jump into the river baby

I was barely halfway listening to the indie rock band Local Natives playing in the background, concentrating on the never-ending task of clearing my inbox. Then unexpectedly, a line caught my attention:

“Jump into the river baby

Easy as it sounds

It's never quite as easily done”

jumping into Rio Frio, Leakey, TX

I was so intrigued and thankful for the worthwhile excuse to procrastinate even further, that I took the time to look up the rest of the lyrics to “Who knows, Who Cares.” I found it impossible to resist the insight of the tune and its cleverly misleading title:

“You could let it down

Jump into the river baby

Easy as it sounds

It's never quite as easily done

The current has us now, it's okay

Take into account that it's all about to change

Who knows, who cares”

What a great metaphor for life, and in particular, for our spiritual journey. Easy as it sounds, it's never quite as easily done...

Yet faith is surely the ability to trust the river of life, to trust our loving Father, or paraphrasing Franciscan Richard Rohr, to trust the Flow, and the Lover.

Local Natives, "Who knows, who cares"

recorded live in Stockholm, 2013

mercy

image from A Circle of Friends

“Our personal lives and the lives of so many people are deeply affected by the staggering lack of forgiveness in our world. People are held captive by revenge and bitterness, by hostility and alienation…
 Lack of forgiveness—the showing of mercy to others—sabotages our ability to love. And without unfettered love in our lives, we distance ourselves from God and from others, often ending in a deep estrangement from the loving person we are called to be by God.”

~Edward O’Donnell, OCD,

 in Spiritual Life, Fall 2012

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Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great/And would suffice.

~Fire and Ice,

by Robert Frost

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praying at Mass

Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala

“We know now in what way Christ would live in our humanity. Not as One who, having proved his love, has gone back to his Father leaving us a sealed tomb, but as One who, having tasted to the full the joys and sorrows of human nature, having embraced the grief of mankind, having drained death to the last bitter dregs, sets his wounded feet in the dust again, takes bread into his wounded hands again, and seizing a doubting friend’s hand, thrusts I into his sounded heart; as though saying by his every act to all who would ever tremble and doubt: “I did not wipe the tears from the face of sorrow to lay sorrow by. I did not touch pain with fierce redeeming beauty to have done with it; I cannot give myself into the arms of death to cast death aside! I made all these things my own that the glory I gave to them should be yours, that while they remain with you, I shall remain with them.” He has taken all those things to himself, and has changed them all for us.”

~Caryll Houselander, as quoted in Magnificat, April 7, 2013

el Papa Francisco, John Denver, and Angelina county, Tejas

It’s a good day for random thoughts, of which I seem to have many. 

Image from Just Call me Frank

Here are three of them:

#1, I loved the recent Catholic News Service article highlighting some favorites of el Papa Francisco, as listed in "Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio" by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti, originally published in 2010 as "El Jesuita" ("The Jesuit")—and not yet available in English.

Tango. Soccer. Poetry by Friedrich Holderlin. Anything by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Argentine Jorge Luis Borges. Thérèse of Lisieux. And the 1987 movie "Babette's Feast."

Got to love this guy!

You can read the rest of the article here.

#2, did you know that only one county in the Lone Star state is named after a woman?  Angelina County, seated in Lufkin, is the only one of the state’s 254 counties named after a woman—a girl, really. Each of the other 253 Texas counties is named for a man or a geographical landmark.

Angelina was a Hainai Indian girl who welcomed the first Spanish explorers and priests to East Texas in 1690. They called her Angelina—“Little Angel”—and she adopted the name. Angelina National Forest and the Angelina River also bear her name. 

I married a Texan and three of my four children were born in Austin. Yes, I do love Texas trivia!

And #3, If you enjoy John Denver and remember his music as much as I do, you will love a new tribute record just out: The Music Is You, showcasing some of Denver's most beloved songs and performed by a cross-genre, cross-generational and impressive mix of musicians — including Lucinda Williams, Josh Ritter, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris.

You may recall that Denver died 15 years ago when the single-engine plane he was piloting crashed off the coast of California. 

It took me a bit to adjust to this collection of voices performing Denver songs, but it didn’t stop me from singing along. I can still remember the lyrics to most all of them! I also realized that taking away Denver’s familiar voice even helped me “hear” the songs with a new set of ears.

Surely, there’s a metaphor for the spiritual life in there, too?!

The Music is You: trailer #4