fail, and learn some more. Eventually, some of their experiments prove healthy and viable, and before long, the very group that rejected the reformers starts learning from them. But meanwhile - this is so predictable and universal that I can't think of a single exception - the very zeal that propelled the rejected-reformers-turned-revolutionaries to bold innovation wears out, and their courage hardens into pride and defensiveness that renders them invulnerable to the next wave of reformation and renewal. They become exactly what they reacted against."

Currently watching: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Best Reads of the Year

I read so many books in any given year that it's nearly impossible to narrow down favorites, but I thought, as I've been keeping lists of books I read for some years now, that I'd pick out a few that were highlights for me in 2008 for whatever reason. So without further ado (and in no particular order)...

NOVELS

• The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty - Though I read Faulkner, Kafka and Waugh this year, one simple (though Pulitzer Prize-Winning) book rose above the greats... this gentle of Southern writers and her heartrending picture of loss in a middle-aged woman's heart - I was teary more than once
  
• The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James - How I connected with the brilliantly depicted heroine of this engrossing masterpiece... and how I grieved at her demise under the false illusion of conformity and "security"
  
• The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton - Cloaked passion underlies restraint, not with the usual British reserve, rather, as an American novel (from one of our female greats), as a sign of times in turmoil, where old clashes with new, the past with the future
  
• The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger - I'm mortified to say, as a literature lover, that I'd never read it before now; there is nothing new to say but that I couldn't put it down... perfection
  

POETRY

• Thirst, Mary Oliver - Her conversion and great loss expressed tenderly, beautifully
  

ESSAY

• Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion - The great Joan... loved her essays on life in Northern California in the '60's, on New York, her cultural insight

POLITICS

• Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White, Adam Hamilton - Not so much a well-written book, or even one in which everything is presented as well as it is a hundred other places, but the constant beat of his drum for balance, acceptance and middle ground is a voice much needed now

FOOD

• A Stew and a Story, M.F.K. Fisher - Who can compare to the master? And she is. This collection contains many revelations, which is a common occurrence when reading the great M.F.K.
• Straight Up or on the Rocks, William Grimes - This book changed it all... not only for the cocktail literary world in the '90's when the book was first released, telling the exquisite, long-forgotten history of drink and bartending in its days of glory, creativity and elegance, but for Dan & I, ushering us fully into the cocktilian revival and renaissance we've been participating in for years
  
• The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten - WASPish and technical, this at times, factual, dry book made me smile as his detailed knowledge of food reveals insight into his profound passion... I love what he has to say about the fallacy of food allergies and the unadventurous eater!
  

FAITH/RELIGION

• Surprised by God, Danya Ruttenberg - An atheist becomes a fully practicing Jew... but this isn't sensational writing milking a religious conversion, rather an honest, heartfelt awakening to God written as engaging memoir
• The Shack, William P. Young - I'm reluctant to list this one as it's poorly written compared to the rest... but the heart and message of it need to be heard
• Acedia & Me, Kathleen Norris - My dear Kathleen's book was probably the most impactful for me this year; hard to read both in content and occasional dryness (Dan and I joked about coming down with Acedia in trying to get through it), but it actually left the biggest imprint and awakened rigorously honest self-examination

Currently listening : 20th Century Masters: The Best of the Mills Brothers

more faith in honest doubt... than in half the creeds

"... what does it desire of us, this Meaning of our Life that is revealed and yet concealed? Not to be explained by us - that us beyond us - but only to be done by us..." - Dr. Martin Buber

Buber's quote exemplifies 'the Key'... LIVING it, not merely explaining or talking. Jon read John Baillie's book from the 1950's, "Our Knowledge of God", and found it speaking to him profoundly from a philosophical vantage point. I read it and found this passage in Chapter 7 particularly good (love the Tennyson poem, of course - and we all had the joy of discussing it on his deck overlooking the Miami bay at night, lights twinkling):

"... the central thing of religion is not our hold on God but God's hold on us; not our choosing Him but His choosing us; not that we should know Him but that we should be known of Him. And it would seem that sometimes, even when we deny Him both with our lips and with our minds, He still retains His gracious hold upon us, dwelling within us as it were incognito and continuing to do His work in and for our souls. Some of us would have to confess that even within the circle of our own acquaintance there are professed unbelievers whom we must acknowledge to be, in some very real sense, better Christians than we are ourselves. Of such men we are often inclined to say that though they cannot themselves see God at work in their souls and in their deeds, yet we can see Him there...

Men may continue to believe in God 'with the top of their minds' while consistently denying Him in that part of their souls which governs all their deeds. 'The devils also believe, and tremble'. Surely then it is those whose every desire and deed deny God that come nearest to deserving the unhappy name of atheist, and not those whose denial is an affair mainly of the intellect. We should ask ourselves whether some who profess belief in God are not much more genuinely atheistical than are many of our rationalist and communist friends who take to themselves that name. The real unbeliever is not he whose life witnesses to a belief that he thinks he does not possess, but rather he whose life proves that he does not really believe what he thinks he believes. We might quote:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds. * Tennyson

But it is on certain other words that we should prefer to rely. 'Lord, when we saw thee and hungered, and fed thee? ...And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Insamuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' This cannot mean that we are judged by our fruits rather than by our faith, it can mean only that we are known by our fruits, and that if the fruits are truly manifest, some germ of faith must then be there, however unrecognized."

Currently watching : The Savages

Favorite November Moments

Another insanely up and down month... I feel so alive with the highs and the lows, as painful and as spectacular as it can be, I am wide awake.

1. My Sam (Phillips) at Yoshi's - two magical, front row sets
2. Almost weekly 4-5 hour sessions of prayer and radiance in Nyquists' home
3. Moving forward in greater numbers with our Human Trafficking leadership group as will as with dinners at the Mentone (Tenderloin SRO)
4. A warm, deep night of Taize with McCs, Tyler, Karen, Chesna, Chuck (plus late night laughter & coffee at Kochs afterwards)
5. Wonderful food excursions and cafe hours spent alone and with my Daniel
6. An incredible weekend in Miami with dear, old friends, Jon & McKean, at their fabulous high-rise over the water... AND Manka driving down to join us for a day of adventuring and profound conversation on Key Biscayne
7. EVERYTHING about our brilliant New Orleans trip - I fell in love completely; Dan & I did it right, savoring every spectacular meal, conversation, drink, jazz club, nap, book, writing and romantic moment together
8. Cozy nights of food, cooking, movies and talks with Jus & Jason as they stay with us a week over Thanksgiving (a great Thanksgiving w/ McCs, J&J, Kochs, Kristi & Adam)
9. Dickens Fair w/ Dannee, J&J ("Sweet Nuts!")
10. My unexpected, painful, family reunion-filled, bittersweet trip to Oklahoma (after just returning from New Orleans) for Grandpa's funeral... he passed away late Thanksgiving night

Currently listening: Purrfect: The Eartha Kitt Collection

Favorite October Moments

It is an unbelievable time... so much sadness and fear as well as love and hope. Dan's Dad was diagnosed with cancer this month, right after we returned from my sister's joyous wedding week in Ventura County. Dan flew right back to Orange County for another week, the longest week apart we've had, to be with his family and await outcomes. His Dad is going through chemo and we're praying for miracles... as we're acutely, keenly aware of every moment, of each other, of what we have and how amazing it is. Especially as we face loss and pray for more time with those we love... always more time.

1. Concerts (like Robert Plant/Allison Krauss or Hammer!), film nights and cozy meals with many dear friends (Tash, Chesna & Tisch, Becca here from NYC, Tyler, Amanda, Scott & Louise)
2. Stolen weekday lunches with Dan, trying new spots around the city
3. Palo Alto day with Dannee, eating (Bistro Elan & Sultan), coffee, writing, cocktails and cigars while talking about our upcoming trip to Miami & New Orleans)
4. Crazy Thrillville Dean Martin ("The Silencers" - hilarity!) movie night at El Cerrito Speakeasy w/ Tash & Dan
5. Entire wedding week for Jus & Jason: from the raucous LA bachelorette party night, to the family and friends reunion, to staying at Jessi's, to the big family dinner night in Santa Monica, to the gorgeous wedding and dancing the night away, tears and laughter... such joy
6. More East Bay dinners with Amy & David
7. Charleston-ing the night away at Mobster's Ball with Tyler, Chuck, Chesna, Karen, Maria
8. Amanda staying with me when Dan left (brunch at Brenda's, "Honey, I'm home!")
9. Geriatrics Party at Karen & Gina's
10. Yoshi's w/ Tash - fab Rupa & the April Fishes show; alive & delighted w/ my girl
11. Dave's steakhouse birthday dinner at Joe DiMaggio's on a hot Indian Summer night
12. Marie-Brizard West Coast Cocktail Challenge - the best industry-only party I've been to yet; I'm becoming "official"!
13. A cozy Halloween at our place with six friends watching ridiculous old horror movies like "House on Haunted Hill" while sipping pumpkin martinis
14. Being finally re-united, intensely and ecstatically with my husband after 7 painful days apart

Currently listening: About the Blues By Julie London