Every Skinny Tree

4 de Noviembre 2009

The Skinnytree is moving too.

help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

take it from me

help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 8:51 AM | Comments (0)

3 de Noviembre 2009

basta!

yesterday was the falling slowly day.
I got in the car to come to work and Glen Hansard was singing with all his might about how much I have suffered--enough.

I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you have a choice
You'll make it now

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along

Last night on the phone abuelita told me she doesn't want me to suffer. She wants to buy me a coat, some rain boots, anything to protect me from the weather, but only because she doesn't trust her voice to be like a windbreaker against the storms in my heart (even though I do). I told her I'd call if I find the coat I need.

help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

2 de Noviembre 2009

some of us

preachers really only ever preach one or two sermons, we just change the words every week.
some of us fight the same fight over and over again, we just change the words...

PHoff gave me a copy of this article. The Konica Bizhub messed up the back page and it was so dark I could barely read it toward the end... but it wouldn't have made it any easier to read had it copied well...

Till Disrespect Do Us Part

Couples therapist John Gottman predicts marriage futures.

By Kathryn Robinson
MY HUSBAND TOM and I fought most of the way to the Dr. John Gottman lecture.

I don't recall what the argument was about. I vaguely remember he was annoyed that I hadn't gotten the Subaru's headlight replaced, which I guess I must've agreed to do. I was annoyed that he expected me, a car dope, to accomplish something even remotely automotive. He carped that I wasn't parking in the best lot. I carped that he was checking his BlackBerry for email instead of talking to his wife. And he'd forgotten something in his office, dammit, so we were going to be late to the "Making Marriage Work" lecture.

As it turned out, we weren't late: A knot of people clogged the Town Hall entrance, waiting to pay $50 a couple--during a recession--to hear the nation's pioneer in relationship science dispense the marriage secrets he'd spent a career uncovering. Thirty some years ago, as a young clinical psychologist, he set out to study the relationship dynamics and concurrent physiological responses of married couples. One newlywed pair at a time would spend a full 24 hours in a lushly appointed apartment with a placid view of the Montlake Cut, discussing matters of both agreement and conflict, while Gottman wired them for heart rate and brain function and numerous other physical variables.

Over months and years Gottman and his grad students tested and retested these same couples, gradually amassing a pile of data on the behaviors that make marriages work--and those that make them weak. As the study ripened and some couples divorced, the scientist began to see that certain behaviors could reliably predict a split. Upon this data, Dr. John Gottman built a research institute, a self-help book empire, a thriving therapeutic practice, and an esteemed academic name. His therapeutic superhero skill? Divorce Predictor.

"Is that like horse whisperer?" Tom asked as we found seats. We looked around, suddenly self-conscious. Our marriage seemed pretty healthy to me, aside from a short list of ongoing differences--we call them Fight A, Fight B, and Fight C--and the occasional argument about nothing, as in the car ride over. Generally we dwell in a playful, enriching, and loving union.

But just being at a "Making Marriage Work" lecture felt like wearing a name tag that said, "Hello! We're Circling the Drain!" Of course the one couple we knew in the huge hall happened to be sitting just across the aisle, and looked equally busted when we said hi. "Dragged here, too, were you?" Tom joshed, socking the husband manfully on the shoulder. We all smiled, admitting it was the wives' idea, but that both husbands were genuinely interested in what this Gottman had to say. Plus, the man told us, they had just received jarring news from the marriage front. "You remember our neighbors, the Smiths?" (Not really "the Smiths," you understand.) We did--great people, very solid, together forever. "He had an affair. The marriage is done."

The lights flickered and we stumbled back to our seats. The Smiths? I read my own thoughts in Tom's expression: If it can happen to them, is anyone's marriage safe? Could the Divorce Predictor have seen that one coming?

Couples once aired resentments--with foam baseball bats.

The good doctor spent the next two hours establishing that yeah...he probably could have. Gottman told his audience that four neon signs herald marital doom: criticism ("There is no such thing as constructive criticism"), defensiveness, the "shutting-out" Gottman calls stonewalling, and contempt. Of these, contempt--the act of relating to one's partner from a position of superiority, whether by calling him an idiot or correcting her grammar--is the most destructive and the number-one predictor of divorce. Not only does contempt eat like sulfuric acid through a marriage, it's physically destructive. Emerging research reveals that contempt among intimates measurably corrodes the recipient's immune system. Couples who practice these sorts of marriages Gottman calls the Disasters.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Masters, who through a thousand positive moments build a culture within their marriage of appreciation and respect. They look for things to praise in their partner. They say, "Thanks for doing the dishes tonight," and "You look so sexy in that color."

It's no great mystery how the Masters do this, Gottman explains; it's Friendship 101. They ask their partner questions about their desires and dreams, then remember the answers. They learn to identify their partner's bids for emotional connection, then respond in kind. Unlike the therapeutic modalities in vogue when Gottman started his research, where couples were urged to air their resentments with each other--sometimes employing foam baseball bats for emphasis--Gottman found that what makes marriage work is precisely the opposite. Relationships work to the extent that partners are gentle with each other.

Gottman spoke with candor and wit--the wise elder statesman in a city unusually crowded with relationship experts, sociologist Pepper Schwartz to sex columnist Dan Savage. Make no mistake, Gottman declared: Crappy interactions happen in all marriages, good and bad. Successful marriages are not bastions of romantic bliss; they're pretty good partnerships peppered with regrettable moments. Indeed, 69 percent of the married couples he studied wrestled with the same problems the entire life of their marriage. Fight A, Fight B, and Fight C. The only difference was that the Masters dealt with them functionally and respectfully.

At the end Gottman opened the floor, and a man asked if there was a variable to predict good marriages. "There is," Gottman said. "Men who are willing to accept influence from women." From across the aisle my friend caught my eye. He means men who work up interest in a marriage lecture because they know it means something to their wives, I heard her thinking. Tom looked at me and dramatically rolled his eyes.

And took my hand.

help yourself | By crymytinyflood | 1:57 PM | Comments (0)

28 de Octubre 2009

Liturgy... sort of.

This is the order for the communion service for 102809 at Mars Hill Graduate School:

A Welcome to Sinners & Saints Alike: A Brief Order of Confession

Got My List
Performed by Jonah's onelinedrawing
Sometimes I feel affected, then it all disappears,
The rain and clouds above my head, then all that disappears
I'd understand it, if I could grab it,
Another with on my list
One more day we made it through now, got my list
One more time we made it through yeah, got my list
Some days I feel protected, then all that disappears
We breathe as two but think as one, and it all disappears

Service of the Word
John 14:21-27 (The Message)
21"The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."
22Judas (not Iscariot) said, "Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?"
23-24"Because a loveless world," said Jesus, "is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him--we'll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn't mine. It's the message of the Father who sent me.
25-27"I'm telling you these things while I'm still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left--feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught.

Service of the Meal

"On the rostrum, seated in three compact rows of auditorium chairs, were about twenty children, mostly girls, ranging in age from about seven to thirteen. At the moment, their choir coach, an enormous woman in tweeds, was advising them to open their mouths wider when they sang. Had anyone, she asked, ever heard of a little dickeybird that dared to sing his charming song without first opening his little beak wide, wide, wide? Apparently nobody ever had. She was given a steady, opaque look."

All:
Therefore we praise you,
joining our voices with choirs of angels,
with prophets, apostles, and martyrs,
and with all the faithful of every time and place
who forever sing to the glory of your name:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

"She went on to say that she wanted all her children to absorb the meaning of the words they sang, not just mouth them, like silly-billy parrots. She then blew a note on her pitch pipe, and the children, like so many underage weightlifters, raised their hymnbooks."

Words of Institution
"They sang without instrumental accompaniment--or, more accurately in their case, without any interference. Their voices were melodious and unsentimental, almost to the point where a somewhat more denominational man than myself might, without straining, have experienced levitation. A couple of the very youngest children dragged the tempo a trifle, but in a way that only the composer's mother could have found fault with. I had never heard the hymn, but I kept hoping it was one with a dozen or more verses."

The Lord is with you
All: And also with you.

We give you thanks that the Lord Jesus,
on the night before he died, took bread,
and after giving thanks to you,
he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take, eat. This is my body, given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way he took the cup, saying:
This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood,
shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.
Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me.

As our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
All: Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

The gifts of God for the people of God
Amen.
All is prepared. Eat, Drink and be satisfied.
(please pass the elements and serve one another saying, "The body of Christ, given for you; the blood of Christ, given for you.")

High and Dry
Performed by Radiohead
Two jumps in a week, I bet you think that's pretty clever don't you boy.
Flying on your motorcycle, watching all the ground beneath you drop.
You'd kill yourself for recognition; kill yourself to never ever stop.
You broke another mirror; you're turning into something you are not.

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

Drying up in conversation, you will be the one who cannot talk.
All your insides fall to pieces, you just sit there wishing you could still make love
They're the ones who'll hate you when you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you. You will be the one screaming out.

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

It's the best thing that you've ever had, the best thing that you've ever, ever
had.
It's the best thing that you've ever had; the best thing you've had has gone away.

Laugh, follow The Road
Performed by Jonah's Onelinedrawing

I pretend these lights are on for free
I clean up for rewards
I share the parts of myself that taste good
and hide the rot
I nibble on alone in times like these
I want you to bury me
to make you live to say
and every inch is one more flaming lung
My laugh, fall, or the road

Sleep is the best drug
I saw my Moon
That and wishing she was on Mars
Anything but saying she wished she was
dead
I remember wonder what was the
difference to people left around
Messes not picked up
Infections let to green

I laugh, follow the road

Hymn of Response

How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent word!
What more can he say than to you he hath said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
for I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I'll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to
stand
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

When through deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
for I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall
lie,
my grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.

Benediction
Let us Pray... Gracious God, you are God of the heart and soul, God of the details and fingernails. We know,
We know You,
We know You arrive--
Even when we don't.

An invitation to Return to us...
The Visitation
by Abigail Jimenez

She asks if there is anything she can
bring
I think first of the tree under her nest:
of the tiny maple,
the dwarf lemon
but most tenderly
the tall olive tree
(a mere branch leaning down across the soil
when she brought it home bowing, like a blessing
to her lover)
bring a branch from the olive tree, my dove:
my heart has been afloat too long now.
When you arrive, carry in your mouth the proof,
tell me
there are trees again
bursting from the horizon.
Tell me silently that the earth reaches out her arborized hands, and leafy fingers,
hoping to hold you up, proudly (loving your tiny toes curving around her fingers)
where you perch and play
and perform your miracles.
If there is solid ground again, a place to make a home,
I know you will tell me and you will bring a bit of it
wordlessly, weightlessly
leave leaves with me, my peace, my piece of home.

Credits: Short Story excerpts taken from "For Esme--With Love and Squalor" by JD Salinger
Words of Institution provided by the Presbyterian Church, USA

This liturgy has been composed to intentionally incorporate Word (poetry, prose, scripture, lyric, hymn) and Sacrament. For an electronic reference please find me at

skinnytree.berkeleyblogs.com

Thank you.

| By crymytinyflood | 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

23 de Octubre 2009

dangerous, like communion

Pr. Hoffman is always on about the life-giving choice. He isn't talking about abortion or euthanasia. He is talking about choosing kind words, safe speed limits, exegetical method, salad, controlling affect, vacation plans, organic strawberries.

I can follow him, mostly.

I get a little stuck on Eucharist because Holy Communion happens every Sunday and we don't get a choice about that--even if or when it seems like we might. What is more, communion happens every moment, every hour, every day every week for us.
So every week we have the choice about whether or not to drag ourselves up to the altar.

It is just one more example of the way the life-giving choice happens to you, you turn around and feel like you never really made it, it made you.

so I'm working it out, hoping the poems will explain it to me:

I love you so much
The blood will always be there
soaking in around and through us, the everyday every day, and sometimes in the sweaty brow of your midnight body twisted in bedsheets,
like in a dream:; :; :;
one thought connects to another without making any real sense, but this is not a dream;
It is a restful choice, for body and blood
like a ribbon unfurling,
from some one body to another,
chalice to lips and then out again, when we whisper the words we know will cost
us, everything:
--I love you so much--
in honesty and hope
this is only a wasted moment,
a fantasy, or harmful
if we disconnect from all that we have learned--:
about choices.
Sometimes we make a choice.
Sometimes a choice makes us
Because it is
who we are, who we want to be, who we were made to be,
called to be: among the living.
if you ever doubt heaven exists let it be
because I am not there,
I am here with you
always.

so here, watch this sad little video for someday you will be loved. it may make your stomach hurt.

I once knew a girl
In the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer
All beauty and truth
In the morning I fled
Left a note and it read
Someday you will be loved.

I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
As the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

You may feel alone when you're falling asleep
And everytime tears roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you've yet to meet
Someday you will be loved

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

helpful | By crymytinyflood | 10:27 AM | Comments (0)