Rainer Maria Rilke

On Solitude:
"Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust."

On Christ:
"Why don't you think of him (Christ) as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? What keeps you from projecting his birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy? Don't you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn't it be His beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful? If he is the most perfect one, must not what is less prefect precede him, so that he can choose himself out of fullness and superabundance? - Must not he be the last one, so that he can include everything in himself, and what meaning would we have if he whom we are longing for has already existed?"
- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Rilke is moving me and losing me in the vast solitude he praises, it's petrifying and beautiful. And I wonder, could we each be simply living a day of the great pregnancy which will reach it's fullness in Christ's birth? What do you think?

My Mind and My Travels

I hardly know where to begin this post. I've actually been putting it off, because it feels like reporting a list of events, and not actually thinking anything. And who wants to read a list?

Let's try and get the list out of the way quickly: we went to San Fran, I wandered around Market and Mission and we went to a Giants game. That's 2 pro baseball games on this trip. I don't even follow baseball.

Then we moved north seeking the Pacific Ocean, and found it. And it was very, very cold. We tried to stay in a hostel, but it was full and found ourselves camping for $10 night, not bad. We also picked up a "friend" who was very interesting! He wore pirate shorts, and nothing else, we talked about how he would sum up the world with the word "Huh?" and about pot. He slept on our picknick table at the campsite. It was Friday night, and since we were already where we needed to be, we tried to head up to the vineyard we were supposed to start working. But they wouldn't let us come until Monday. So we spent 3 nights camping and hanging out, bathing in the lake. The nights got mighty cold for camping.

When we finally got to the vineyard, we were greeted with "Hey you're here, put up this clothesline." Basically the folks we were working for were miserable people who couldn't afford regular work crews and were using WWOOFers to do harvest for them. The other workers were most interested in smoking up and drinking, but they were just fine, we enjoyed them. We only stayed for 3 days and then ran away in the middle of the night to escape the bosses and "slavery", and laughing to ourselves that they had actually made us afraid! We went back across the state to the Catholic Worker, where people are glad you are there, feed you well and treat you with basic dignity.

We contacted the ranch we had plans with next, and asked if we could show up early, and they gave us the go ahead. We arrived Saturday night, to horses, milk cows, and wide open spaces in the Nevada desert.

In the midst of all this it's tough to figure out how I see God at work, what I am learning, what the point in any of it might be. I've been having lessons in learning to simply be, sitting beside a lake with nowhere else to be, may be enviable, but it can also make one feel wasteful. Is being quiet and unproductive wasteful?

I've been rereading The New Friars and asking this time what I can apply to the life I am already living. I don't want to be immobilized by it's radical call, I want to be changed. And I'm asking God to make next steps a little clearer, I have the ideas I've been thinking about, but I want to be sure He is leading, not me. And then there is learning how to communicate well with others, how to put others first. Trying to remember that God wants to work the fruit of the Spirit into my life, and that I must seek first the Kingdom.

My brain and heart are in as much a whirlwind as the traveling and working we've been doing.

Next Things

We're moving on today, after a month here at the Catholic Worker we're making tracks. Heading to San Fran today, see a Giants game tomorrow, maybe visit a new friend who happens to be a priest. Go to the ocean, and then on to a winery north of San Fran to pick grapes for about 10 days before we head back this way and on to Reno to check out a cattle and horse ranch! After all the uncertainty of where we were going to head next, a way has been made. New farms, new places, new things! And by the way, it's still really warm.

At the Catholic Worker

Life these last 2 weeks has been seemingly normal. All the while containing none of my usual activities, none of the usual people. Unusual food. Unusual work and chores. Unusual trips to Big Trees park and Yosemite.
I've been working at a Catholic Worker farm in Sheep Ranch California. We're 45min from any sort of town, but only 3 hours from a long list of great places to see in California.
My mornings start with a 9am meeting over "coppuccinnos" where we discuss the days work, the differences between mennonites, catholics, quakers and whatever category I fit into. We dig or back fill for various projects around the farm. Harvest veggies. Turn compost. Built a raised garden bed. Chuck rocks. Work on my tan. Sit and watch the chickens run free for 2hours a day. And then stop for lunch and dinner, using the garden's proceeds to try and come up with yet another creative connoction.
Our home doesn't lock, doesn't have much electricity at night, and won't promise you hot water. We have baby chicks, complete with the smell of baby chicks, in a corner of the house. And big black ants attack the toilet each night, swarming it. Only to be gone again come morning. We spend each night trying to find things to do to fill the night, trying to not go to bed at 9:30pm. I've finished the The Kite Runner and Spiritual Direction. My skin is often black, my nails too. I'm building calluses on my hands. I'm dealing with the critters and the snake in the garden.
But nothing feels out of the ordinary. This is just where I am. What I'm doing. Who I'm with. At least for the next 2 weeks.

Next

Since Portland we've been seeing a lot of the road, a lot of the sea and lot of fog. We never managed to find the somewhat secret Hobbit Trail, but settled on a beach with a lighthouse instead. We wimped out, and spent the wet and cold night in a cheap motel, did laundry, charged electronic devices. Functional and wise choices. The next day we drove for 45min before we realized we'd already passed our plans for the day, we turned around and drove 1hr back, and realized we didn't have exact change for the park pass. So we drove again back to town to get change, and drove back to Oregon Dunes park. We ended up back in the same town we'd spent the night for a late lunch in a fabulous cafe that seriously raised the stocks of that little town, and drove south through Denmark, and into California. And then we did the unthinkable, spent 2 nights in one place! The Hostel in the Redwood National Park is delightful, and so are the trees. So we spent 2 nights, in the fog, across from a ferocious beach. This morning we hit the road on time and spent the day driving south again, our destination: San Francisco. We stopped along the way at a roadside attraction known as the "Hill of Confusion" which "bends" gravity, and I'm still dizzy. Gotta run...

So Far

It was a dramatic, disappointing and weary wait for this whole adventure to start. But here we are in Portland, one week since we left GP. Having perused Seattle's Pike Market, hiked 2 of our planned trails, seen Cape Disappointment (and toasted life's disappointments), and found a Kite Flying Festival on the world's longest beach. We've got lost along the mountain roads to Mt. St. Helen's, which were wildly unmarked and inconsistent with the map. Slept within 15ft of the most prolific train route known to man. White water rafted a class 3 and 4 river and gone over a waterfall, on purpose. Seen the world's 3rd tallest waterfall, Multnomah Falls. And eaten fiery hot Thai food in Portland, Oregon.
Today we move on down the coast, we reconnect with the 101 and all it's twists and turns. We get to frolic in the ocean, see the sand dunes and track the Hobbit Trail to a hidden beach.