the resurrection fern.

sometimes i'm struck by songs. often i'm struck by plants. in keeping with my unrelenting fascination for plants and what they mean to our lives, i'll share today's favorite song.

this morning i turned on the shepherd's dog, sam beam's latest release as folk phenom iron and wine. in the middle of the album lies a beautiful song called 'resurrection fern.' definitely song of the day (thanks, casey). i just happened to have brother mark on gmail chat, and he directed me to paste's review of the album, where i discovered some interesting biologie about the resurrection fern. it turns out that the resurrection fern is an epiphyte (non parasitic, and does not grow in the ground. like the ghost orchid) that grows on the branches of cypress and live oak trees. it's name is derived from it's ability to survive long periods of drought. when there is no rain, the ferns will curl up their undersides and turn brown, appearing dead. then, when the slightest bit of moisture is present, it will immediately 'resurrect' and restore itself to it's rich green color. with ferns, most water is absorbed on the undersides of the leaf blades, making the resurrection fern particularly clever. these plants can lose almost all their water which is needed to hydrate cells and still survive. botanists have long held that the resurrection fern could go 100 years without water and still revive after just one shower.

there is a line of ancient live oaks about four blocks from my house that have resurrection ferns living on their branches. i wish i could share them with you, but , alas, i have no camera.

it's not hard to see how this remarkable plant can translate into our lives. it's a beautiful thing to ponder, with endless extrapolations, but today i'll let you draw your own conclusions. i'll leave you with mr. beam's poetry.
get the song, if you can, and listen to it while you read these words:

in our days we will live
like our ghosts will live:
pitching glass at the cornfield crows
and folding clothes

like stubborn boys across the road
we'll keep everything:
grandma's gun and the black bear claw
that took her dog

when sister Laurie says, "Amen"
we won't hear anything:
the ten-car trains will take that word
that fledgling bird

and the fallen house across the way
it'll keep everything:
the baby's breath
our bravery wasted and our shame

and we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
all the more a pair of underwater pearls
than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

in our days we will say
what our ghosts will say:
we gave the world what it saw fit
and what'd we get?

like stubborn boys with big green eyes
we'll see everything:
in the timid shade of the autumn leaves
and the buzzard's wing

and we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire
all the more a pair of underwater pearls
than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

pay what you will for paste.

so my brother mark works for this great magazine called paste. he's the production coordinator, whatever that means. i'm still not sure what he does there, aside from hosting stella artois and knob creek parties, and watching tivo'd office episodes on flatscreen tv's.

if you've never heard of or picked up a paste, you're missing out. it's a terrific magazine, geared mostly towards music, but also includes articles and reviews about films and books. it's hard to compare it to another magazine, but if i must, i'd compare it to rolling stone. just take a rolling stone, remove the articles that came from people magazine, hire tasteful writers who write tasteful articles, and you've got paste. so, if you like being up to date with music, film, and books, today you're in for a treat. inspired by the unusual release of the latest radiohead album, paste is offering 'pay-what-you-want' subscriptions for the next two weeks. you can get a year's subscription for $1, and give as many gift subscriptions as you like. the general philosophy is that they would rather have ten new subcribers for $10 rather than two people paying $5.

pretty cool, i think.

www.pastemagazine.com

new blogger, new blogs.

so dad has covertly begun not one, but two blogs. at first i was shocked, as many of you will be. once i thought about it, though, i realized that blogging is the perfect outlet for him. he loves to think and pray and write, and he's a good teacher. i'm happy he's started doing this. if for nothing else, it's one more thing he and i can share.

the first one, called dicristina (i agree, dad, such a beautiful name!), is associated with two classes he teaches at Church of the Apostles, but has theological and personal musings as well. COTA is the anglican church where dad has been moseying back into ministry for last several months, and he seems to really enjoy it. the second blog is called the restoration project, and focuses on community bible readings from COTA and is designed to be a devotional.
keep up the good work, pops.

my father is a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. he is an ordained anglican priest in the diocese of rwanda, a devoted husband, and proud father of three.

he is a good man, and i am very proud to be my father's son.

nation, rejoice!

so the sox have begun their annihilation of the rockies with an emphatic 13-1 thrashing earlier tonight.

i'll leave you to ponder the greatness that will be with this stunning likeness of papi. brother mark sent me the photo. so funny and great.

to love thine enemies.

so i've been having a difficult time at work lately because of a broken relationship with an individual who has made it his mission to intentionally, vindictively, and publicly insult me. honestly, i've never had to deal with someone who i've felt hated me, and i'm quite conflicted as to how to handle my situation.

as a christian, i have long listened to the words of Jesus, from his sermon on the mount, when he taught us that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. this must be one of the most difficult things to do, christian or not. to love someone who despises you goes against every human inclination and social norm. we feel justified in snubbing those who disrespect us, and yet our Savior's words remain: love them.

why is loving ones enemies so terribly, terribly difficult? oh, to be a peacemaker! i have desired so deeply to love my colleague in spite of this breach of relationship, but i don't. i feel i can't. Lord, give me strength.

archbishop emmanuel kolini once told me a story about how the people of rwanda were learning to forgive and love one another through the horrible atrocities perpetrated and received. clearly, their struggles have been severe, making reconciliation seemingly impossible. yet somehow i can't find the strength to love someone who is giving me a hard time at work.

similarly, my friend ziya meral, a turk i met in toronto last year, has made it his aim to work to reconcile his people with the people of armenia, despite the near century-long discord between the two countries (if you're not familiar with the turkey-armenia struggle, congress just passed a bill officially calling the acts that turkey perpetrated against armenia in world war I 'genocide'. turkey's position remains genocide denial, despite overwhelming evidence of forced relocation and mass murder.) ziya first took up this cross after traveling to armenia for the first time a few years back with an old friend. they were received so hospitably, and loved so deeply that it broke his heart and changed him. not surprisingly, ziya is a muslim turned christian. as a result, he has been shunned from his own family. ziya is a beautiful and brilliant man, and i am very proud to know him. you can read his blog here.

i found a sermon by martin luther king, jr., a few days ago entitled 'loving your enemies.' it was delivered at dexter avenue baptist church in montgomery, alabama, on novermber 17, 1957. i'll leave you with an excerpt from the address here:

Within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of the evil. No matter what he does, you see God's image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude...

...so this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you." And I'm foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God's kingdom.

bejewelled spiders. crab spiders?

this little guy has been posted up on the side of our house for a couple months now. i thought it would be fitting to give him a wee tribute, given the longevity of his web. we've been calling him a crab spider for forever, but when i actually did some research, i found that crab spiders are actually a lot different than our friend here. neither spider should be confused with the japanese spider crab, which many of you have probably seen at the atlanta aquarium. the spider above is actually a jewelled spider, according to spiderzrule.com. although i've never seen an insect in this web, my theory is that our friend seduces insects with the smiley face on its back, and then snags them in his awesome web. we at 1812 e. lloyd would like to take this opportunity to thank our jewelly spider for controlling our very local mosquito population.

i walked up to the park today to read, and ended up falling asleep in the afternoon sun. eventually i finished 'the wounded healer' (i know, i know. such a short book). the last chapter was the best. i'll leave you with another gem from nouwen:

when we are not afraid to enter into our own center
and to concentrate on the stirrings of our own soul,
we come to know that being alive means being loved.
this experience tells us that we can only love because
we are born out of love, that we can only give because
our life is a gift, and that we can only make others
free because we are set free by Him whose heart is
greater than ours. when we have found the anchor
places for our lives in our own center, we can be free
to let others enter into the space created for them
and allow them to dance their own dance,
sing their own song
and speak their own language without fear.
then our presence is no longer threatening and demanding
but inviting and liberating.

this is true hospitality.

more on laetizia's visit.

as i mentioned in the previous post, i had a surprise visit from an old friend two weeks ago. her name is laetizia langer. i lived with her and loads of other people in a castle in scotland for six months several years back. laetizia is from germany, and she's an architect at a small firm in her hometowm of dresden. sadly, dresden is known around the world for receiving a devastating and controversial attack from the allied forces during world war II which destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands of people. laetizia is a glowing reminder that the Lord makes beauty from ashes.

before laetizia came to see me, she was visiting our friend daryl in atlanta. daryl had appointed a friend to take laetizia around and show her the city, who bailed once laetizia arrived. to make a long story short, laetizia was bored and she wanted to see the ocean, so daryl thought to call me. she flew down a few days later and spent a week at the beach. it was a great relief for her to be able to come and relax, and it was a great delight to have her here. i was privileged to introduce her favorite new music: the innocence mission. i posted a few photos from her time here on a flickr album. enjoy.

thanks for visiting, laetty. you're welcome any time.

genuine hospitality, and gardens.

the weather in florida has been particularly beautiful lately. at the moment i'm sitting on my porch watching the sun go down, enjoying the increasingly milder temperatures. by all measurements, the weather is perfect right now.

the orchid pictured above is one of the most bizarre and awesome displays of flowers at their strangest. it is a catasetum integerrimum. many people think the photo is ominous, a reminder of death. one guy even called it a hobgoblin. for me, though, this orchid is a monk: quiet, reverent, diligent. the 'bird beak' structure in the center of the plant is a sensitive trigger that when brushed against, shoots pollen onto the bee that pollinates it. this shower, wanted or not, allows the bee to pollinate the other monk orchids in mexico and throughout central america.

i picked this flower to share this evening because it represents a small piece of a growing trend in my life. during the past several months, i've grown noticeably more generous, kind, and benevolent. my thoughts and meditations on scripture are being drawn towards community, generosity, and hospitality. also, my thoughts are being drawn to gardens.

about a month back, i had a very encouraging conversation with my cousin andrew about hospitality and generosity. andrew and his wife sarah, along with their son (the rotund and dashing henry arden francis carlson-lier), live with at least one other family, in a community they have called the julian house. the namesake is for st. julian, the patron saint of hospitality. andrew proceded to tell me that he wants his life to manifest a consistent hospitality as he goes about living with family, friends, and neighbors. i told andrew that i'd been finding it hard to be generous with people. my experience is that everyone wants the playing field to be even. if i buy dinner for someone, they need to pay me back. if i go out of my way to help someone, they feel they must repay the favor. i find myself caught in these loops of feeling that i should treat people a certain way, while at the same time living in the reality that people expect to be treated by me with that weird even-handed fairness. so, people feel slighted when i don't pay them back for food, and disrespected when i don't repay favors. this dissonance will ring in my head for weeks if i let it.

i feel i'm supposed to be generous and loving to people. as a christian, i find joy in both welcoming and being welcomed. it makes little sense to me why this is such a foreign concept to many brothers and sisters in the faith.

so a couple of weeks after this conversation with andrew, my dad tells me that he's preaching a sermon on hospitality. then he lends me a book: Making Room by Christine D. Pohl. i've only just cracked it. let's just say i'm looking forward to diving in.

this brings us up to about ten days ago when my buddy daryl calls from atlanta and asks if a mutual friend of ours can fly down and stay with me for awhile. daryl and i met in scotland and lived together at a ywam base in west kilbride for about six moonths (a quick digression: daryl and i discovered, while living in scotland, that he attended the same church as my older brother mark: craziness.). anyway, we also lived with about twenty five others, including our dear friend laetizia from germany. daryl and i have had some keeping in touch since, but until last week, i had not seen or heard from laetizia in over four years. so, with this glaring opportunity to be hospitality to someone, i jumped at the chance. laetizia came to stay and had a wonderful, relaxing time. it was a beautiful week. she made it clear to me on multiple occasions that she felt welcomed in and accepted, loved and cherished. i was able to give her my bed and my car, cook her meals and provide her with buckets of the most delicious orange juice on the planet (of which she took down in pints). it felt really good to provide haven for her, to be love to her.
question: if it feels good, is it genuine altruism?

lastly, i'd like to mention my most recent book purchase: Monastic Gardens by Mick Hales. i randomly googled 'monastic gardens' one day, and there just happened to be a rather intriguing book by precisely that title. the book is about the various facets of the garden, as seen in both modern and historical monasteries. gardens are not just decorative in nature, but are sources of meals, medicine, and sanctuary. gardens provide altar flowers, wine, places to pray, and most notably: hospitality. Hales has a whole chapter on 'the guest house garden,' which is just fantastic. the book is beautiful to me because it is merging the two paths i find i'm simultaneously walking: genuine hospitality and gardens.

so, although the sentimental attitudes of generosity and goodwill are important, they are just not enough in and of themselves. hospitality, i think, is far deeper and more pervasive. hospitality is, in fact, a discipline, and entails the selfless and vulnerable act of welcoming in strangers and being life and love to them.

i don't know exactly where my life is headed, but it's months like september that seem to make a lot of sense. i'll leave you with an exceptionally appropriate quote that i received last week from a new friend:

life is short and we do not have
much time to gladden the hearts
of those who travel the way with us.
oh, be swift to love.
make haste to be kind.

-henri frederic amiel (1868)