Messages From Carrie
A Note From Carrie (from the 5/17/05 newsletter)
May 18th, 2005
Dear Friends,
Summertime and nature: Just a quick note to wish you all a great start to the summer. I'm looking forward to so many of the fun events this season! Being home in Indiana for a few weeks before the beginning of summer touring has been lovely. I heard the first wood thrush of the season last night. It just about took my breath away. The little pond near our house is alive with spring peepers making their very happy (hey baby, hey baby, your lily pad or mine) peeping sounds! The trout lily and morels have passed now but the jack-in-the-pulpits and May apples are in bloom. Everywhere there are green and growing things, and the world is alive with wonder. Sometimes I agree with the writer of the lines - there is nothing new under the sun - for the seasons change, the cycle continues, people love, hope, grieve, rage and wonder, celebrate, stumble and rise again. But, then I take a walk in the wet spring morning and see the light and dew sparkle on an intricately woven spider web spanning the forest path, and I know surely there has never been a day when the world wasn't new. Breath deep, the day and all possibility are germinating in the deep ground.
Politics and the Spirit: I'l be doing a benefit in June for Sojourners with Jim Wallis. I did a bus tour with Jim last fall and it was very inspiring to be working with others trying to reclaim the language and discourse of conscience in our political landscape. The far religious right has laid claim to morality and spiritual language, but millions believe it's time to clearly say, "We are people of conscience, spirituality and faith, and this doesn't speak for us?" The separation of church and state is absolutely vital for a healthy check and balance of power; theocracies are not just bad politics, but essentially bad theology. This is powerful stuff and a powerful time my friends. Martin Luther King Jr. had it right; there is a deeper calling. A life lived well and truly is not about soundbytes or hot buttons; it is about a life lived with a bottom-line dedication to love and justice, not fear, as a guiding principal. A life well lived is not just about what you are "against?" but rather what you are "for?" What you are for is about hope and not fear, gives greater clarity, and inspires solutions and alternatives. When someone speaks the truth it sounds like a silver bell in the quiet. Remember, whenever you speak the truth out of love and compassion, there is someone waiting, just waiting to hear it.
Other fun stuff-websites and books . . . Another website I've been enjoying is www.speakingoffaith.org it's a NPR program that explores spiritual issues with an open and intelligent eye. Krista Tippet is the host, and she rocks! She interviews people exploring current topics through a variety of diverse spiritual traditions.
I also finished a wonderful novel I'd love to recommend. It's called "Gilead," by Marianne Robinson, and it has to be one of the most beautifully written books I've encountered in a while.
Until later,
Carrie