A Blank (Heart)Slate

My good friends who know how I feel about the interconnectedness of big identity issues in America today (feminism, activism, materialism, etc.) tend to cock an eyebrow at my unshakable respect for Valentine's Day. But once I tell them my story--how one of my grandmothers doesn't give gifts for Christmas but sends out letters and gifties to her grandkids for Feb 14 instead, and how female mentors have literally saved my life, one belly laugh and snail-mail letter and girls' night out at a time--they start to get it.

This time of year, I often hear, "Why do we need a day to remind us to love?" or some form of that question in the air. And here's my answer: "How can we not need a day to remind us to love in today's world?" Now, my V-Day isn't filled with chocolates or flowers (though I ADORE the local chocolate and florists in my town, along with the amazing women behind them). My Valentine's Day is fueled by mindful connection.

I generally send out about 30-40 handwritten Valentines/year, and mostly to either the most important women in my life, or the friends I don't often get to see in person. It's a time to be intentional about actually reaching out to people who have made me stronger/wiser/grateful in the last year. We live in a society that now tells us that if we want to "know" someone, to feel connected with their lives, we only need a texting plan, or just need to show them we care by "liking their posts" (I sometimes wonder what American pioneers would say to this odd phrase/action!) But friends (Self, are you listening too?): I'm writing to say this is not enough! There's more than this.

When I send off a Valentine or call someone up on Feb 14, I'm thanking the Universe that this woman is here--here now--in my life and the life of others. And to be completely honest, it's also one week of the year when I can celebrate the fact that I am still here, too, that I am a woman with many privileges and blessings, and that I have the opportunity to reach out to my best self--with the help of friends, and with the help of self-compassion. I can, as a local nonprofit signs its emails, "make love a verb," starting with learning to love my present self.

I deliberately plan activities in my week that make me--yes, make me--acknowledge my strength and beauty as an individual. Yoga, writing, and morning devotions (usually a prayer or poem or song) makes me slow down and nod to who I've been in the past--and who I want to become before the day blasts into any to-do list.

So if I was handing out candy hearts today, at age 32, they might offer, "Forgive yourself," "Let it go," "Renew," "See the beauty in the next stranger you meet," and "You're here now."

I remember putting candy hearts on the desks of boys I liked in 2nd grade, when I was literally about a head taller than all of them. It was before recess ended, and I recall the fiery rush of adrenaline and hope as I carefully chose which hearts went on what desks--before the bell!

And friends, I've been repeating this action ever since, decades later. I'm still that girl asking to be noticed for her worth, and I'm still the person wanting to exclaim to those around her, "I see you. You're lovely. You're OK." It just took me about 25 years to figure out that the person I needed to love in public--more than any man, or partner, or friend--was myself. And what a challenging Valentine invitation that's become every year..."Self, I accept you. Self, how will you define beauty today?"

May you eat something sweet today, whether it's chocolate or a true compliment someone gives you. May you smile at the college boys selling roses. And may you take a deep breath and walk out into the world with greater self-compassion. Our hearts are blank slates. Let's be mindful of what we've written there.

Insurance and "Wordles"

This morning, I sat down with our State Farm insurance agent to go over existing policies--one of the many things on my "being grown up is surreal" list, mostly because I'd made an appointment to listen to a stranger describe all the things I was supposed to be afraid of.

As a Mennonite, this kind of meeting also makes me uncomfortable.  And sad. There was a time when more Mennonites and other Anabaptists didn't buy into most insurance plans.  If something happened--fires, sickness, theft, injury--the church would step in to see you through. We made our own commitments to each other, unspoken and spoken.

I calmly reminded the agent that no, I wouldn't take anyone to court if they wrecked into my car and didn't have insurance. No, I didn't want life insurance at this time, and that my husband and I had talked it through. No, I don't want my home owner's insurance policy to cover any jewels or furs or firearms, and no, I don't have an iPhone, can you believe it? Will not be getting one, no. I don't want to be "connected" all the time. And yes, I've heard the statistics about how many people use tablet computers these days. No,  I don't have a texting plan for my phone, and I don't really want to know what app may "change my life forever." And every time Diane Rehm says "Send us a Tweet," I want to die a little inside.

I'm more interested in poems inside us, I wanted to tell her, the ones that sometimes also change our lives forever. What poem keeps your mind and body humming? What poet visits you in dreams? And do you have special insurance for poets--you know, to cover submission mailings, contest fees, residency application fees, especially when a poem gets rejected, or isn't even read by an editing staff who sends you a rejection email that could've been written by my cat in a bad mood? Or how about those visits to the shrink, the life planner, or those extra vacations taken because (most of) the world thinks you're  [ fill in the blank ] for wanting to write poems and read poems and talk about poems like some people talk about the latest features of their newest gadget?

I kept quiet, of course. Smiled and signed/dated next to my signature that looks like my Grandma Ruth's cursive. She was a 3rd grade teacher and taught me how to lean my R's just so.

After walking home from my visit with the insurance agent, I sat down at my writing desk and saw the "Wordle" I'd printed out, a word cloud generated from all the text in my first book of poetry. Up until this week, I didn't know the word or the "Wordle" itself existed. The largest words in a Wordle are those that appear most often in the collection, then the middle-sized words, and so on. I started to think about how long it took me to shape this book--10 years--and how my next collection will house different words that swim to the surface most often.

I'm not completely naive. I know that life sometimes changes with the blink of an eye, and having insurance can be important in an individualistic world. But what do I want to leave behind? I'm grateful to write--it helps me build up a world I want to live in, need to live in. And it insures my current self--I hope--in a unique and lasting way on the page.

What words do you use most often, whether you're a writer or not? And what do these words hold up/protect or illuminate about what you hold most dear? Some things to think about.

Here's the "Wordle" from The Apple Speaks:  http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/6285838/The_Apple_Speaks

          title="Wordle: The Apple Speaks ">

"I Told My Soul to Sing": Hope beyond "the thing with feathers"

I once heard a famous poet describe the difference between a song and a poem as this: a poem is writing that would not sound better sung. In other words, the poem itself makes its own music, beauty, and mystery -- enough to literally stand on its own “feet.” As a poet and choral composer, I (mostly) agree with this definition and dread hearing favorite poems set to music.

Though composers have tried, none (in my opinion) have succeeded in adding new “music” -- new and necessary layers -- to the work of America’s most popular female poet: Emily Dickinson (ED, as I'll soon call her here). Even though ED’s poems echo the lines and rhythms of classic Protestant hymns, they buck off any expectation that they will sound or be “better” with harmony or operatic vibrato. The only voice readers/listeners need is Emily’s.

However, like many student readers, I‘ve also needed some mentoring guidance when looking at an ED poem. I’ve let myself be daunted by the prolific ocean of her writing life, mostly without sitting down to test the genius, mystery, or humor(!)of an individual poem.

Yet the more I read about Emily’s life, especially as I try to carve out a writing life of my own, the more I want to re-encounter her poetry.  This is also true when I think about my wobbly walk towards wanting to know--and live out--the teachings of Jesus. And I disagree with those who claim that when reading Dickinson, we have no need to study her person or to remind ourselves of the world she was living in. To me, this seems akin to some Christians I know who’d rather read and believe the Bible without wanting to know, too, the complicated and miraculous web of its political and cultural history, so varying and rich among its authors.

So I am grateful that this past Advent season I started reading a book that adds a taut and seeking voice alongside Emily Dickinson’s, a narrator, teacher, and mystic voice that braids its own biography into a fresh understanding of the poet who described herself as simultaneously “grasped by God” (p. 233) and unable to pray.

In I Told My Soul to Sing: Finding God with Emily Dickinson (Paraclete Press 2012), author Kristin LeMay offers 25 of ED’s lesser-known poems as a set of what I’ll describe as unique liturgical readings infused with years of research and her own stumbling faith walk. 

LeMay’s liturgy is not for any one holy season, however; its sections rise with the hope we reserve for Advent then dip honestly towards the dread, gravity, and stubborn hope of Lent. The book's section titles reveal an author who’s willing to show her brightest vulnerability and baptized joy on the page, moving from “Belief” to “Mortality” to “Beauty.” In turn, LeMay refuses to put Dickinson into a box labeled “Christian” or “Pagan,” as so many writers have before her. Her book, instead, dances on the edges of naming things --accepting that, like Emily, her faith will move from protecting its distance to the “white heat” of a soul in love with the love of God. Emily Dickinson’s life and work help LeMay with this ongoing reconciliation. In LeMay’s own words: “Doubt and belief, Emily would be the first to say, are not necessarily in opposition” (p. 46).

LeMay attempts to find her own versions of both Christ and Emily Dickinson in places as varied as a convent, a seminary, or the graveyard where ED’s now buried. While reading, I thought of my own trek towards the version of Jesus that would “stick,” the one that would finally fill my life with so much love and understanding that I'd always believe. But that’s easier said than done, and LeMay’s book knows that. These days, there are so many versions of Jesus in America that he might as well run for President against himself.

As LeMay explores Dickinson’s poems, she also searches for a personal faith that “sticks” and for reassurance that literary art can be (to some)inspired gospels. Unfolded like an Easter story, LeMay writes at ED’s graveside, “Emily wasn’t there. She’s too alive on the page for me to believe a grave can hold her. Her writings breathe and pulse, holding out the impression that she lives, whatever the dates prove or the gravestone confirms” (p. 148-49).

I Told My Soul to Sing... ultimately asks its readers to consider their own poet-saints, and to revisit art that un-numbs us. LeMay  inspires us to memorize and even research these creative works  (without wanting to control them) -- and to see them as a sacred feast we can eat from as often as we like, as often as we need.  

There is mystery that will always stay mystery. How wonderful to be asked to sit with this koan, even in a world where, when we want to know something we look to Google before God.

If I were to be honest with myself, I’d also admit that when I’ve imagined the Holy Spirit during these last few years, I’ve pictured Emily Dickinson -- or, at least, a being of both fire and softness, dressed in white, the power of language always on her tongue. 

I’ve thought of myself standing for a photograph in front of the Dickinson’s homestead in Amherst, posing just below what was once Emily’s bedroom window. How often I’ve looked at that photo since, have tried to see the outline of a poet-ghost or poet-spirit in the window’s reflection. I don’t necessarily see it, but I believe—want to believe— that it’s there. 

Yes, my version of the Holy Spirit is always something/someone that can’t be fully explained tugging my life forward (if I slow down long enough to listen to where it’s telling me to turn). Today, any invitation to practice quieting our lives in mindfulness is a bird-sized triumph, winging us to something unexpected. I think both Emily and Kristin LeMay would approve.

And this is another reason I Told My Soul to Sing: Finding God with Emily Dickinson stays with me. It’s written to be digested -- really digested -- in pieces (In fact, in its intro, LeMay specifically asks her readers not to attempt to read the book in one go.) I listened to this advice and found that sometimes a whole week would pass before I picked up where I’d left off. But the re-entry with intention was usually rewarding instead of jarring. I was welcomed again by a voice I now trusted. I was introduced to another ED poem unfamiliar to me (despite two master’s degrees in creative writing). And I was asked to encounter a poem more than once per chapter, like the bell that reminds us it’s time for matins, vespers, a mindful reading of a many-layered poem. “Slow down, take your time, be called back,” the chapters and poems chant.

But I’m not reading alone: LeMay is there with her held-breath astonishment. Her prose holds a unique music of its own, a long arcing Psalm in the form of hybrid essays that also reveal copies of ED’s letters, notes, and other visual examples as part of masterful close readings. 

From the get-go, LeMay’s love of language rubs off on her reader. Whenever she begins “but at the root of this word...”, my ears perk up. I want to know more, cock my head to look at a poem or statement from a slightly different angle. Just as Emily wrote to make sense of her world and to keep her finger on the great pulse of mystery, so Kristin LeMay does the same today (And is our world that different from Emily D's?)

So instead of going to church this morning, I propped up my slipper-clad feet and spent more time with Kristin LeMay’s I Told My Soul to Sing.  My urge to  “confess” such an alternative form of Sunday morning community to someone, anyone, is proof of my thirty-something years of firm Christian upbringing. While I revel in belonging to a community, face-to-face, after years on my own faith-led road, I know that there's more than one way to be a seeker. This 2013 Lenten season, I recommend letting Kristin LeMay and Emily Dickinson show you one path, well worn between them.  

Guest blog post for The Femonite

Guest blog post on The Femonite: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?: Mothering of a Different kind.

Breathing out, breathing in: Some book-and-arts tour highlights!

A "Creative (M)othering" workshop in Kidron, Ohio (July, 2012)

The past six months sent a blur of unfortunate (and sometimes sad) events. Imagine black walnut trees falling on houses, beloved grandfathers passing away, broken ankles, cat's tails getting accidentally cut off, and cars deciding to stop working in the middle of a city highway... At one particularly low point, my husband started muttering about Job.

But something happened in the midst of our long season of weighty matters: for the first time in our 4-year marriage, we laughed in the midst of constant chaos and loss. We laughed a lot. We held on to each other. We let the day end, and we started over when we took long swigs of strong coffee the next morning. Last night, we walked to the end of our driveway'a hill to watch the clouds lit from behind with melon-gold light. It felt good to be standing there, still and still standing after the storm, in a light we could not explain or take for granted.

Sometimes, after I finally (finally!) finesse a poem onto paper, after I've arm-wrestled images, revised a line thirty times, can see a bit of myself--or, on a good day, the world I want to be part of--in a strange new light--I get a similar feeling. Some of the hard part is over (until the next hard part surfaces, at least).

In June and July, I zig-zagged to book-and-arts tour events that gave more to me than I could ever give in a reading or workshop. I met people who have changed me. I read in the Big Apple with extraordinary friends, visited Vermont and New Jersey, and sang for peace at a folk festival. I came to rest in the fields that raised me, surprised and elated that Ohio's Amish country can draw 30 people to a poetry reading!

What's next? That's the exciting question. Some things are in the words (ha! what a slip--in the works) but I'm always on the look-out for ideas.

A few summer book-and-arts tour highlights:

WOUB radio interview with poet and host Wendy McVicker. (Link to show.)
Photo by Elliot Nicolson.

Signing a book at Orrville, Ohio reading.

Performing at the 2012 MennoFolk Festival as "strange light."

                                                     

                                                      My mom and I both offered workshops
                              for Mennonite teens at the Ohio Conference Youth Retreat.

Bennington College Alumni House w/ some MFA classmates. O second family.

Program from a June reading in NYC at the Cornelia St. Cafe--what a night! I still get shivers.

Feeding Community: What Undergrads Taught Me This Quarter

After treating my body to its first Thai massage across town yesterday, I meandered home in the sunshine, passing an organic/local-vore bakery, road-side piles of garbage and old furniture left by hordes of exiting undergrads, a couple of left-over students tanning themselves in their front yard while giving their dog beer, and, just as I crested our hill, something I'd never seen before: hummingbird roadkill (!)

This rich and zany diversity often marks a typical day in Athens, Ohio. As a writer, most of the time I am incredibly grateful to live in a place that continually surprises me--even if it happens to also be home to this year's "#1 party school."

I had a tough quarter of teaching undergrads this spring. And I mean tough. Mostly blank, angry stares and deliberately mediocre work. I began to doubt this town, the power of words, the point of a college education. And while I hope at least a few of my English students will take something with them from their required composition course, I know that others were quite happy to get their C+ and just move on.

Here's what saved my sanity this spring, not to mention a belief that there are people out there--even undergrads, perhaps especially undergrads--who can change the world for the better: an Arts for Ohio grant project called "Feeding Community" that I co-wrote/directed with my amazing artist neighbor, Danielle.

Our project paired student papermaking artists with literary artists and had one goal in mind: tell the local food movement story through collaboration.

Over 135 hours of student work later, here's some proof of the end results: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peaspoet/sets/72157629970013072/

Singing for Peace: An Interview with Wendy Chappell-Dick

Wendy Chappell-Dick

When I first met Wendy Chappell-Dick, I was an elementary school camper with a blonde bowl haircut and coke-bottle glasses at Michigan’s Camp Friedenswald. Wendy was often on staff, and I found myself drawn to her luminous and confident spirit. As both my parents will attest, I was in awe of Wendy because she treated me as a creative equal—and because she sang with more emotion than anyone I’d ever met.

I reconnected with Wendy at a 2002 Mennofolk music festival she helped to coordinate at Friedenswald. In my early twenties then, I felt distanced from my faith community. But the experience of that Mennofolk affirmed that artists and musicians have a place at the Mennonite table.

This year’s Mennofolk Bluffton, slated for July 6-8, will donate proceeds to The Iraqi Student Project, The Wounded Warrior Fund, Military Counseling by the German Mennonite Peace Committee, and military recruitment counseling here at home in the hopes of helping to heal the wounds of war.  I wanted to know more about this annual event, so I turned to Wendy Chappell-Dick. She graciously answered a few questions in the midst of planning and publicizing for Mennofolk Bluffton.

Sour Cherry Pie

Becca: How has music helped to shape your faith and to live that faith out in the world?

Wendy: When I was a little girl my mother always told me that I never needed to be afraid to sing in church. She told me to look out into the congregation and to remember that everyone there is loving me, so I didn’t have to feel shy or embarrassed. That was extremely influential and allowed me to develop a deep love of sharing singing and playing as a form of worship. It also shaped my faith in that I learned to see church as a loving place, a place where a community of people is there to accept and embrace you rather than to judge or reject. I think this is a very Anabaptist way of seeing music—not one person up there as an individual singing about their individual faith, but it is an act that happens within the congregation as part of the whole body of Christ.

Becca: Today, there are several different Mennofolk festivals and concert series in Canada and the U.S., all organized by separate groups of people. How did Mennofolk originally start?

Wendy: In Southern Ontario in the late 1980s, there was a lot of talk about community among young Mennonites, and lots of music and art happening. But those ideals and activities weren’t happening within churches. Many young people didn’t choose to be involved with a congregation at all. A young adult pastor named Fred Martin envisioned a weekend gathering of Mennonite and ex-Mennonite young adults and their friends in a festival setting where their ideals could be expressed through music and art with no stipulations. I was a college student at Conrad Grebel at that time, and I attended the first festival Fred organized. It was a beautiful weekend of camping and sharing ourselves as we really were— with no mandated theology or religious expectations. The odd and magical thing about it was how spiritual it ended up being. When people were invited to share what was within them, Mennonite values and echoes of their spiritual Anabaptist roots were undeniable. Now, almost 25 years later, many of those early Menno-folkers are involved with Mennonite churches and institutions. However, at that time, Mennofolk was the only space within the church where we felt we belonged.

Becca: Mennofolk is taking place in Bluffton, Ohio this July. I’ve noticed that the information describing this event immediately reminds us that Mennofolk is not just for Mennonites. Can you expand on this idea?

Heather Kropf
Photo by Kristi Jan Hoover

Wendy: Although Fred Martin thought of Mennofolk as a space to reach out to disenfranchised Mennonite youth, it has really grown beyond that as a form of outreach. As much as we as Mennonites want to be friendly and welcoming, our theology and history of being “separate from the world,” and our tendency to cling to our ethnic traditions and focus on intellectual development can be off-putting to regular folks looking for a church home. One of the most effective ways to break down barriers is music. And one of the most special and marvelous gifts Mennonites offer as a faith community is their music. Even though Mennofolk transcends music written only for church, the musicians that come from the cradle of the Mennonite church are usually steeped in a unique harmonic sensibility and a value of group singing over individual glory. Whether our musicians are playing bluegrass, folk, or rock and roll, the same thing happens at Mennofolk today as did at the very beginning: a sense of spirituality, a love of peace, and the warmth of community dominates the festival. Anyone can be part of that experience, even those who would have no interest in going into a church service or looking into Mennonite history or theology. And the fact is, though they rarely are full time professionals, Mennofolk musicians are incredibly good at what they do. The music is fantastic, and the public responds to that. On the last day of the festival attendees will be invited to hear more from their favorite performers by joining several local church services structured around the hymn “When in Our Music God is Glorified.”

Becca: In your opinion, what can the arts (and music especially) offer the larger Mennonite church?

Nayla

Wendy: I think music has already enhanced and helped create the Mennonite church, from the early hymns of the martyrs to the four-part singing and chorals that were adopted later and embraced as central vessels that help our spirits soar. However, I do think it is interesting that most of the musicians who are involved with Mennofolk do not have a space to share their music in church. They are playing in coffeehouses, farmers markets, recording on their computers, but they are not being utilized in worship settings. We have so many excellent songwriters, yet very few Mennonite composers and writers are represented in our hymnals and Mennonite camp songs.

Becca: What have been the most rewarding parts of being involved in Mennofolk?

Wendy: I have been part of organizing seven Mennofolk festivals over the years. And I have hundreds of stories of grace and love that have manifested themselves through the events and music of Mennofolk. I remember the young Shawnee woman who saw the publicity about Mennofolk and contacted me to try to learn about her mysterious Mennonite ancestor and ended up doing a concert with her Native American flute. Or the young man I met playing in a bar whose music I loved… I said to him “too bad you’re not Mennonite, because I’d love to book you for a festival!” He shyly told me that he had recently started attending a Mennonite church, was feeling many changes in his life, and was desperately trying to find venues to play his music that were alcohol-free and songs that were not focused on objectification of women. He went on to play at several Mennofolks and found a network of other musicians through the experience. I’ve seen great bands such as The Steel Wheels and Over the Rhine that have gone on to commercial success, and I’ve enjoyed some of the best music I’ve ever heard from people who only sing in their living rooms.

Readers can find out more information about Mennofolk Bluffton, including performers and registration, at http://www.mennofolk.org/bluffton/.