CANNON BEACH LOG

Stones at Sunset

2012-01-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

SMOOTH STONES

2012-01-30T10:10:00.000-08:00

SMOOTH STONES

Dark and hardened my soul

Before your presence washed

With waves of psalms in song*

Dawning grace on grace comes

As tide turns and returns

Approaching and receding

Wave on wave of verses

Chanted antiphonally over and again

As waves run up the beach

Reaching ever higher to dunes

To smooth and cleanse stones

Softening hard edges to round

My stone soul washed and smoothed

Year upon year, tide upon tide

As rounded and smoothed

I may rest in your hand with delight

In the finding

Found by my beachcomber Christ

*written on Jan. 10, 2012, at Lauds at Mount Angel Abbey

while listening to Psalm 42,

"All your waves and breakers have washed over me..."

GRATITUDE

2011-11-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

Quotations from the writings of Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965),

winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952

"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude. The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything (Thoughts for Our Times p. 16)."

"When I look back upon my early days I am stirred by the thought of the number of people whom I have to thank for what they gave me or for that they were to me. At the same time I am haunted by an oppressive consciousness of the little gratitude I really showed them while I was young. How many of them have said farewell to life without my having made clear to them what it meant to me to receive from them so much kindness or so much care! Many a time have I, with a feeling of shame, said quietly to myself over a grave the words which my mouth ought to have spoken to the departed, which he was still in the flesh. For all that, I think I can say with truth that I am not ungrateful, I did occasionally wake up out of that youthful thoughtlessness which accepted as a matter of course all the care and kindness that I experienced from others, and I believe I became sensitive to my duty in this matter just as early as I did to the prevalence of suffering in the world. But down to my twentieth year, and even later still, I did not exert myself sufficiently to express the gratitude which was really in my heart. I valued too low the pleasure felt at receiving real proofs of gratitude. Often, too, shyness prevented me from expressing the gratitude that I really felt. . . . We ought all to make an effort to act on our first thoughts and let our unspoken gratitude find expression. Then there will be more sunshine in the world, and more power to work for what is good. But as concerns ourselves we must all of us take care not to adopt as part of our theory of life all people’s bitter sayings about the ingratitude of the world. A great deal of water is flowing underground which never comes up as a spring. In that thought we may find comfort. But we ourselves must try to be the water which does find its way up; we must become a spring at which men can quench their thirst for gratitude (Memoirs of Childhood and Youth, pp. 87-88)."

Artwork: Vincent van Gogh, Harvest Landscape

LIVE SIMPLY THAT OTHERS MAY SIMPLY LIVE

2011-11-15T21:08:00.000-08:00

Questions in Mid-November:

How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving?
What was a typical pattern in your family growing up at a family meal?
What has always been one of your favorite meals or a favorite recipe you love to make?
Have you ever grown a garden and eaten the food you've grown with family around?
If you live with a family, how many family meals do you share each week currently?
1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16 17-21

Study for Mid-November:

Read Exodus 12:3-11. What does this passage tell us about sacred family mealtimes in the Jewish faith? What stands out for you in this passage?What is unique about Passover in a Jewish home?
Read Isaiah 58:6-12. What does this passage say about how we are to share our food, our lives, our meals, our resources? How do you fast? What is the relationship between feasting and fasting in your experience?
Read Luke 22:7-20. What does this passage tell us about sacred family mealtimes in the Christian faith and the roots of the Lord’s Supper in the Jewish faith? What stands out for you in this passage?
Read Luke 24:28-31. Describe the setting of this story. What surprises are here?

Life application for Mid-November:

What have been your experiences of fasting?
When you think of St. Francis, what images come to mind? How might you live a bit more like Francis?
How do you know the difference between a “need” and a “want”, between what is essential and what is a luxury?
What world hunger groups have you supported?
How are you seeking to “live simply that others may simply live”? (phrase attributed to Ghandi and Mother Teresa)

Sunrise in the Grand Tetons

2011-11-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

TO AUTUMN

2011-11-07T10:52:00.000-08:00

TO AUTUMN

a sonnet

A dying orange Maple leaf descends,

Through misty morning stillness in the trees

Into the canopy my eye ascends

Among the fiery red and yellow leaves.

To meditate upon a mystery

My anxious soul awakens to the dawn

To wrestle with death’s angel suddenly

Alive and just as quickly he is gone.

Deep within the forest stands a door

A portal to our everlasting home

To know what lies beyond and what’s in store

Follow in his steps where he did roam.

An inner voice assures me with a prod

“Be still, be still, and know that I am God.”*

*Psalm 46:10

Written by David Robinson, 10/26/11

Dedicated to Don Robinson (9/20/1931--11/1/2011)

CONTEMPLATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

2011-10-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

YOU ARE INVITED:

3:oopm, Saturday, Nov. 5th, in Cannon Beach, Oregon, at the Coaster Theater, ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF CANNON BEACH: a nature photo slideshow and solo piano concert, created by Thomas Robinson and David Robinson. This show includes 400 Thomas Robinson nature photos from pre-dawn, sunrise, midday, afternoon, sunset, evening and night. During the photo slideshow, David will play original solo piano mediations on grand piano.

"Prayers in silence and quiet, of course have their own validity. It is not always necessary to express our prayers out loud. The simplest prayer, perhaps, is that of quiet contemplation. We place ourselves in the presence of the divine. Some pilgrims also find photography an expression of silent contemplation. By looking through the lens and focusing upon some aspect of the landscape or the interior of a grand cathedral, a person comes to new awareness that might be missed by trying to take everything in at a glance. Using a camera, as Thomas Merton discovered on his final pilgrimage to Thailand, can be a form of prayer" (from "Pilgrimage: Exploring a Great Spiritual Practice", by Edward C. Sellner, Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2004, 145).

Photo: 7 minute exposure of star trails over Haystack Rock

Aspen Pathway

2011-10-18T17:04:00.000-07:00

PILGRIMAGE

2011-10-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. (1)

I've been reading a book by Ian Bradley titled, Pilgrimage: a Spiritual and Cultural Journey (Oxford, England: Lion Hudson plc, 2009). Bradley is a professor of Practical Theology and Church History at the University of St Andrews, specializing in Celtic Christianity, and a leader of regular pilgrimages to such sites as St Andrews, Iona and Lindisfarne.

Pilgrimage is still only available in hardcover, and is packed with glossy photos of pilgrimage locations across Europe, including Rome, Santiago, St Andrews, Iona, Nidaros, Assisi, Lourdes, Taize, Medugorje and others.

Bradley offers a variety of definitions of pilgrimage, including these:

A departure from daily life on a journey in search of spiritual well-being.
An individual summons to know God more fully, a spiritual journey to which the pilgrim joyfully responds 'yes' to God's invitation.
A provisional, transitory state, often taken as a metaphor for the journey of life, hastening irrevocably from the cradle to the grave. It is a reminder that all things in this world are temporary and that everything is in motion.
The outer physical journey mirrors the inner spiritual journey; the excitement of setting out on a new adventure is balanced by the joy of coming home.

The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 includes chapters titled The Biblical Roots of Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage in the Early Church, Celtic Pilgrimage, The Golden Age of Pilgrimage, After the Reformation, Pilgrimage Today, and How to be a Pilgrim. Part 2 leads readers chapter by chapter into specific pilgrimage sites in Italy, Scotland, Spain, Ireland, Wales, Norway, Poland, France, Bosnia-Herzegovinia, and England. Historic details are woven together with practical and personal insights into making your own pilgrimage to such a place.

Of the sites emphasized by Bradley, I've personally enjoyed spending pilgrimage time in Rome, St Andrews, Iona, Assisi, Taize and Lindisfarne. But one need not get into an airplane and travel across the globe to go on pilgrimage. "Blessed are those whose hearts are set in pilgrimage" the Psalmist tells us. Jesus suffered for us along the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, "leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps" (2), joining Christ along the way of the cross, day by day, setting our hearts on pilgrimage. Jesus came alongside hurting people along the road to Emmaus, comforting them by opening the Scriptures to them along the way home. Later, these two, reflecting upon their encounter with pilgrim Christ recalled, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" (3)

May you know the joy of journeying with our Lord along the pilgrim way. If possible, sometime in your life, consider turning travel plans into pilgrim plans, and intentionally step out along the way with Christ as your guide, walking along the way, "in his steps".

Photo credit: Taize Community Church, Taize, France, by Thomas Robinson.

(1) Psalm 84:5.

(2) 1 Peter 2:21.

(3) Luke 24:32.

PEACE WILL FLOW INTO YOU

2011-10-10T22:27:00.000-07:00

Three quotations from John Muir (1838-1914) the great Scottish naturalist, mountaineer:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. (1)
The darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. (2)
I met cassiope (mountain heather) growing in fringes among the battered rocks . . . . Winter and summer, you may hear her voice, the low, sweet melody of her purple bells. No evangel among all the mountain plants speaks Nature's love more plainly than cassiope. Where she dwells, the redemption of coldest solitude is complete. The very rocks and glaciers seem to feel here presence, and become imbued with her own fountain sweetness.

In these three selections of Muir's writings, he reveals a spirituality of nature in which creation becomes an evangelist, a proclaimer of the good news of God, in which creation is to be read as scripture, declaring the glory and truth of God. Nature, in her tiniest details, in her flowers, rivers, lakes, mountains and storms, as well as in her grandeur, all Nature declares the good tidings of God and illumines the nature of God, and even moreso, brings us into the very heart of God, bringing us inner peace, spiritual renewal and soul refreshment through our direct encounter with God's creation.

As Paul declares, "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made" (Romans 1:20).

1) quoted from "Southern Rocky Mountain Wildflowers", p.7.

2) quoted from John Muir's "Mountaineering Essays

3) quoted from John Muir's "Mountaineering Essays, p. 36-37.

Above the Clouds

2011-10-06T21:16:00.001-07:00

A NEW DAY BECKONS

2011-10-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

A NEW DAY BECKONS

A new day beckons hearts awake to sing

As jeweled dew drops freshen every blade

A flash of flicker-flight on morning wing

Through Hemlock boughs renews the forest glade.

Eternity arises with the dawn

In misty shrouded forests by the sea

The sword fern camouflage the sleeping fawn

Beneath the soaring Cedar canopy.

Awake my soul, your morning anthem raise

To join the Varied Thrush in Matin’s cry

Leap up my soul, your Recreator praise

In silent wonder seek him eye to eye.

The darkness fades, behold the new day breaks

As all creation in Christ’s light awakes.

~a sonnet by David Robinson

Green Caterpillar

2011-09-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

LOVELY IN EYES NOT HIS

2011-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

~by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Grand Teton's Aspen

2011-09-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

ASPEN COMMUNITY

2011-09-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

After hiking up into an Aspen forest earlier this month, I've been reflecting upon this tree. Aspen is the common name for a tree species that is part of the Salicaciae family of the Populus genus. The specific Aspen we walked among was the quaking Aspen, known as Populus tremuloides, for the quaking movement of the leaves in the wind. Aspen is a deciduous tree native to cooler climates of North America. We were in Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains, above 8000 feet elevation. Our friend and host told us a unique insight into the Aspen forest. They grow in "clonal colonies", all "cloned" from a single original seedling. The original mother tree sends out root suckers to grow more trees. Over time, a whole forest springs up from that original seedling, making the entire forest of Aspens one organism.

In Utah, one singe Aspen forest known as "Pando" (Latin for "I spread") is thought to have originated from a single tree and now spreads across more than 100 acres, thus is thought to be one of the largest living organisms in North America with nearly 50,000 trees (stems) weighing nearly 7000 tons, and thought to be at least 80,000 years old. One of the defensive designs of an Aspen forest is the interwoven root system that lies beneath the danger of forest fires. A fire may decimate an entire Aspen forest but not touch the root system which will spring forth new growth and replenish the trees lost in the fire. Aspen trees live 40-150 years above ground, and seem to me to have a keen sense of being aware and watching. The Aspen forest we hiked among seemed to be looking at us with many "eyes", with the common shape of branch scars on the trunks looking like eyes.

An Aspen forest tells us of the glorious design of God in creation. We too, in the living Organism known as the Church, are "many parts, but one body". Paul clearly understood the Church to be a living Body: "The body is a unit, though it is made of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. . . . Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it" (1 Cor. 12:12,27). The original Seedling*, Christ, has send forth new growth around the world, springing up new life, new growth, which are many parts, many trunks, yet one living organism, and part of the one Body which is the living Body of Christ.

*Isaiah 11:1 describes Christ as "A Seedling that comes up from the stump of Jesse, from Jesse's roots, a Branch will bear fruit."

Caw!

2011-09-05T22:42:00.000-07:00

TWO RAVENS FLYING SOUTHWARD

2011-09-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

Two Ravens Flying Southward

~ a sonnet ~

Two ravens flying southward over Vail,

Caught our eye and ears as they passed by,

Conversing on the wing as if to say,

"How regrettable to walk and never fly."

Katanoesate! Jesus declares,

To study with intent to understand!

Our corvid masters of the azure airs

Unveil their secrets to the mind of Man.

Earthbound without machines, we long to soar,

Beyond the petty pavement 'neath our feet,

Into the mystery of raven lore,

Hidden deep within mountain retreat.

Remove the weights of ignorance and dross,

Reveal the Way, the Truth, Thy Holy Cross.*

*These two ravens were spotted flying above the ridge near the Eagle's Nest, above Vail, Colorado, flying towards the Mountain of the Holy Cross on Sept. 5, 2011.This sonnet composed by D. Robinson on 9/5/11.

Cannon Beach Pre-Dawn

2011-08-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

THE HEAVENS DECLARE

2011-08-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Ever since the Hubble Space Telescope was put into place in the Earth's orbit in 1990, humans have drawn closer into the splendor and marvel of the universe. Click here for Hubble Space Telescope photo gallery. Most of us can only name a few constellations and take very little time each day to pay attention to the wonders above our head in the sky, whether a sunrise, a cloud formation, a masterpiece artwork painting at sunset, or swimming in the Milky Way of stars. The ancient Psalmist told us 3000 years ago truths we all know within our inner spirit when we look with our bare eyes into the star strewn night sky:

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voicegoes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.

~Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV)

The Perseid meteor showers earlier this month, with up to 60 meteors (or "shooting stars") per hour, were lost in the glow of the full moon. Next show up will be the Draconids on October 8-9, 2011, with up to 10 meteors streaking across the moonless night sky on those nights.

This week, I encourage you to go out at night with a blanket. Lie down in a field or grassy area and simply stare into the night sky. If you have a pair of binoculars or a small telescope, look through the glass and let your mind spin with the vast glory of the heavens above. Even in places where city lights block most of the heavenly glory, a few stars still insist on shining their light, traveling across the vast reaches of space, into our eyes to fill our minds and hearts with the wonder and delight of God's wordless glory being proclaimed by the work of his hands.

Watching the Valley

2011-08-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

WATCHING AND WAITING

2011-08-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

On Monday mornings, I typically begin the day with a time of prayer in the Glenstal Book of Prayer. This morning, this time was spent outside, on our deck overlooking the forest. I had a cup of freshly brewed coffee in hand. Here is a selection from this morning prayer service.

Morning Invocation of the Light:

Glory be to God who has shown us the light!

Lead me from darkness to light,

Lead me from sadness to joy,

Lead me from death to immortality.

Glory be to God who has shown us the light!

Psalm 5:1-3

To my words give ear, O Lord,

give heed to my groaning.

Attend to the sound of my cries,

my King and my God.

It is you whom I invoke, O Lord,

in the morning you hear me;

in the morning I offer you my prayer,

watching and waiting.

While praying this prayer, I enjoyed watching the Chickadees fly among the Elderberries, over to our bird feeder, collecting their morning meal. Their merry and modest presence in our yard was a delight to my soul. Over a morning cup of coffee, with God's Word open in our laps, soaking in God's creation, there is deep soul renewal that comes from watching and waiting.

These two spiritual habits, active-spiritual watching and waiting do not come naturally to us or easily in a hurried, distracted culture. We are quick to distraction, getting up to answer the next text, respond to the next cell phone ringtone, or change the channel to seek the next best television show. Sitting still even for a few minutes in the morning, attentively "watching and waiting" is a holy and soul refreshing gift you can give to yourself. What are we watching? We watch with the eyes of the heart, looking to Jesus, "the author and perfecter of our faith". For whom are we waiting? We wait in hope for the Lord, as Psalm 27 reminds us:

I am 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.

Olympic Ruminations

2011-08-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

TAKE FIVE

2011-08-01T13:39:00.000-07:00

In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet released Time Out, featuring jazz songs which experimented in use of alternative time signatures. Included on this album was the song that was to become the quartet's signature tune, "Take Five", with its mesmerizing 5/4 beat. The album was wildly successful, propelling the well-known quartet into the national limelight of jazz stardom.

Behind that signature song sits a signature human activity. Rest. Settle into an easy chair. It will only take five minutes or so to finish reading this little essay. Nothing to it. Take five. As a jazz pianist, I’ve attempted many times to play Take Five, a song easier to hear than to play. For a while, in graduate school, I played with a great drummer who had the 5/4 beat down. As a result, I was able to settle myself into the offbeat piano jazz vamp of Take Five and enjoy some 5/4 improvisations of my own.

Taking time off is a common offbeat activity for many humans. As a culture, we usually evaluate our worth by what we produce or by what we do. One of the first questions asked between strangers is “What do you do?” with the answer revolving around our jobs or careers. Even when the question is more generic, such as “Tell me about yourself”, we find ourselves describing our professions, ‘what we do for a living’, as the way we speak about our identity to others.

When we do take time off, we often fill our weekends with physical activities or home chores, allowing ourselves little time to “take five”. The phrase “take five” refers to more than merely napping on Saturday afternoon during a football game on television. It involves stepping intentionally into a whole new way of living, an offbeat, alternative approach to life that allows for “time-off” in the middle of activity.

Take five. In other words, stop doing. Let the music play on, and just kick back and listen. Take some time to reflect, to rest, to settle down inside. While the instrumentalists play on, enjoy the echo of the words you’ve just been singing to repeat their phrases inwardly, to penetrate your soul and do their wonderful work in you while you do no work at all. It’s a whole new way of living. Selah. A word stuck right in the middle of many Psalms, a word scholars believe simply means, "take five".

Right in the middle of a business management meeting, hear that song inside your soul. Take a slow breath and rest. While on the cell phone, speeding down the interstate on your way to the next appointment, hear that haunting offbeat melody calling you to rest. Take Five. Try turning off the cell phone, relax your shoulders and take Brubeck’s wisdom to heart, literally.

A Space Between

2011-07-31T23:22:00.000-07:00

CRACKS

2011-07-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

Every day is filled with them. We face so many cracks in a day that we hardly even notice them underfoot. Until when we have to wait for a few extra minutes on hold, or sit waiting for a few extra minutes for a webpage to download, or wait a few extra minutes in rush hour traffic, or wait while someone slides into the parking space we’ve been waiting to fill. Cracks. Little slices of every day.

Remember the childhood saying, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back”? The English language fills in cracks with a variety of meanings. Humor: “He cracks me up”. Measure of quality: “Not all it’s cracked up to be”. Measure of distance: “Open the window a crack”. Emotions: “Wear him down until he cracks”.

Waiting cracks up no one. There are kinds of cracks that aren’t funny and they’re not pretty. There’s a common occurrence in contemporary life I’ll call “spontaneous cracks”. It is a little like spontaneous combustion but different. Instead of flames, you get smoke. A spontaneous crack is a brief encounter with unasked for waiting; a little unfilled crack of time in which you find yourself feeling impatient, resentful or frustrated.

Filling cracks. If our days are full of cracks, what can we do to smooth things out? First, welcome cracks. See spontaneous cracks in your day as little unasked for gifts. Who doesn’t enjoy received an unlooked for gift. Rather than curse a crack, welcome the crack as an unopened gift. Returning and rest is nothing more than a receptive approach to life allowing us to experience empty places in the day with gratitude instead of grumpiness.

Second, fill in the cracks. Step right into those little spaces of time with special material of your own choosing. Make something creative happen in that specific minute of your day. What am I talking about? Try smiling at the crack. Fill the crack with a little bit of humor. Tell a joke. Laugh silently at a rude person who is making you wait. Your smile just might be the seed crystal which transforms the whole chemistry of the situation.

Here’s another cracked idea. Meet gift for gift. Give a quality part of yourself to the crack. Fill the crack with one of your favorite wise sayings. Recite poetry while you wait. Carry with you a few hand-written cards with wisdom sayings, proverbs, great life quotes, a sentence or two from Scripture. Work on memorizing one of those in that crack.

Finally, think of cracks as soul time. Take those brief moments handed to you every day and zero in on the state of your soul. Breathe a few good slow breaths. Focus your attention for a few moments each day upon the cracks. As odd as it sounds, those are the places where wonders happen, the creative spaces which help you become a radiant human. As Leonard Cohen sings,

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen, Anthem, off his The Future album, 1992.

Haystack in Blues

2011-07-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

Photos of Blue

THE COLOR BLUE

2011-07-18T08:21:00.000-07:00

After weeks of grey skies,

Mornings hanging heavy in mist,
Afternoon sheets streaking down
Upon mid-July expectations,
Of sun and warmth and summer,
Dampened by the constant wetness,
The great green land awakens,
To the color blue overlooking
This earth in beatific episcopacy,
With quiet grace only interrupted
By birdsong among the evergreens,
Jays chattering in nearby Hemlocks,
Song Sparrows lifting up their Lauds,
Among sun-dappled Alder branches,
Unseen except by echoes of melody,
This morning's the first and only
Morning of day's birth under divinity's
Blessing and comforting canopy of blue.
~By David Robinson, 7.18.11

Night Frog

2011-07-13T23:27:00.001-07:00

MONASTIC FROGS

2011-07-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

By the pond, in the dark,
'neath the trees, chanting
Raising voice, rhythmic song,
joining force, rejoicing
Stillness now, 'neath the trees,
silence hangs, gently
In the dark, one brave throat,
breaks the night, boldly
By the pond, vigil's choir,
chanting frogs, communing.
- David Robinson, 1995

WHERE THERE IS DARKNESS, LIGHT

2011-07-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

This famous prayer, often called "the prayer of St. Francis", is sometimes attributed to St. Francis, though it can only be traced back to the early 20th century. Regardless of its origins, the spirit of the prayer is certainly in the spirit of St. Francis, a prayer which has inspired countless people, including many injured, doubting, despairing or saddened people looking for God's gifts of peace, love and joy.

Tabernacle

2011-06-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

THE ALTAR

2011-06-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch'd the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.

The Altar, by George Herbert (1633, from Herbert's poetry collection, "The Temple)

George Herbert (1593 – 1633), born in Wales, and a well-known English poet, served for many years as a priest in the Church of England. Educated at Cambridge University, he excelled in languages and music. He served for a few years in parliament before entering ministry. In 1630, while in his late thirties, he stepped into full-time life as a priest in a small parish near Salisbury, England. He is best known for his collections of sacred poetry.

Family Hiking

2011-06-21T00:19:00.001-07:00

FAMILY HOSPITALITY

2011-06-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from THE BUSY FAMILY'S GUIDE TO SPIRITUALITY

By David Robinson

(New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2009), 165-166

Let mutual love continue. ²Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. ~Hebrews 13:1-2 (NRSV)

When I’ve visited a European cathedral I’ve often had the feeling that the inside is bigger than the outside. Step through the door of any cathedral and look up into the high vaulted ceilings and the brilliance of the rose windows. Family spirituality, like a cathedral, invites us to step into a life of hospitality. We can practice hospitality in a way that welcomes strangers and friends into our hearts—hearts that are expansive, open places filled with love and light. The more space we make for God in our hearts, the greater capacity we have to welcome others into our lives. As you bring hospitality practices into your family life you will discover greater capacity for welcoming others.

Welcoming Guests

Living in a time of tremendous unrest and instability in the early sixth century Italy, Benedict had the boldness to warmly welcome strangers at his monastery gates. All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ (RB, 53). The monasteries that sprouted up across the landscape of Europe became places of true refuge and welcome for the busy, the weary, the poor, and the homeless. Anyone who needed a bed and a meal was welcomed, not merely as another mouth to feed, but as though God himself had asked for a night’s lodging.

Hospitable homes offer love to guests in practical ways, regardless of their wealth or status, without showing favoritism. Throughout the Bible, we read about God’s heart of mercy for the poor, the widow, the outcast, and anyone in need. Benedict echoes this concern. Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received; our very awe of the rich guarantees them special respect (RB, 53). Benedictine monasteries today always feature a guesthouse to welcome guests, putting into practice the principles of hospitality taught by Benedict in the Rule fifteen centuries ago. Every time I’ve visited a monastery, I’ve been warmly welcomed by the monks and made to feel as though my life was greatly valued.Family spirituality invites us to give special place in our hearts not only to friends and relatives, but also to the poor, the homeless, and the needy.

In Flight

2011-06-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

2011-06-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night
at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

By Wendell Berry
Collected Poems (North Point Press, 1985).

Doodles of Light

2011-05-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

FIRST THOUGHTS

2011-05-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

When Michelangelo began work on the Sistine Chapel, his first drawings were not on a ceiling but on scraps of paper called “primo pensieri”, or "first thoughts". Art historians estimate he drew over one thousand of these scribbles, doodles, sketches and cartoons. Fewer than seventy of them survive. Then again, who keeps napkin art? Seen any framed legal pad doodles recently? Ever kept your loose sheets of scribble drawings after playing an evening of Pictionary with friends? This type of drawings do not count as real art in most people’s books. Michelangelo even thought so it seems. Few were saved.

Michelangelo’s primo pensieri carried more value than anyone dreamed possible at the time. If people knew what they would be worth in five hundred years, they would have kept them in bank vaults. Their worth is a lot more than mere current value at Sotheby’s auction. As biographer Ross King writes in Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling,

Fresco painting called for numerous preparatory stages, but among the most vital and indispensable were the drawings by which designs were worked out and then transferred to the wall. Before a single stroke of paint could be applied to the vault of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo needed to produce hundreds of sketches to establish both the intricate body language of the characters and the overall composition of the various scenes.(1)

There's something about King's phrase, "Before a single stroke of paint". The vital, even indispensable work behind the scenes of any great creative work involves first thoughts, those fleeting ideas we have regarding a new venture in life. We don’t think much of these loose scraps of paper, the bits and pieces of our grand plan. Yet, without our primo pensieri, there will be nothing but blank plaster over our heads when people come into our lives.

Of course, Michelangelo’s first thoughts were no mere stick figures or doodles, but detailed studies of human anatomy with a tender pathos in their duotone simplicity. Thankfully, various assistants in his studio grabbed up a few of scrap papers from his studio floor, preserving some of his cartoon studies for posterity.

The question for us has nothing to do with how we will be remembered in five hundred years. We leave that to God. But here’s a great idea from the past. Dare to have first thoughts. Begin today. Scratch out a few lines on the back of an envelope. Doodle a grand concept on a napkin. Daily scratch out a few more first thoughts. Those stick figures marching across your legal pad just may show you the way into the world of your dreams, and into the plans that God has for you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

(1)Ross King, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, (New York, NY: Walker & Company, 2003), 81.

Art image: Study for Libyan Sibyl, by Michelangelo; red chalk drawing; 1510-11

Doodle Light image above and photo of the week below are both by Stefan Robinson.

Hand in Hand

2011-05-18T22:32:00.001-07:00

BLUEPRINTS FOR FAMILY SPIRITUALITY

2011-05-16T17:41:00.000-07:00

"I vividly recall, my first visit to a monastery in October 1986, and the deep sense of peace which came upon me as I sat quietly in the cloister garden. I had come home. Monasteries offer a beautiful design that serves the needs and purposes of the monastic community as well as those who come as guests. You’ll almost always find an enclosed garden at the center of the monastery, surrounded by the sanctuary, dining hall, kitchen, and dormitory. Nearby, you’ll find the guest house, along with other rooms, including workshops, an infirmary, and the library.

Like the design of a monastery, blueprints for family spirituality are designed to serve the needs and purposes of families seeking to live together in love. My wife and I shared many conversations regarding patterns of parenting when we became pregnant with our firstborn. Choosing a family blueprint is not easy, but it is essential for the crafting of a well-built family. Benedict’s design for communal spiritual life has stood the test of time, and can offer busy families today wisdom and guidance for finding their way home.

Benedict's family was a community of monks, living under the leadership of an abbot or “father”, and guided by a common “rule of life.” The word "rule" . . . comes from the Latin word regula, meaning a measuring tool or guidebook. From the foundation of Benedict’s Rule, written in the sixth century, there developed thousands of long-enduring spiritual communities across the landscape of Europe, and later around the world, providing stability and wisdom across generations.
Every family lives according to some type of design whether consciously or not. But without a wise blueprint and a good foundation, a family may not endure the storms that lie ahead. Many parents that I know have combined family blueprints from their upbringings. Most parents also seek guidance in the ongoing challenge of raising children."(1)

(1) Excerpt from The Busy Family's Guide to Spirituality (New York; Crossroad Publishing Company, 2010), 9-10; by David Robinson. Used with permission.

Lux Aeterna

2011-05-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

THE MIRROR OF ETERNITY

2011-05-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure
of the divine substance!
And transform your whole being
into the image of the Godhead
through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
which God Himself has reserved
from the beginning
for those who love Him.

So wrote Clare of Assisi to Agnes of Prague in 1238. Blessed Agnes of Prague (1211--1282), youngest daughter of the king of Bohemia, was "engaged" at age eight to Henry, son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II. As a teen, she gave up becoming queen, and instead became a sister of the Franciscan Order of Poor Clares, devoting her life to prayer and service to Christ. The founder of this order, Clare of Assisi, wrote a series of letters to Agnes to encourage her in her life of prayer and contemplation. According to Clare, the heart habit of contemplation is something like looking into "the mirror of eternity", placing our soul in the "brilliance of glory". In so doing, we allow our whole being to be transformed into "the image of the Godhead" and begin to "taste the hidden sweetness" which God has for all who look into this mirror. After looking into this mirror of eternity, our souls are renewed and strengthened to serve others with the hidden sweetness of God. In 1232, Agnes of Prague founded the Hospital of St. Francis to serve and care for the poor and the lepers of the city of Prague. Blessed Agnes of Prague is featured on the 50 Czech Crown bank note, and also is the patron saint of Bohemia.

Sunrise at the Maroon Bells

2011-05-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

DAWN CHORUS

2011-04-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

As though expecting something greater yet,

From high up in the Hemlock trees they sing,

At first a few lone voices start their set,

Then others enter in the chorusing.

Around the world the sunrise ever runs,

To scatter shadowlands with dawning light,

The turning globe receives the morning sun's

Rejuvenating rays with sheer delight.

The birds at least, they somehow seem to know,

That Christ was risen from the dead at dawn,

Their chorus every morn it seems to show,

That everything that breathes is truly drawn;

To lift our voice in praise and adoration;

Our purpose so to practice resurrection.*

By David Robinson, written on Easter, April 24, 2011

*"practice resurrection" is a phrase from Wendell Berry's "Manifesto of a Mad Farmer"

The title "Dawn Chorus" is from Gordon Hempton's Emmy winning sound documentary of birds singing at dawn all over the world, titled, "Vanishing Dawn Chorus".

Spring Trillium

2011-04-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

SONNET FOR THE DAWN

2011-04-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ...Suddently Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshipped him. ~Matthew 28:1,9

A new day beckons hearts awake to sing,
As jeweled dew drops freshen every blade,
A flash of flicker-flight on morning wing,
Through Hemlock boughs renews the forest glade.

Eternity arises with the dawn,
In misty shrouded forests by the sea,
The sword fern camouflage the sleeping fawn,
Beneath the soaring Cedar canopy.

Awake my soul, your morning anthem raise,
To join the Varied Thrush in Matin’s cry,
Leap up my soul, your Recreator praise,
In silent wonder seek him eye to eye.

The darkness fades, behold the new day breaks,
As all creation in Christ’s light awakes.

A PAIR OF CROWS

2011-04-11T17:32:00.000-07:00

Awakened by the dawn,

Perched in a Sitka spruce,

Two corvids allopreen.

The crescent moon is gone,

The pair now on the loose,

On wing above the green.

In search of morning food,

They hunt the high tide line,

Beachcombing on the winds.

A race along the dunes,

Then off to town to find,

Their cousins and some friends.

Arriving at God's house,

Upon a shore pine branch,

They look inside the place.

We're keeping prayerful vows,

Our thirsty souls to quench,

Before the throne of grace.

~by David Robinson

4.11.11

CONSIDER THE RAVENS

2011-04-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storerooms or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? ~Luke 12:24-26

"Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you new courage....Brothers and sisters, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things." ~Father Zossima, from "The Brothers Karamazov", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ravens and crows are communal creatures. They communicate in complex social patterns of speech, live in intentional social structures, and they submit their lives to the corvid pecking order. Ornithologists have studied crows at play, at work, at community gatherings. They’ve discovered them storing food for the winter, playing together and posting sentries to guard their camp. They have attempted to decipher their language and understand their communal way of life. Some odd bird-brain facts. A domestic chicken brain accounts for one tenth of a percent (0.1%) of its body weight. The American Crow’s brain is two and a half percent (2.5%) of its body weight compared with the human brain weighing in at one and a half percent (1.5%) of our body weight.(1) Every time I meet a crow I think to myself, “there must be something remarkable going on inside that head”.

A minister friend told me an odd crow story he witnessed at a wedding in Santa Barbara, California. The bride and groom wanted to share communion on their wedding day. So my minister friend provided a dinner roll as a communion loaf, along with a chalice of wine. During the outdoor ceremony, a crow flew down from a neighboring tree, landed on the edge of the chalice, nearly tipping it over, and with one quick motion, the large bird pecked at the loaf of bread and flew off with it to a branch above the heads of the wedding guests. Then the crow sat for the next few minutes, in full view of the humans below, enjoying its own form of corvid communion while the minister hustled off to obtain another loaf.

I love talking with crows and ravens when I meet them in the village or in the forest. On a hike a few winters back with friends in the Olympic National Park, a raven followed us for several miles, high in the treetops overhead, keeping us company and tracking our progress with deep throaty “Krawwk” calls that echoed through the forest.

I had an odd encounter with a crow a few years ago, while spending the weekend at a retreat center on the north coast of Oregon. Sitting on a park bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean at sunset, I was meditating on a sentence from the Bible when a crow flew up, perched on a nearby telephone pole and started its brash calls. Caw! Caw! Caw! I continued my quiet reflection on the story. Caw! Caw! Caw! I was thinking, “Hey bird, knock it off! I’m trying to enjoy some quiet time down here.” The crow kept up his calls: Caw! Caw! Caw! “Quit already. Can’t you see, I’m trying to enjoy the quiet here!” Caw! Caw! Caw! My eyes returned to the sentence I was pondering. Caw! Caw! Caw! It was only then that I discovered the crow’s secret hidden in the sentence. There they were: three verbs tucked away in that sentence I had been reading and rereading. Go! Close! Pray! When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:6).

Go! Close! Pray! An “Aha” ray of spiritual light penetrated into that 1.5% of my body weight also known as my brain. At that exact moment, the crow flew off. I watched its flight across the dunes, offering a prayer of thanks to God for sending that bird to point out a basic pattern for wise living. Go! Close! Pray!

Go! Getting away from distractions requires some forethought. I’ve found it difficult to engage in soul work of meditation in the middle of the muddle. Better to remove our bodies, even just a few steps from the thoroughfare than to be perpetually frustrated at the many irritating interruptions.

Close! Just because you’ve gotten away to a corner chair in a back room doesn’t mean all the distractions cease. What happens is an actual intensification of interior distractions. Quietly closing the door on these takes some soul work as well. I’ve found it helpful to place into my awareness a simple focusing tool, like a candle, some meditative music or a paragraph of sacred writing. Then my eyes, my ears and my mind have something simple to focus upon. Giving in to distractions is not bad. It’s normal. But why not try to settle in to enjoy a few minutes of quiet without them for once.

Pray! Going and closing are merely prep work for the grand event. Enjoy an encounter of intimacy with God. Dwell together. I love the visual way Psalm 23 teaches us to pray. Lie down to rest in a verdant meadow. Sit down next to a cool mountain stream and quench your thirst. Walk together along a path, experiencing guidance, comfort and protection along the way. Feast on a grand banquet, letting your cup be filled to overflowing with good wine. Dwell together with goodness and loving-kindness every day of our life. That’s what I’d call the good life.

Jesus tells us to "consider the ravens" (Luke 12:24), to learn from these amazing birds how to live, including how to live before God. It doesn’t take bird brains to figure out what prayer is all about. A few years ago, we offered left over communion bread to the ravens while out on a weekend prayer retreat. We had heard ravens that weekend up in the conifers. I don’t know if crows and ravens are prayerful birds.One thing I do know. Whenever I’m out in nature, they will always be invited to my table to enjoy a grand feast in the forest.

(1) See Bernd Heinrich, Mind of the Raven, (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), 326-331.

CONSIDER THE RAVENS

2011-03-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

no anxiety

when barrel-rolling in flight

over bogachiel

ii.

unseen guardian

heard among sitka spruce

following our path

iii.

katanoeo

study with intensity

Christ’s corvus corax

iv.

hand-crafted in clay

birthed in crucible of kiln

take flight heart to heart

when you came to church

perched there in the alder tree

my soul exalted

Notes:

bogachiel--name of a mountain in Olympic National Park where we witnessed ravens barrel-rolling;

katanoeo--verb used by Jesus in Luke 12:24, meaning "study with intensity", to "consider" the ravens

corvus corax--Latin for Common Raven

SEED AMONG CEDAR

2011-03-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

My soul, an empty birdfeeder,

Attracts no winged thing,

Without the seed among cedar,

The forest seldom sings.

On Sabbath morn come fill anew

This empty heart of mine;

With suet cakes and seeds to woo,

The feathered life divine.

“God’s little theologians”* come

To teach my soul your story;

No anxious cares within this home,

When filled with heaven’s glory.

*Martin Luther’s affectionate term for birds

D. Robinson 3.18.11

Top of Multnomah Falls

2011-03-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

THRUSH SONG SONNET

2011-03-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

From high above in conifers she sings,

With dual voices simultaneously heard,

The varied thrush a shy retiring bird,

Whose simple haunting song in forest rings.

For years I wondered who composed the song,

While walking in the rain among the trees;

I heard the high-pitched notes my ear to please,

Though ignorant to whom the call belonged.

We learn the names of countless feathered wings,

Their shapes and colors, food and habitat,

The chickadee, the junco and nuthatch,

Their sight and song a fleeting glory brings.

To match the thrush song to the varied thrush

A gift of orange wonder under brush.

~David Robinson, 3.3.11

Spokane Sunrise

2011-03-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

RISING

2011-03-07T09:55:00.000-08:00

A songbird sings into my ear,

"Awake thy soul to sing,"

Of morning light and ever near,

A sense of wondering.

What lies ahead? What lies ahead?

My heartbeat asks again,

As day awakens me from bed,

To walk out in the rain.

The mist hangs low and heavily,

Uniting sea and sky,

My heart leaps up and readily,

I yearn to learn to fly.

The eastern skies illuminate,

With lavenders and red,

The sleepy headlands as they wait,

The rising from the dead.

By David Robinson, 2.28.11

Bridal Veil Falls

2011-03-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

BOWING TWICE

2011-02-28T15:40:00.000-08:00

Go to your local Benedictine Abbey as I did last week and you’ll observe an oddity. In the evening, monks walk into the sanctuary for worship together, side by side, two by two. As they approach the center of the choir, the pairs bow in unison twice, first forward to God, second side to side to one another. What’s all this business of bowing? Monastic life never did appear sensible to busy people.

The first bow I understand completely. After all, they’re monks. Isn’t the monastic life a total surrender of one’s life to God? Monks bow with their possessions, their time, their careers, with their whole lives, declaring in that gesture, “It’s not about me. It’s about God.” When you go into the sacred place next time, give it a try. Take a bow. A few years back, I started doing that little bend at the waist when I entered a sacred place. Strangely, something inside my soul brightened. It was like opening the window blinds and seeing the light of morning for the first time. God is already here. That slight bend of the waist simply acknowledged the wonder-filled presence of the Creator of the universe. One little bend of the waist and out flows all that spiritual stuff which gives our spines the shivers of wonder and reminds us what the wise sages have told us all along, that the chief end of Man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The Gospel of St. Matthew records that the first thing the Magi did before presenting their extravagant gifts, was to bow in worship before this baby (Matthew 2:11).

That second bow of the monks though is a bit more troubling. I’d prefer my sacred encounter to be just between me and God. We’re into private practice of faith. We’re American. Just me and God. Don’t ask me to walk in together with a stranger. Don’t ask me to bow to the man in the black robe. I hardly even know the guy.

That’s the whole point. Acknowledge the presence of God in the face of a stranger. You’ll find this same expression in the customary greeting in India, “Namaste”. As two people meet, they bow and offer that greeting, which literally translates, “the sacred center of my soul recognizes the presence of God in the sacred center of your soul.” My life is connected with your life. My soul is a sacred space I open to you. I welcome you as a fellow faith pilgrim. Let’s walk together, worship together, learn to love one another. That’s what the second bow is all about.

After that second bow, the monks file quietly into the choir stalls, take their seats and the service begins. Most of what transpires during “the divine office”, as monks call their daily times of worship, most of what happens is antiphonal chanting of the Psalms. They face each other, reciting in simple song the words of ancient prayers, back and forth, line by line, alternating from one side to the next.

Do you see the genius of this arrangement? At the end of a day, monks goes to a sacred place together with other monks, bowing to God and to one another. Of course, they are monks and go to that same sacred place five times daily. During those services lasting around thirty minutes each, they worship in intentional community, with God and with one another, like an ancient dance, but with words, voice and soul. Daily they encounter God in the face of the person in black sitting across the choir simply because they’ve been willing lay down their souls out of love for God love for neighbor as they bow twice.

Art image: Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) "Adoration of the Magi"

DESK AND DAUGHTER

2011-02-21T09:32:00.000-08:00

I wonder whose desk that was,

Now discarded southward, pushed

Years ago over the edge beyond

The broken cement foundation pile

Among rotting sheets of plywood

And construction projects abandoned.

Morning glory and blackberry vines

Race to embrace the fallen furniture,

Creeping quietly into drawers to peek

Into rain-soaked files spilling out,

Half-buried in among the weeds.

I wonder when she sat at this desk,

Whether she ever envisioned mere

Mortality of poorly built pressboard

Mahogany veneered cabinetry now

Forsaken. What letters, verses, memories,

Prayers, laments and loves came pouring

Forth from her fountain pen to page?

What forbidden love, secretly indulged,

Hidden desires or dreams never realized,

Confessed here upon this sacred place,

Now neglected, decaying, abandoned.

I wonder if skeletal remains of

Desks and daughters could converse

What stories they would tell,

What psalms they would chant,

What confessions they would hear,

What dreams they would dream?

The monastic cemetery rests within,

View, fewer than fifty yards away

Cloistered among evergreen trees

Gravestones marching across the grass

In well-ordered simplicity and silence.

If she could arise at midnight and

Walk those few fifty steps westward

To this site, this rejected heap,

And see again this broken form that

Once was her desk, those long years

Of psalms and service, prayers and

Redirected passions, now melted away

As morning mist that once hung heavy

Among gnarled apple trees in the orchard.

I wonder what these two would say

And how they may greet and bow
Before the Christ and each other

With enduring modesty and grace.

~written by David Robinson

Indian Paintbrush

2011-02-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

CONCRESCENCE

2011-02-14T13:53:00.000-08:00

con·cres·cence (kən-krĕsˈəns): L concrescentia < concrescere, to grow together < com-,crescere, to grow.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. ~Romans 8:18-21

Maybe you too have had the experience of coincidental events meeting within a short time period, such as on the same day, from completely different sources, speaking the same exact truth or insight. I tend to think of such events as "concrescence". Though this world usually refers to biological aspects in nature which grow together, I extend concrescence to include the coming together of similar thoughts, ideas, or themes from separate sources.

For example, last week, in visiting a friend midday, I turned to the passage above, from Romans 8, and read aloud those exact words. We discussed these truths about creation waiting in eager expectation, creation being subjected to transcience, and creation being liberated from bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory in the future. We too are part of this creation. Just a few hours later, 100 miles away, in a completely different setting, at Mount Angel Benedictine Abbey, during the evening Vespers service, I heard those exact words, the first and only words read aloud in that service. Concrescence! Two events growing together, meeting and getting the attention of a mind and heart to encourage me to consider anew the valuable inner truths.

ANOINTING

2011-02-04T08:19:00.000-08:00

A Sonnet on Anointing

The moon in fullness smiles upon the night,

Among the darkened trees a glimmer shines,

In pleasant places are the boundary lines,

Along the shadowed lane Epiphany’s light.

We’re welcomed in with grace and warmth and tea,

To ponder pains of partings, loss and grief,

To bear another’s burdens brings relief,

We’re lightened singing confitemini.

With invocations, candlelight and song,

The oil of gladness brightening our hearts,

Anointing flows from heaven’s healing arts,

From Bethlehem we join the festive throng.

Your cross and passion Christ to us you bring

Eternal life and healing love to sing.

~David Robinson, January 21, 2011

Ecola Creek with Haystack Rock

2011-02-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

LIFE FILLED AIR

2011-02-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

A flapping noise rushed near his feet. He jolted, it was just two sparrows scared off by the rustling of the glowing reeds. Pausing again as his rubber boot suctioned the mud, he gazed into the budding emerald forest. A creek trickled past auburn mud banks eroded from years of flow. Light shone through the ferns sprouting from old fallen alders. Skunk cabbage yielded their yellow shells. The woods smelled of bright green. He came upon the bubbling stream. The sun glinted off the water like off a warped mirror. Chickadees chirped and elderberry were just blooming.
It was spring.

Time to Reflect

2011-01-24T22:04:00.000-08:00

KNOWING STARS

2011-01-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

I wish I could name more of these stars.
I know the big dipper,
but I wish I could say
"Oh, there's Pleiades,
and Andromeda"
For to know the name
is the beginning of understanding;
and to understand
is to conquer.
But it is not for the conquering
that I name,
but to know.
To know its essence.
So that by knowing,
I may become more one with.
And perhaps by knowing the world around me,
I may better know myself.

Into the Light

2011-01-18T21:40:00.000-08:00

WHAT IS BEAUTY?

2011-01-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

    It has been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many forms of beauty that are universally recognized. For instance – who doesn’t think a vibrant sunset is beautiful? Or a sleeping baby? Or a creek through a lush forest or the sun glinting of curving dunes? Or the male or female form? Or the moon or stars? Or a life well lived?
    What is it about these things that makes them beautiful? They are all part of creation. Made in God’s hands and given with love for all to enjoy. If these things are truly created in God’s image, what a beautiful God we serve!
    Yet beauty is more than we see, more than that which is physically evident. An action can be beautiful. The giving of one’s self through love has more beauty than that a grain of sand can contain; for it is a reflection of the relationship that God originally intended. How beautiful it would be to be totally vulnerable, yet totally loved. Yet this is the kind of love the Jesus gives to us. To lay down his life upon that cross in total suffering so that those whom captured and killed him could be set free. What beauty!
    If the beauty on this earth and love shared by those who inhabit it are but a mere reflection of God, than God’s beauty is must be more beautiful than any of us can ever imagine possible. More than any eye could behold.

Written by Thomas Robinson - May 2009

Last Colors

2011-01-10T10:01:00.000-08:00

VERGE BETWEEN

2011-01-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

Here I sit on this verge between,
Grey and blue, and all around green.
Little raindrops from the sky,
Fall upon this knoll up high.
Aye, the wind, is but a breeze.
Gust upon gust, nothing to seize.

As I huddle from the rain,
I think of all creation lain:
In the heavens and on the earth
All the glory nature does birth.
Thankful for the life I’ve seen,
As I sit on this verge between.

- Thomas Robinson

Leaf Spiral

2011-01-01T20:14:00.000-08:00

Photo by David Robinson

SINGULARITY

2011-01-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

It doesn't make sense to me that all humanity is dependent upon one person, upon one life, death and resurrection. How can it be that so many billions and trillions of people throughout all time need to turn and believe in one man, said to be God, who isn't even seen. How is this the necessity in order to have meaning in life and meaning after life? That this one person would have the audacity to ask you to change your entire life to live like He did. Doesn't that seem a little self-centered? And yet. Yet, what a life to live up to: a life that is exactly opposite of self centered. In humility, he served others, putting himself down to raise others up. So selfless that he gave up his life so that you may live. There is no greeter example of love. No greater story. No greater truth. It is not for Jesus' good that He asks you to live like him, no. It is for your own good. For through him, we receive the greatest treasure. It is in this we hope, in His love that we take faith in following the unseen.

Written by Thomas Robinson 2 Jan 2010

Winter Wonderland

2010-12-28T01:28:00.001-08:00

CHRISTMAS RAIN

2010-12-27T20:17:00.000-08:00

The orange-red fronds

of dead bracken ferns,

glisten in the ambient light

from this grey-skied afternoon,

as rain descends in long lines

drawn by hesitant hands

with heaven’s choir

singing water music.

Two days past birthing

and refugee babies cry for milk,

with Mary’s song echoing across years

as mothers glance heavenward,

seeking signs of showers.

Divine grace descends like rain,

falling steadily soaking trees,

as earth echoes songs of rain.

The streams of God are full,

cascading with playful prayers

towards the misty lake.

Barrenness and drought call out

to those living in lands of rainfall,

asking for aid beyond a cup of water.

Parched human hearts

look skyward for signs of rain

while drenched souls stumble

in watery grace-soaked lands,

even their trail maps soaked

with the fullness

of grace upon grace.

~fern photo and poem by David Robinson, Dec. 27, 2010

HE WILL COME LIKE THE FROST

2010-12-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
one night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like the frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

~Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

Foggy Tree

2010-12-19T02:47:00.000-08:00

I WONDER AS I WANDER

2010-12-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
~John Jacob Niles

Perhaps the greatest loss we experience as we move from childhood into adult is losing our sense of wonder. Children are full of wonder. As children, our lives are naturally alert to the surprises, pleasures and beauty of life pulsating all around us. Children are quick to take delight in little things, like shiny stones along a river bank or the winter thrill of snowflakes.

Socrates claimed, “The beginning of wisdom is wonder.” Months after returning from hiking in Olympic National Park each eary, I’ve feasted richly upon the sounds and sights of that week of wonder.

Wonder most often comes as a surprise. We wander into it unknowing. We gaze and gaze attempting to take in the sight of glory. Our words fall short; yet, our hearts well up with an inner sense of wonder. Thus, wonder is a twice blessed gift, giving delight in our first encounter with such fullness; and once again as we look with that inward eye, as Wordsworth wrote, ‘which is the bliss of solitude’. As we take time to reflect upon the vision of wonder, our hearts fill once again with pleasure and we discover ourselves dancing ‘with the daffodils’.

For many, the month of December, and the season of Advent. are times reminding of us of childlike wonder. As we celebrate the coming of Christ, our home begins to fill with those delights which come out only once a year.

During Christmas, we expect the unexpected. We become children once again. We take time to wonder. In our return to childhood, we share together the delight of wonder. We look up into the clear December sky and think of that Bethlehem star that once led wise men to the place of wonder. There, they laid down their gifts before the Christ child, kneeling to worship and honor the child who would be King.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

On Christmas eve, we gather together, joined by a common sense of wonder at God’s generosity. We sing carols celebrating the coming of God into our darkened world to save ‘poor on’ry people, like you and like I’. Too often, we’ve given up our innocence, trading in our childhood wonder for electronic entertainment or trivialities.

How can we return? How can we find our way back to that five year old age of innocence where we might once again take delight in rain drops falling on our faces? We can travel together to that place of wonder. The way is illuminated by poetry and song. Sing together those lovely Christmas carols, even in July as you wander through a natural cathedral of ancient trees and allow your heart to wonder as you wander out under the sky.

Lone Stroll

2010-12-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

LOVE'S PURE LIGHT

2010-12-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!
Christ, the Saviour is born
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

May you know love's pure light, the radiant beams from the face of God, filling your heart and home with heavenly peace!

Lyrics by Joseph Mohr, 1816

THE STREAMS OF GOD ARE FILLED

2010-11-29T09:51:00.000-08:00

You care for the land and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water

to provide the people with grain,

for so you have ordained it.

You drench its furrows and level its ridges;

you soften it with showers and bless its crops.

You crown the year with your bounty,

and your carts overflow with abundance.

The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;

the hills are clothed with gladness.

The meadows are covered with flocks

and the valleys are mantled with grain;

they shout for joy and sing.

~Psalm 65:9-13

This Psalm is a harvest hymn of thanksgiving, likely sung during the Jewish autumnal festival of Tabernacles. After our national (USA) feast day of Thanksgiving last week, we’ve had opportunity once again as a people to consider the good gifts of home, family, friends, food, feasting! What a sweet joy it is to raise our voices and sing songs of thanksgiving together as a people!

Psalm 65 celebrates “streams of God filled with water”. Translate that as the gift of rain. On the north Oregon coast, it is a favorite pastime of locals to complain about rain. We certainly have an abundance of this gift! We average 76 inches (over six feet) per year. God has ordained rain as a gift given to all creatures to remind us of heaven’s abundance. Next time it rains, go outside, turn your bare face skyward, and soak in the gift of God’s presence in the “streams of God”. Offer a silent prayer of thanks for the wetness of grace.

If you’ve ever traveled to an arid climate, you’ll know what a gift rain is for people, land and animals. The meadows, the fields, the valleys, the mountains, the flocks, and the people all sing for joy at the sight and sound of falling rain, the “streams of God”. Psalm 65 offers a beautiful vision of creation “singing for joy”. The Bible tells us creation sings for joy. See for example, Job 38:7, describing this celebration at creation, “while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy.”

According to the ancient songwriter, God’s goodness is so abundant that all creation flows forth with the song of God’s goodness, as rains fall from heaven, drenching furrows newly plowed and planted by farmers. The “streams of God” level the ridges and soften the land with showers.

A decade ago, we hiked by a gushing spring coming out of the side of a mountain ridge in Olympic National Park a mile above sea level. This spring emerged just below the top of the ridge, sending pure water cascading down the mountainside, watering the valley below, allowing myriads of wildflowers, shrubs and trees to prosper in the gift of water. I’ve been deeply moved by that single spring, evidence to my soul of the abundance of water pushed a mile upwards within the heart of the mountain by the upwelling water table of God’s goodness.

May the streams of God fill our life this Advent season, softening hearts, leveling our ridges, filling our hurting furrowed hearts, and germinating the good seed of God’s Word planted in our hearts, overflowing our lives with God’s gift of abundance!

Mountain of Gratitude

2010-11-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

Tusind tak ("two-sen tak") is the Danish phrase for a thousand thanks. Thank you for following this blog and all the encouragement along the way. A Tusind Tak.

MELODIOUS THANKS

2010-11-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

I think my thought, and fancy I think thee.--
Lord, wake me up; rend swift my coffin-planks;
I pray thee, let me live--alive and free.
My soul will break forth in melodious thanks,
Aware at last what thou wouldst have it be,
When thy life shall be light in me, and when
My life to thine is answer and amen.

~from Diary of an Old Soul, November 22, by George Macdonald

George Macdonald (1824-1905), Scottish writer of fiction & poetry composed a 366 stanza poem known as Diary of an Old Soul, each stanza containing seven lines of iambic pentameter, with a fixed rhyme scheme (ABABCBC, though the rhyme scheme of the final three lines varies from stanza to stanza). This book length poem offers an insight into Macdonald's faith and theology, as each stanza is written as a daily prayer, often a cry for help, a confession, a lament, a struggle or striving with God in prayer. Known simply as A Diary of an Old Soul, this poem's full title is A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul. This poetic work had a profound influence upon C.S.Lewis in his conversion to Christianity as seen in his letter of October 1929, where he declares he had been "slowly reading ... Macdonald's Diary of an Old Soul....I strongly advise you to try it. He seems to know everything and find my own experience in it constantly" (quoted from "A Brief Analysis of the Content of George MacDonald: An Anthology by C. S. Lewis", by Paul F. Ford). For an online version of Diary of an Old Soul visit http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/3538

We offer our "melodious thanks" to all you who have taken time this year to visit CANNON BEACH LOG to enjoy photography and read spiritual thoughts from the north Oregon coast.

With our gratitude!

Wave and Haystack

2010-11-16T22:49:00.000-08:00

THE LAW OF UNDULATION

2010-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from The Screwtape Letters, chapter VIII

" . . . Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation? Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. . . As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.

"Now it may surprise you to learn that in [God’s] efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily good; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which [God] demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of replicas of Himself—creatures, whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. . .

"And that is where the troughs come in. . . . Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all . . . supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. . . . He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. . . . [The Devil’s] cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

The Screwtape Letters (1941), by C.S.Lewis

FOR LIBERTY

2010-11-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

The monks are praying Psalms at this dark hour,

Their vigil chant awakening the dawn,

I too this night am wakened by the power

The will to live to see the morning sun.

Our cat has caught a mouse with vigil care,

From some unknown dark corner down beneath,

With mouse in mouth she prays her vigil prayer,

Her prey still praying, begging for release.

Survival beats a drum in every heart,

The cat and mouse, the lion and the lamb,

We all desire another dawning start,

To raise our praise to Abrams' captive Ram.

I caught the mouse to set it forest free,

With beating grateful heart for liberty.

(Sonnet written by David Robinson, November 8, 2010, at 4:30a.m.)

Universe in a Pond

2010-11-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

THIS SITE IS RESTING

2010-11-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

In a society so often driven by productivity and profit, it may seem counter-intuitive to view resting as a beneficial way to live. Nature tells us otherwise. On this first day of November, as we head into late Autumn, we turn once again to a time of less activity, learning the hard lesson of our need for rest. John Keats described Autumn as a "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness".

This Fall, while hiking in Olympic National Park, we came upon the sign in the photo above expressing succinctly our soul's need. The beautifully crafted, weather-worn sign was placed next to a former campsite along Hoh Lake (4500 feet elevation). Occasionally, the national park service will close a campsite for a season due to overuse, allowing a site "rest". The rain and snow continue to fall; the sun and moon continue to shine; the deer and black bear continue to wander through (we saw both at Hoh Lake this year). Life seems unchanged.

Yet, something vital is happening while "this site is resting". Boots, backpacks and tents are absent. The small, wild things are allowed to spring up undisturbed without being trampled underfoot. The snow falls, burying the site for months. The late spring sun melts the snow, overflowing the lake, running off the mountainsides into the great Hoh valley below. New shoots of life spring up from soil once beaten down by campers. New life springs forth, and bare soil is replaced with alpine meadowland glory. Mountain blueberries cover the ground, along with John Muir's favorite wildflower, Cassiope, white heather with her luminous bells blooming in late summer.

None of this would have been possible without the gift of rest. The prophet Isaiah invited ancient Israel to come back to a time of rest. In returning and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it (Isaiah 30:15). Often, people today will have none of it as well, preferring the well-trodden paths of productivity and profit-making. Nothing wrong with being productive or earning a decent living. But all campsites, like all people, need their times of rest. In this gift comes the saving grace of God, quietly renewing our soul, strengthening our frame, and bringing back the beauty of meadowlands to our inner world.

Rock Well

2010-10-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Andy Goldsworthy

ANDY GOLDSWORTHY: A COLLABORATION WITH NATURE

2010-10-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature (NY: Abrams, 1990)

"For me, looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. Place is found by walking, direction determined by weather and season. I take opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches.

"I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn. I might have walked past or worked there many times. Some places I return to over and over again, going deeper -- a relationship made in layers over a long time. Staying in one place makes me more aware of change. I might give up after a while. My perception of a place is often frustratingly limiged. The best of my work, sometimes the result of much struggle when made, appears so obvious that it is incredible I didn't see it before. It was there all the time.

"Movement, changes, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave, these processes continue."

Note: If you have never heard of this artist, we wanted to introduce you to Andy and one of his many excellent photographic art books, A Collaboration with Nature.

THE WINEPRESS

2010-10-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Winepress

A Sonnet

Prepara te ad pressuras, advised
Augustine, knowing well the way of strife,
‘Prepare yourself for pressures’, heed the wise,
By yielding heart and body, soul and life.
With clusters hanging heavy from the vine,
September’s sun sends sweetness to the lush,
While harvesters move slowly down the line,
In vats the grapes to gather and to crush.
Of old did Jesus trod by Galilee
In Cana changed the water into wine
The first unveiled sign of life divine
The winepress on the road to Calvary
'Let every one of you, your pressures fetch
Good liquor from the winepress so to catch’*

~by David Robinson, October 2007

The image of pressing grapes in a winepress was commonly used in the Middle Ages to describe the work of God in the lives of believers who were facing pressures and troubles. While the work of pressing grapes is an autumnal event in the northern hemisphere, in February, the vineyards are being pruned back in preparation for the growth of grapes for the fall harvest. Most of the European grape harvest was just completed a few weeks ago. In past years, as we've helped in the vineyard during harvest, I've thought of the hard labor of pruning the vines, which is usually done in January or February, in the cold, wet months of winter. As Jesus taught, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful" (John 15:1-2).

*quote in final couplet of sonnet from a Doctor of Ministry lecture by Dr. James Bradley on spiritual formation in the 17th century, Fuller Theological Seminary, October 2007. Photo by David Robinson, from vineyard overlooking Botzingen, Germany; Spat Burgunder grapes in early October.