Strolling into summer

At my right is a mug of hot chocolate (complements of dorm) and at my left a newly acquired book of poems by Ogden Nash. I was introduced to him last literary night and yesterday at a book fair I thought 50 cents was a good investment to be further acquainted. I am listening to a very old playlist of my favorite Celtic artists as well as the sounds of the weather outside my window, unsure if it really wants to rain. I have only just begun to realize the semester is actually over, and it requires some amount of self restraint in resisting the urge to write out hourly schedules for the rest of the week.

The upstairs neighbors seem to be settled for the summer. Their living room is right above my bedroom (which also holds my futon), so I while I was leisurely reading, I was vaguely aware of their TV programme. I came across a poem by Nash, which has inspired this blog post. I share it with you, reader, in hopes that you too may be amused:

THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS

The people upstairs all practice ballet.
Their living room is a bowling alley.
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours.
They celebrate the weekend all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their orgy at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs wondrous
If instead of above us, they just lived under us.

Ah, sigh. I confess I was hoping they would migrate for the summer. They seem to have built a nest. I suppose it is all part of apartment living. Some of this of course may be applicable to myself… Fortunately the one beneath me works during the day and I work on the weekends, so much of the Irish dancing he will miss…

I have done a preliminary excavation of my papers. The photo displays their nice neat stacks. I am happy to say I have recovered in the various strata all tax forms. I also have managed to get all my books onto the shelves. I have had to double load some of them. Constructing floor to ceiling shelving might be in order this summer. Along with the task of cataloging my books.

I can already tell this summer will stand out as one of the better ones.

Graduation

Yesterday I walked across the stage and received my BA for the second time. That morning I had been digging in the dirt with my Sunday School class, making a little place for us by a pile of rocks on the church yard. It’s hard to explain, so I will have to post a picture. Anyway, I am not writing about the children, but about graduation. I had quite a bit of dirt on my hands from Sunday School, and it occurred to me that rather than wash it off for the ceremony, I should keep it on as a symbol not only for the past year’s work in my thesis, but as a symbol of who I have become here through my education. I have learned not only to value people and earth, but practical and informed ways of expressing this. I really think that one of the best things for humans is gardening. We learn so many things about self, God and other from the soil. We are formed when we enter into relationship with the earth. Thus with a great amount of honor, none of which was apparent to anyone but those I expressly told, I took my degree with well caked hands.

Today a group of us began the project of making the community garden. The day began at 10am and did not end until after 5pm. There is such a sense of community when people gather to accomplish a task. Tomorrow I and a few others will be joining the maintenance crew in the morning to bring al l the sod we dug up to bare places on campus. We cut 5 22’ x 22’ squares into the North Eastern corner of campus. It has made a huge pile of sod, and revealed a rich dark clay, just waiting for plants of all types. Having done a bit of gardening in the soil at Providence (which mainly consists of a daily struggle against weeds, mosquitoes and hard clay) the weight of the responsibility of what we were doing hit me hard. We have dug into the earth. We have committed ourselves to its care and the care of what we plant into it. We will be bringing life into the world and be responsible to nurture it. Somehow this seems like a very weighty responsibility. It is one, however, which I long for and am honored to have.


As I cleared away the sod I realized that it was today and not Sunday which was my graduation ceremony. Having completed the theoretical requirements for my degree, I have moved from abstraction to practice. David Johnson, the Provost, came out at 10:30 thinking there would be some formal dedication. It is interesting to me how we continually separate action and thought, especially in spiritual matters. I wanted to hand him a shovel and tell him to “pray” to “dedicate” by beginning the work. I wanted to tell him to join the rest of us in bringing into being an idea. What could be closer to living our image of God than creating a garden? Perhaps it is our distaste for getting our hands dirty which is our curse. Hell is living in a world of abstractions, never engaging life. Today we entered into a relationship with a bit of soil. Today I began the actual work of my degree.

a very singularly deep

I asked Cameron what genius was. He answered in his Cameron way, that is, over and under and through the woods... and broke out in to lyrics from a Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.
It amused me greatly, so I thought I would share it:


If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line
as a man of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms,
and plant them ev'rywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases
of your complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter
of a transcendental kind.

And ev'ry one will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself in terms too deep for me,
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
this deep young man must be!"

Reflection

Does anyone else read through old blog entries and wonder why they thought some thoughts were not only worth saying out loud but also worth publicizing? I have been reading over some old posts. Here are some choice quotes:

Dec 16, 2007
I was just thinking of sleeping beauty the Disney film. I always loved the part when the goblins could not destroy the prince because every evil they sent was turned by the fairies into beauty. This is the gospel.

What!??? Did I just compare Jesus with Disney?

March 18, 2006
"Where does God end and man begin?"

Older Sasha says to younger Sasha: "Good luck with that m'dear."

July 16, 2006 [re: Jesus]
I still am wondering how much and how personal his love for me is. But the possibility that his love is that personal and that real is what I am standing on right now. That there is a rock to stand on that is never moved. That there is a love that abounds infinitely and personally. And that there is a reality that is realer than any human love...

Thats right: When men fail you, make Jesus your boyfriend... Ah, I was trying so hard.

June 09, 2006
It dawned on me today that we are to identify ourselves in God, and specifically in Jesus, but does that effect at all the fact of male and female?

It's been a long journey...

April 09, 2007
For a moment it ceased to be a car and became something living.

Sasha: Step away from the edge of the dark side...