Tag: Life on Mars

To be a human being among human beings

Life has felt large and open and raw of late, where prayers, feelings, experiences and thoughts are all super charged.

There are plenty of reasons: Ava’s stereotactic neurosurgery is on Monday; Anna turns 21 on Tuesday and Ava turns 18 in mid-February; we’ve past the half-way point in our Romans Bible studies; seminary is stirring good things up and Kelsey Spiker and I just became postulants, the next designation in the path to ordination to the priesthood; even occasional preaching is a full-body experience; gearing up for Lent small groups; and the girls had their first ever snow skiing experiences, which was a trip with Holly and her kids as well as many teen and twenty-something friends.

Life has an open feeling, which is both filling and fulfilling and taxing and shaky sometimes.

Studying for a Saturday seminary day retreat, Rev. Susie Leight has us reading and thinking about the spirituality of the priesthood, which included excerpts from Barbara Brown Taylor’s “The Preaching Life” and Gordon W. Lathrop’s “The Pastor: A Spirituality.” Lathrop recalls an experience in a Swiss airport where he read a quote on a poster from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, written in French. Lathrop translated it literally to say:

“As a profound thirst: the desire to be a human being among human beings.”

A deep and profound desire to be a human being–someone who lives and feels, who is flawed and who needs others–among human beings. To be in community and to be allowed to be fully ourselves. This is what it is to be open, to be honest, to be vulnerable, which is not instantly a comfortable place to be.

Thursday we had a class discussing Tracy K. Smith’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Life on Mars,” which is one of my favorite books. The discussion was about space and time, love, loss, grief, dancing, intimacy, language–it was flung like stars around the minds and hearts of those there. The last poem read was titled, “The Weather in Space”–

Is God being or pure force? The wind

Or what commands it? When our lives slow

And we can hold all that we love, it sprawls

In our laps like a gangly doll. When the storm

Kicks up and nothing is ours, we go chasing

After all we’re certain to lose, so alive–

Faces radiant with panic.

That is part of the challenge of being human, loss and fear are always in the mix with us. It’s a lot and sometimes we want to–I want to–shut the faucet off. But that’s not why we’re here. That’s not why I am here.

On Tuesday morning, I was thinking ahead to this weekend’s Gospel reading, which is Matthew 5:1-12, commonly known as the Beatitudes:

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he began to speak and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.“


I’ve been in a habit of looking to see if Debie Thomas has anything to say about a particular Bible passage in her book “Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories.” And reading her take on the Beatitudes, it hit me that her book would make an incredible Lent study, looking at and discussing different aspects of Jesus’s life. Here is a bit of her take on the reading:

“What Jesus bears witness to in the Beatitudes is God’s unwavering proximity to pain, suffering, sorrow, and loss. God is nearest to those who are lowly, oppressed, unwanted and broken. God isn’t obsessed with the shiny and the impressive; God is too busy sticking close to what’s messy, chaotic, unruly, and unattractive.”

She goes further:

“I think what Jesus is saying in the Beatitudes is that I have something to learn about discipleship that my privileged life circumstances will not teach me. Something to grasp about the beauty, glory, and freedom of the Christian life that I will never grasp until God becomes my all, my go-to, my starting and ending place. Something to recognize about the radical counter-intuitiveness of God’s priorities and promises. Something to notice about the obfuscating power of plenty to blind me to my own emptiness. Something to gain from the humility that says, ‘The people I think I am superior to have everything to teach me. Maybe it’s time to pay attention.'”

If I want to be a human being among human beings, I have to be open to, to learn from, to love, those whom God loves: everyone. More than that, if as followers of Christ, we look to do God’s work in the world, we have to be, we have to show, we have to act out in faith the love that God makes real here and now, especially to those who feel alienated or shut off from it.

In teaching the Beatitudes, Jesus is turning the world and what we think we know about it, on its head. This is something he does frequently in his teachings and his parables. We should ask why.

Next week we will discuss poet Joy Harjo’s book “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.” In “Talking with the Sun,” she writes:

After dancing all night in a circle we realize that we are a
part of a larger sense of stars and planets dancing with us
overhead.
When the sun rises at the apex of the ceremony, we are
renewed.
There is no mistaking this connection, though Walmart
might be just down the road.
Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the
earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of
meaning.

To be a human being among human beings is also to be human in and as a part of God’s Creation. Which He asks us to be stewards of, to take care of.

Humans are vulnerable and rely on kindnesses. When I try to live with my heart open, I have a greater sense of, and gratitude for these kindnesses–kindnesses that can come from anywhere and anyone. Any one of us. Even me.

The world we return to

Thankfully, life rarely comes down to desert island preferences. You know the scenarios: if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have five albums, or if you could only eat one kind of food, or if you had to watch one movie, and on and on. But they make for great conversation scenarios. You get to know someone by cutting through all the white noise and cocktail party chatter and learn something about what is important to that person. And those questions often circle back to things like music, food, books–things that open up something about what we love.

Here is one for me: if I could only read one genre of writing for the rest of my life, it would be poetry. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t need the Final Jeopardy music playing, I can say that instantly. Poetry fills my soul, speaks to my heart, and expands my mind in ways that no other kind of writing can.

This time last year, John Miller and I led a course through Chesapeake Forum: An Academy for Lifelong Learning, on how poetry connected us to and helped us understand what it is to be human. The class was held on Zoom, had close to 30 participants from multiple states including Georgia and Florida, and it was a fantastic experience, with insightful and searching questions and comments from those taking the class. I wrote about our time together in Tidewater Times Magazine.

When John and I thought about what poets to discuss for that class, we went with some of the well-known writers; it’s maybe a stretch to say that a poet other than Shakespeare can be a household name, but Milton, Blake, and Wordsworth are close. Talking about a class for this winter and what poets read and talk about, we had a different approach.

Poetry often seems to be the realm of old, dead white guys. What if for a follow up, we let people know that poetry is as meaningful, powerful, and relevant today, that poetry matters and has a much broader range of accomplished writers than those from the past. Let’s look at three living women of color who are carrying on the mantel.

Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Rita Dove have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and just about any other recognition you can think of for their writing. And they have each served as Poet Laureates of the United States.

Smith’s book, “Life on Mars,” Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” and Dove’s “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” have come out in 2011, 2015, and 2022: they are recent, relevant, and are evidence that these writers, these women, are wrestling with and trying to make sense out of life, experience, and so many of the alienating forces at work in the world. These are writers, and books, that belong on our bookshelves and in our hearts and minds as we try to walk through life doing the same.

Our class, “Poetry Matters!” will meet on Zoom, Thursdays January 26, February 2, and February 9, from 10:00 to 11:30am. If it sounds like something you are interested in, you can register by clicking on the link.

I go back to Robin Williams’ line from the movie Dead Poets Society frequently because I think it says it so powerfully:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Or maybe we give the floor to Tracy K. Smith, the first poet we will read and discuss in our class. “Life on Mars” is a book that took a hold of me from the first time I picked it up. Smith’s father was an engineer on the Hubble Telescope, which is something that comes out in her searching and brilliant poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars.” You can read more about Smith and hear her read from that poem at the link.

Smith talks about why she loves poetry:


That’s a lofty but worthwhile goal. It’s part of the hope of a class like this: that the world we return to after reading and discussing Smith, Harjo, and Dove might seem fuller and more comprehensible as a result.

Life in Three Books

Books are time travel devices on their own. But when you take a book off your shelf that you have read, all kinds of associated memories come rolling back. Re-reading three books this week, weaving in and out of time, life comes up.

I first learned about T.H. White’s novel “The Once and Future King” from one of the X-Men movies where Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier has his students reading it (that was X2 in 2003). I’ve loved King Arthur stories and legends since I was a kid–when I was 9 years old I named our new Golden Retriever “Morgan” after King Arthur’s devious half-sister Morgan Le Fay. So it didn’t take much prompting, finding out White’s novel was a modern, moving, funny re-telling of the Arthur story, I was all in. My brother-in-law mentioned he’s given more copies of that book to people than any other book and he named a bearded dragon King Pellinore after White’s version of the character.

Merlyn is phenomenal, from his physical introduction in the story, to his life philosophies:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

Learn why the world wags and what wags it.

I’ve started the book maybe three times over the years, read 100+ or 200+ pages and life has happened in a way that has made me put it down, despite being drawn in.

2018 was the last time I tried to make time to read “The Once and Future King.” I found a note I left myself on page 154–that is where I stopped. This past week, studying the Pre-Reformation Church in England for seminary, Sir Thomas Malory’s “Morte D’Arthur” was discussed and a quick line about White’s updated telling. That was enough to motivate me. I started again and knocked out 30 pages this morning, making a goal to finish it before the end of the year.

Photo from Smith reading from “Life on Mars” at “The Universe in Verse” with Maria Popova.

Sitting on the campus of the National War College in DC 10 years ago, I read Tracy K. Smith’s “Life on Mars” on my lunch breaks. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. My mind was thrown open and my jaw was frequently dropped while reading.

My friend John Miller and I are going to lead a discussion on Smith’s book in January and February for Chesapeake Forum. I grabbed my copy from the bookshelf in my bedroom and the bookmark I had in the book was my ordering receipt from Barnes and Noble, May 2012. I have lived in three houses since the house it was delivered to.

This morning I read this, from the poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars”–

…I want to be
One notch below bedlam, like a radio without a dial.
Wide open, so everything floods at once.
And sealed tight, so nothing escapes. Not even time,
Which should curl in on itself and loop around like smoke.


Reading today, what I read 10 years ago, finding the receipt with an old address on it from what feels like a different life, time did curl in on itself.

“My God, It’s Full of Stars” is how I feel every time I look up at a clear night sky.

The last book doesn’t go back so far, but it washes over me in new ways each time I read it. I found Rowan Williams’ “Being Christian” in 2019 and have led three classes using it for perspective on what the things we do as Christians are all about. This fall we have 20 people in our newcomers class at Christ Church Easton, a new group of folks wading through Williams. Last week, we talked about baptism, but the former Archbishop of Canterbury goes deeper than most of us go. He talks about how we have lost our identities, we have let go of them. Our default settings aren’t the way they should be. Enter Jesus.

“And when Jesus arrives on the scene he restores humanity to where it should be. But that in itself means that Jesus, as he restores humanity ‘from within’ (so to speak), has come down into the chaos of our human world. Jesus had to come down fully to our level, where things are shapeless and meaningless, in a state of vulnerability and unprotectedness, if real humanity is to come to birth.

“This suggests that the new humanity that is created around Jesus is not a humanity that is always going to be successful and in control of things, but a humanity that can reach out its hand from the depths of chaos, to be touched by the hand of God.”

Baptism is going down into the chaos and coming up as new people, in a new relationship with God in Christ. Not as perfect or flawless, but one where we can reach out to be touched by God. That’s not generally what we think about when we attend a baptism, though it’s all right there in the vows.

Williams has this wonderful way of looking at the kind of life that is begun anew through baptism:

A life that gives us resources and strength to ask questions; a life that reconciles and builds bridges and repairs broken relationships–a life that reflects God’s wisdom and order. That sounds like a life worth living.

My mind moves forwards and backwards in time re-reading books, wandering through memories, and leaning into both goals and daydreams. “Once and Future,” stands out as a phrase that touches on something about that.

For those of us who have been in and around Easton for any time, Waterfowl Festival is an event that moves in both directions as well. As a kid, I watched my mom cut greens and decorate buildings and saw my dad cooking and serving food with the Kiwanis Club in town. Over the years, it’s been a fun reason to either walk through town as a spectacle, or avoid town altogether.

For the past six years (of my life, the church has been doing it much longer), Waterfowl Festival has meant Christ Church coming together to decorate, to serve food, to be together, to raise funds that go back out into the community, where they are needed. That points to Williams’ idea of a communal life that “looks toward reconciliation, building bridges, repairing shattered relationships.” It’s a step in the right direction. It’s among the work we are sent out to do.