Lowland Hum

Ned and I met this band during a July weekend visit to Laity Lodge in Texas. They were the musicians/singers providing music for the weekend (songs and worship during main speaker sessions and a concert Saturday night). Their music is quiet and poetic. They are down to earth, friendly, and funny. Lauren and Daniel are married and have a sweet 6moth old son.

They recently covered all of Peter’s Gabriel’s So album. It’s pretty brilliant.

Listen to In Your Eyes from their So recording.

Listen to this song 2017 Folded Flowers

These lyrics read like poetry:

Thin Places

Turn screws and wooden legs a million times a second
Glitter on the bay, like oil
Cattails nod like monks
Humble tonsures blur
Periphery diamonds kiss mercury

Andrew Wyeth, you always move my wife
The right number of birds, proportion of barn to sky

Every afternoon holds rubies, under rocks
In hidden caves, under rocks

Whales too, shiver and roll under a thin layer
So many thin places

NeedtoBreathe

The new NeedtoBreathe album is coming out soon. Ned and I, with our friends Richard and Lisa, will be seeing their Philly concert, this fall (!). This new song “What I’m Here For” is a new favorite, as well as the song the recorded with Jon Forman of Switchfoot called Carry Me.

from What I’m Here For

I spent my '20s in the lights of the disco
Trying to prove that I could be a hero
And there were times when it felt like I was winning
But looking back it only lasted a minute

I watched my friends take over the radio
All it did was drill a hole in my ego
I forgot what goodness was outside my window
Ain't that the way the story goes

I don't need silver linings
I don't need so much more
I just need room to be wrong sometimes
That's all I'm hoping for

I feel like we could find it
If we knocked on heaven's door
I'd say God, I'm only human
You'd say that's what I'm here for

from Carry Me

Carry me, I'm on my way
But I'm in too deep
I need you to carry me

Dorena McFarland Williamson

Last summer, as I started my Wild Things and Castles in the Sky book project, I prayed a lot for a variety of diverse writers. I wanted the book to cover many types of topics, but I needed to be connected with more writers. Through a friend, I was introduced to Dorena Williams (through facebook). Though Dorena was really busy with her own writing projects and deadlines, she connected me with more writers, many of whom ended up writing for my book. How grateful I was that Dorena, who didn’t know me but was excited by my project and loves to connect people, took the time to help me. She was a true answer to prayer. This fall her new children’s book, A Celebration Place comes out the same month (through IVPKids) as Ned’s book St. Nicholas: The Giftgiver. Check out more of her books, such as ColorFULL, ThoughtFULL, and Crowned with Glory. I wish she had been writing books when my girls were younger. These would have been on heavy rotation as read-alouds.

Shawn Smucker

About five years ago, someone described Shawn’s work, especially in The Day the Angels Fell, as a cross between Madeline L’Engle, Chaim Potok and Leif Enger. Since I love all those writers, of course I checked him out. Turns out he and his family lived a few blocks from us, and he and his wife were friends of friends of ours. I started reading The Day the Angles Fell, which led to reading Once We Were Strangers, and The Edge of Overthere and Light from Distant Stars. After reading a couple of his books, Ned and I made dessert plans with Shawn, his wife, and our mutual friends. Since then, our friendship has happily grown, he and Ned have made collaboration plans, and Maile, also a thoughtful writer, brings us yummy food. We just happily promote his work. Check out his new book The Weight of Memory. It came out this spring. (Shawn has written books for adults and young adults… each one worth the read!). Learn more about him here: Shawn Smucker. Listen to the brilliant podcast that he and Maile host (they interviewed me, which was fun and surreal) The Stories Between Us

Laity Lodge

This July, Ned and I re-visited Laity Lodge, a little piece of Heaven in Texas, It was a holy time. I learned the word “endemic” when my friend Nancye (a Texan naturalist) took me on a walk by the river and the canyon wall. She pointed out and named for me many of the naive plants, flowers, birds, and trees. Learning about all that was endemic to the land made me think about what was endemic—native—to Laity Lodge. The open-hearts and goodwill of the people, sitting around tables while talking and eating delicious meals,, books in the Library, sitting in rocking chairs facing the river . . .the Spirit of God moving in and out and through everything. I really enjoyed two other endemic elements at Laity Lodge, both art. The first was three paintings by Bruce Herman hanging in the Cody Center (newly added to their permanent collection). They are part of a series called Glory in Ruins. Bruce’s work is golden and rich with colors. I could imagine moving into a dream rich with meaning. The second experience was re-visiting Threshold, a site-specific permeant installation created by Roger Feldman in 2013.. Threshold has both movement and stillness. I love seeing it during the day and walking in and through it, feeling the walls under my hands,, and seeing the blue sky in the open ceiling, and then walking to it in the dark at night, lying on a blanket, looking up at the stars. It is otherworldly.

The Cultivating Place

“The purpose of the Cultivating website is to provide a true and beautiful place online for the inspiration and encouragement of believers everywhere, especially those engaged in creative endeavors.“

The founder of Cultivating is the wise and loving Lancia Smith. The heart of Cultivating, as Lancia has written, :The word cultivate has particular significance and beauty to me. It not only represents the deep love that I hold for gardening but also in a single word it describes the deepest value of how I choose to live: affirming, nurturing and defending what is Good, True and Beautiful. To cultivate with deliberate intention is an act of choice, courage and creative hope” I have happily been writing for Cultivating for almost two years (see links to my essays in Musings.). Cultivating is a community of art makers who encourage, cheer, and pray for each other. This summer issue’s theme is Courage. It is full of rich essays, beautiful images, stories, poetry, music. It’s been a delight reading this issue. Here are several links to essays, poems, and photos from this issue.

A Movable Courage

Courage is a Process

Tea and a Good Book

A manifesto on the lifting of a lockdown

See

Retrospective in Orange

Oranges tumble

onto a counter

bathed in early light.

 I rinse each one

under the faucet’s steady stream,

dust eddying down the drain,

this water an illusion of plenty

in the desert of my childhood.

Oranges sliced and pressed

onto the whirling reamer,

juicer singing its song of extraction,

singing and singing as it spins

under the pressure of my hand,

 juice spilling

into the reservoir

into the spout

into the cup

that will bear witness to

            —although that day,

            I did not know—

the abundance

that can come

after things are split open,

emptied, poured out.

 Amy Malskeit

Speaking Code

Speaking Code: Unraveling Past Bonds to Redeem Broken Conversation is a new Square Halo Book written by our president Diana DiPasquale, which is coming out summer, 2021. “Everyone is Speaking CODE. We long for soul satisfying conversations characterized by truth spoken in love. We desire to be heard and understood. But our past powerful experiences leave our communication broken and shattered, isolating us from each other. This book helps us decipher cryptic conversations, allowing us to see where God’s goodness enters our lives. Discover how God places us in “holy sanctuaries” where His healing work can begin. Use the built-in workbook to recognize communication pitfalls and develop biblical strategies to help improve our conversations.”

This book is rooted in many years of Diana studying with CCEF and counseling people. She is wise and caring, as well as passionate about the whole of Scripture. I recommend this book highly (even if she is a dear friend and company partner!)

Learn more about Square Halo Books, and the books we have put out into the world for the the past 20 years. We are also excited by other books coming out this year. Check out the following:

A COMPASS FOR DEEP HEAVEN: NAVIGATING THE C.S. LEWIS RANSOM TRILOGY edited by Diana Glyer.

LIFTING THE VEIL: IMAGINATION AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD by Malcolm Guite

No Place: A Desert Pilgrimage

For 20+ years I have been reading the writings of Margie and Denis Haack and learning about thoughtful discernment, especially in engaging with an open mind to movies and how we learn about being human, as well as the goodness of ordinary life, through their ministry Ransom Fellowship and their journal Critique. Margie,f every seasoor decades, sn put out a newsletter called Note from Toad Hall and then Letters from the House Between . Her honest words and stories were always an encouragement. She felt like a kindred spirit as she shared her struggles and the grace of Jesus. God really did use their work to engage my mind and enlarge my heart.

Margie’s first book The Exact Plac still remains one of my favorite memoirs. It is at once laugh out eloud funny and teary-eyed sad. I loved sharing it with friends. Now Square Halo Books is re-relesing The Exact Place and her book of sessay God in the Sink (now titled This Place: A Few Notes from Home.). No Place: A Desert Pilgrimage is the second in the Place Trilogy. I am so happy about this

This story “picks up during the cultural upheaval of the late '60s. A young Minnesota farm girl gets married and joins a hippie commune in the high desert of New Mexico. Margie's spiritual pilgrimage wound its way through doubts, failures, broken relationships, and the wounds of fundamentalism. Full of moments both amusing and absurd, her path ultimately led to the hard question: Was Christianity worth living for and what would that look like? It was a journey that sometimes led through no place she wanted to stay.”

Our prayers break on God like waves

Our prayers break on God like waves,
and he an endless shore,
and when the seas evaporate 
and oceans are no more
and cries are carried in the wind
God hears and answers every sound
as he has done before.

Our troubles eat at God like nails.
He feels the gnawing pain
on souls and bodies. He never fails
but reassures he’ll heal again,
again, again, again and yet again.

by Luci Shaw

Psalm 27

Psalm 27 has been dear to my heart this summer. I love thinking about verse 4 “One thing I ask of LORD, this only I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.’ And it’s companion verse 7 “My heart says of you, “Seek His face!” Your face LORD I will seek.” But verses 13 and 14 have been core to my life with cancer these past 20 months.

I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.

Malcolm Guite says Psalm 27 his favorite Psalm. Here is his response to it, found in his book David’s Crown: A Poetic Response to the Psalms. Read this interview with Lancia Smith at Cultivating to learn more about Malcolm and David’s Crown.

Oh let me see with his eyes from now on

Whose gaze on beauty makes it beautiful,

Who looks us into love and looks upon 

His whole creation with a merciful

And loving eye. My heart has said of him

Seek out his face, I’ve sensed his bountiful

 Presence shimmering behind the dim

Veil of things. That presence calls to me

Calls me to tremble at the brink and rim

 Of lived experience, and then to free

Myself of fear. to trust him, and to dive

Right off that brink, into his mystery

 into that deep and holy sea of love

In which the living worlds all float and swim

To dare each moment’s death, that I might live.

Lux Æterna

I have been listening to this recording for two decades. I asked for it for Christmas one year because my friend Kimberly, my partner in sharing beauty in nature, books, food, and music, told me that when she listened this for the first time she had to sit alone with dimmed lights. I have listened to it often enough that I can anticipate certain lines. There is one tenor line that every time it comes up, I move my hand up in some type of ballet movement because I sound it moving (on this link starts with this lovely 20:23 with a lovely bass and ends at 20:57. It always makes my heart leap.) I hope you find the beauty of the choral arrangement, the voices, and the words to be a balm to your spirit as it has been to mine..

The lyrics in Latin and English

Lamb of God

(you) who take away sins of world,

grant them rest.

grant them rest everlasting.

Light eternal shine upon them, Lord.

with Saints

Rest eternal grant to them, Lord;

and light perpetual let shine on them.

Alleluia. Amen.

[ɑlɛluiɑ ɑmɛn]