The road goes on

It's been a good week, a wonderful beginning. The cabin was comfy and quiet. I claimed an Adirondack chair on the screened-in porch and settled in to write. Two chapters were composed and a couple of others were finished. 

The rhythm of the week was well paced. The trip to get to the mountains was just long enough to be tiring. After a very comfortable night's sleep, I stepped into the routine that I've maintained for many months: up by 7, brew the coffee, meditate on a couple of psalms as the forest wakes, read a sermon by somebody else (in this case, from Barbara Brown Taylor's latest collection), pray quietly, and then dive in. It was a fruitful week. 

I've decided to compose a brief free-verse poem between each chapter which I call an "improvisation." They function very closely to a jazz solo. To echo or engage in the stuff of the chapter, I set the timer for fifteen minutes and write something. I had a couple of these poems lying around from the Interior Window project, thought to include them, and decided to write more. Who knows if the editor will keep them? All I know is they help me connect with the material.

For example, here's a little poem called "Mind the Gap," which follows chapter three. That's the chapter that wrestles with the perceived line between "sacred" and "secular." I begin by recalling a moment from another sabbatical eight years ago, with my family on a train in Scotland:

Stepping toward the train in Glasgow
She tugged on my sleeve and pointed:
MIND THE GAP
Was the Scots’ warning.
They could not protect us
From the empty space
Between train and track.
The warning heeded,
Saved from certain doom
Or at least an entrapped shoe,
I mull over other gaps,
Especially that space between
Heaven and earth.

If we pad around on 

The Holy One’s footstool
Is there any place here
Free from an act of God?
Could Jesus blow bebop
In that trumpet’s crazy notes?
If the deep chord consoles
Or dissonance awakens,
Can music be easily dismissed?

Sound, sanctified, seeps into the gap,
transgressing arrogance,
smashing defended borders,
empowering availability.
Perhaps the gap is pregnant space
Or perhaps it doesn’t really exist,
An illusion for avoidance.

This week is dedicated to research and nesting. There are necessary duties to undertake, and research is  needed for chapters on prayer and confronting injustice.  

And the road goes on. Thanks for making this stop with me.