Deep Water

"Way out on the deep blue sea

Let the waves just carry me, to deep, deep water

To deep, deep water"

--Sarah Hawker
"Deep Water"

I fell in love with a song last week. I discovered it by accident while searching for another song on YouTube. It's called "Deep Water" and it's written by Sarah Hawker and performed beautifully by Sarah and her singing partner Debra Clifford, The Lonesome Sisters. I fell in love with them too, because when I posted on their Facebook page how much I loved the song, they responded with genuine gratitude. How charming is that? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_j4UWcX-Hc

I love this song for its simple guitar arrangement and its beautiful harmonies. I love it because it's the type of song I love to sing most: A beautiful ballad with harmonies just crying out to be sung. Harmonizing with other singers is nothing short of a spiritual experience for me. It connects me to another person in a way that I can't put into words. I feel like our blended voices become more than the sum of their parts. Together they become a whole new voice, part of us, but outside of us too. And I have been fortunate enough to have this wonderful experience with some very special people. In just a couple of days I will have it again with my lovely friend, Ellen, who has the purest most beautiful soprano voice I have ever known. She is truly a songbird in human form. And I am grateful for the opportunity to sing with her again before she flies her songbird self off to Iowa for a fresh start in her life.

But there are other reasons the song "Deep Water" spoke to me. So often I am afraid to tread deep water, to spend time there letting the waves just carry me. Give me an oar and let me shout directions. Don't just leave me there to float on the waves. And yet sometimes that's where I need to be. I try so hard to be in control, to be the captain of my little vessel on the wide blue sea. But, while I can chart a course, stockpile supplies, gather together a crew, so often it is the waves that show me where I need to go. I love the first verse of the song.

All my intentions and all of my plans
and all of my maps to far distant lands
Float lifeless across the oceans darkened floor
The broken compass of my lonely dreams
Lays buried beneath a shipwreck of schemes
The sound of the wind on the water is all that remains

The sound of the wind on the water is all that remains, not maps or GPS or compasses. The sound of the wind on the water. What happens when we listen to the wind on the waves of our longings, our dreams?  When we are faced with big questions that do not have easy answers, what would happen if we let go of the tiller for awhile and let the waves carry us?  

There is a beautiful poem by poet John O'Donohue called "For Longing." One of my favorite lines in the poem is:

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into
   your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants
   you to take.

Deep water. Thank you Sarah Hawker and Debra Clifford for the beautiful song, and for the gentle reminder that it is ok to let go of the helm sometimes, to let the waves carry us. In fact, it's more than ok. It's what we need.

The Lonesome Sisters singing the hymn, "Bright Morning Stars" on the front porch. Good stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW00jOvwg3M&feature=related

Clarity $1.99

"Imagination gets a test 
at the place I love the best.
How could I get dressed 
without a thrift shop?"

-- Dan Zanes

I found Clarity for $1.99. Who knew it would be so cheap? Here I'd been walking around in a muddle of confusion and indecision and there was clarity, right in front of me. It was on the sale rack even, blue letters on a black T-shirt: Clarity.

It's a sickness for me, really, thrift store shopping. It's an addiction and I'm a big time junkie. The fact that I own at least five black skirts is just a hint of the depth of this addiction. Don't even get me started on shirts and shoes. My bulging closet and dresser cannot contain the dirty little secrets of my habit.

I don't like shopping retail. The merchandise is designed to taunt shoppers. And it makes me feel inadequate, shabby. I'm reminded of my Glamour magazine days when I believed that if I just had the right clothes and hair, everything else in my life would magically fall into place. Retail stores try to tell me how I "should"  look, not necessarily how I want to look. Besides, I can never afford the clothes I really like so it just ends up being an exercise in unrequited longing. Who needs it!

Thrift store shopping, however, is always brimming with possibility. I rarely go in looking for a specific item, but I usually shop with a specific mood. There's the sensible-work-clothes mood. The creative-singing-gig mood. The outdoorsy-camping mood. The walk-on-the-beach mood. The let's-try-something-completely-different mood. Of course the let's-try-something-completely-different mood can sometimes lead to the what-the-hell-was-I-thinking-mood, but there's no serious harm done.

The day I found clarity on the sale rack for $1.99 was a delight. After all, rarely do we find clarity when we set out looking for it. Don't get me wrong. You have to look. You always have to be looking. But we tend to find clarity when we patiently sift through a lot of possibilities. We have to wrestle with desire, longing for the silky blouse that's not your size instead of the soft, comfy shirt that is. We have to be adventurous, willing to  take risks to open up new possibilities. We have to learn to tell the difference between cheap thrills and quality merchandise. And know that every now and then we should go with a cheap thrill, just for the fun of it. 

Finding clarity (or love, or hope, or wisdom, or inspiration...) is a lot like thrift store shopping. Go in with an open mind, a sense of adventure, and a willingness to be disappointed from time to time. And keep going back! Never stop looking. You will find what you need.

Certain About Uncertainty

"When we venture into the Mystery, 

we are entering the ground of the infinite with the powers of a finite mind. 

An awe-filled agnosticism is perhaps the better part of wisdom."

-- Rev. Marilyn Sewell

I do not spend a lot of time wondering about the existence of God. But I do spend time thinking about the Mystery. And by Mystery (with a capital M) I mean all of the big questions about our place in the universe rolled up together. I think about the Mystery, not because I need to figure it all out, but because it fills me with a deep sense of awe. And in that awe I find humility and peace. 

I say this not to convince my theist or my atheist friends to question their certainty, but rather to explain that being agnostic does not mean being confused. I find it a tremendous relief to let go of the need for answers to what I believe are unanswerable questions: Does God exist? If so, what is God? What happens when we die? Why are we here in the first place? To my thinking, it is hubris to claim that we have The Truth when we cannot possibly support that claim with evidence.

But what about faith? Faith is not about proof after all. It's about trust.

Faith is beautiful when it is open and accepting. When I can say, I have my faith and you have yours and they are both possible, that is beautiful. Faith that says, this is how I understand the big questions and this is how my neighbor understands them, and there is much to be learned from both is wise. But blind faith (or faith with blinders on), faith that is afraid to question or doubt, makes me very nervous. Faith that claims to have The Truth and refuses to acknowledge the truths (small t) of another faith is divisive and too often dangerous. Faith that says I am right and you are wrong has lead to far too much human suffering and senseless violence in human history.

I did a little on-line research into agnosticism and I like this definition by Austin Cline:

"Philosophically, agnosticism can be described as being based upon two separate principles. The first principle is epistemological in that it relies upon empirical and logical means for acquiring knowledge about the world. The second principle is moral in that it insists that we have an ethical duty not to assert claims for ideas which we cannot adequately support either through evidence or logic."

It sounds a little dry I know, but that's not how it feels to me. Because not knowing the answers opens the door for wonder. And wonder can be awe-inspiring. 

What I find really awe-inspiring are moments when I feel a deep sense of connection to something larger than myself. And if I am open, these moments happen a lot: When I am walking the dog on the beach, when I am with my Unitarian Universalist community, when I am hiking in the Sierras, when I am with family and friends, when I am singing, when a baby is born or someone I love dies, in times of sadness and joy. Any time I am truly present for my life I experience that connection. Is that God? I don't know. I don't have all the answers, but I love all the questions.

Let The Mystery Be
 by Iris Dement
The perfect agnostic hymn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlaoR5m4L80

Two Paintings

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.
...live in the question.” 

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Earlier this summer I spent a lovely afternoon at the Norton Simon Museum with my friends Terri and Janis. After we'd looked at Japanese wood block prints, renaissance paintings, 18th and 19th century European art, and contemporary art for a couple of hours, Janis gave us an assignment. She said, if you could take just one painting home and hang it in your living room, which one would you choose? What a fun way to wander through a museum. I took the game to heart and revisited some of the galleries. 

I was pretty sure I wouldn't want a painting from the renaissance hanging in my living room, beautiful though they are. On the whole, they're too high church for a room that is home to a variety of books on Buddhism, Japanese manga, and Calvin and Hobbes collections. And I don't really want to be looked down upon by a portrait of the Madonna and Child or a martyred saint whenever my language gets a bit too colorful or my thoughts a bit too sinful.

Much of the 17th and 18th century art was a tad too dramatic for my taste. We don't go on a lot of fox hunts in my family. Nor do we lounge on our sofa in the nude. David With the Head of Goliath or Suicide of Cleopatra seemed a bit over the top for a room where some family members sit around in their pajamas eating cereal and reading Garfield comic books in the morning. The Impressionists are lovely, of course, but Monet and Degas remind me of my college dorm room where my roommate Laura and I also had a beer bottle display and a tacky postcard collection. 

In the end I chose two paintings. I explained to Janis that I really needed them both, because they spoke to me as a pair. She said that was OK. She's generous that way. Painted nearly 200 years apart, they both depict women lost in thought. The woman in Young Girl Writing A Love Letter, by Pietro Antonio Rotari c. 1755, wears a dreamy smile as she writes to the object of her affection. She is hopeful, full of passion and dreams. Whereas the subject in Woman With A Book, by Pablo Picasso, 1932 strikes me as more serious, perhaps wondering about the direction her life is taking, questioning her heart. I get the feeling that she isn't thinking about the book in her lap.

I bought note cards with each of these paintings at the gift shop so I could hang them together, side by side, in my house. (I thought the security guards might not approve of me moving paintings around the museum.) When I look at them, I feel a connection to these two women as they contemplate their lives, the choices they've made, the dreams they've had, the people they've loved, the direction their lives are taking. They remind me how important it is to pause, to wonder, to reflect, to ask the deepest questions of my heart, and wait patiently for the answers to unfold.

Two of my favorite women deep in thought at the Norton Simon Museum