Star Sunday

We have a lovely tradition at our church that takes place on Epiphany Sunday. Each person in the congregation receives a Star upon which is written a word that may impact on their life in some way during the coming year. The words refer to qualities of life, both temporal and spiritual - like prayer, forgiveness, acceptance, rejoicing, family, goals, community, music, worship. The Stars are all placed (face down) in the offering plates and passed through the congregation - our minister always jokes that it's the only Sunday when we each to get to take something out of the plate rather than putting something in. A buzz of excitement filters from front to back of the church, as people dig around in the plate to get just the perfect feeling Star, and then discover what their word is. Sometimes, it's all too uncanny, the way the words seem to fit the person. One of my dear friends, who is a well known and respected music teacher, composer, and conductor, has picked the "music" star for 5 of the past 10 years - no kidding! (I got the "music" star once.) I've missed Star Sunday for the past three years because we were in Florida on Epiphany Sunday. So I was excited to be there this year. I was even more excited because during the past year, one of my favorite blogger friends just happens to go by the name of "Star," and I was eager to pick one of our Stars for her, too.

So, when the offering plate came to me, I picked a star for myself, and then held her in my thoughts as I picked another one. Here's the result:

My star was "reading," which is of course, one of the most important elements of my life, and has been ever since I picked up my first book at the age of 2. But lately, reading has become even more valuable to me, as I read with writing in mind, studying the craft of other writers in an effort to improve my own writing abilities.

My friend Star's star was "stories," and it will be up to her to tell you how this manifests itself in her life over the coming year. I know she's written some wonderful stories of her own in the year gone by, and I have a feeling there are a lot more waiting inside her :)

I'm not surprised that our stars would match up like this, because it's pretty uncanny how often we seem to be on the same wavelength - on line at the same time, reading the same blogs at the same time, and thinking along the same lines about numerous things.

This is the prayer after the gift of stars has been received:

Leader: Creator of all light, today, as in every day of our lives, we have received another gift from you. Perhaps it is a quality of life, a spiritual value, or a dimension of being.

People: We ackowledge that we do not yet fully understand this gift, but we receive it with thanksgiving. We pray that through these next 12 months, your Spirit will enable us to make this gift our very own.

May you each find a star to guide you through the coming year, and make it's light your own.

Sunday Scribblings-Kiss

When my husband and I got engaged, my mother gave me a coffee mug that said "Kissin' don't last...cookin' do." Since I was only 19 years old, she was obvisouly trying to warn me that the fun bits of a relationship (like kissing!) don't endure with as much stability as the not so fun bits (like cooking!) I was not pleased with the gift at that time, and now, more than 30 years later, I have to say she was wrong. Kissing does last. It's different of course - it's laden with history for one thing. It carries the memories of all the wonderful, heartbreaking, angry, delicious moments that have occurred while you've been setting up housekeeping, raising children and pets, working, cleaning, buying groceries and cooking! It's just as poet Steve Scafidi writes in his poem Prayer for A Marriage -kisses now may not be the "first wild surprising ones," but they are the ones that make the "sadnesses we have known go away for awhile."

Prayer for A Marriage

Steve Scafidi

For Kathleen

When we are old one night and the moon

arcs over the house like an antique

China saucer and the teacup sun

follows somewhere far behind

I hope the stars deepen to a shine

so bright you could read by it

if you liked and the sadnesses

we will have known go away

for awhile - in this hour or two

before sleep - and that we kiss

standing in the kitchen not fighting

gravity so much as embodying

its sweet force, and I hope we kiss

like we do today knowing so much

good is said in this primitive tongue

from the wild first surprising ones

to the lower dizzy ten thousand

infintely slower ones - and I hope

while we stand there in the kitchen

making tea and kissing, the whistle

of the teapot wakes the neighbors.

Third Day Book Club-Suite Francaise

Last week when I was in Florida, I indulged in one of my favorite pastimes - beach reading. I took my book, my sand umbrella, and my tinted reading glasses, and parked myself where I could hear the Gulf of Mexico's gently lapping waves. I took a break from reading to stroll down the beach a ways, doing a little people watching, and was really surprised to notice someone reading Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise (this month's selection for the Third Day Book Club). This historical novel was written in the thick of World War II; Part I, Storm in June, chronicles the mass exodus from Paris just prior to the Nazi invasion in 1940, while Part II, Dolce, depicts the complex lives of residents in a small occupied village. Not exactly what I'd call light beach reading. "I just finished that book myself," I said to my sun worshipping neighbor. "What do you think of it?"

"I was hoping it was more of a love story," she said with obvious disappointment. "I mean, this picture on the cover is very misleading, don't you think? I didn't realize it was so much about the war, and all these horrible things happening!"

"It is certainly a realistic look at that time period," I agreed. "After all, the author lived through it herself, you know, and actually died in a concentration camp."

"Oh, I know all that," she said dismissively. "I was just hoping for a little more romance. I'm just not really into all this history stuff."

"Mmm," I replied vaguely, wondering how to extract myself from this dead end converstation. "Well, enjoy your day!"

"Thanks, you too!" she replied, and went back to reading.

Suite Francaise is certainly not a romance, despite the cover photograph of a man and woman in 40's dress, his cheek pressed to her forehead. It is a fascinating, heartbreaking, extremely realistic account of what it meant to be a resident of France between 1940-1942. War affected everyone, from the wealthy Pericand family, to the Michaud's, a lowly bank clerk and his quiet wife. Everyone's life was changed as they took to the streets on foot or to the highways in their cars packed to the gills with their most prized possessions.

This book was hastily written as Nemirovsky and her husband tried to keep their two daughters safe from the Nazi regime. She intended the book to be more than 1000 pages, planning to construct it like a musical composition, in five movements based on theme and tone. It has the feel of a rough draft, a real sense of the author writing everything that comes into her head in an effort to get it all down on paper. When she was arrested in 1942, her young daughter managed to salvage the manuscript she had watched her mother spend so much time writing.

As I read the book, particularly Storm, I found myself thinking about the leveling factor of war, and of natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Rich or poor, upper class or lower class, suddenly everyone has the same goal -survival for themselves and their family.

"Who cared about the tragedy of their country? Not these people, not the people who were leaving that night. Panic obliterated everything that wasn't animal instinct, involuntary physical reaction. Grab the most valuable things you own in the world and then...! And on that night, only people - the living and breathing, the crying and the loving- were precious. Rare was the person who cared about their possessions; everyone wrapped their arms tightly round their wife or child and nothing else mattered; the rest could go up in flames."

My fellow reader on the beach in Naples was about my age, but, judging from her designer swim wear, chic haircut, and quietly understated makeup, she was probably a lot richer than I am. Perhaps she even lived in one of the multi million dollar high rises that litter this beachfront, or was a guest at the Ritz Carlton, only one of many resort hotels on the same path. However, come national disaster, like a 9/11 or a category five hurricane, she and I could end up in much the same position - just trying to save our lives, and the lives of those we love. Perhaps that is one of the great lessons of war, and one Nemirovsky makes perfectly clear ~ we come to know what is most valuable to us, and to what lengths we'll go to save it.

WithOut Words - Home(s)

I'm Excited!

This week of resting and relxation in the warm Florida sunshine seems to have jumpstarted all my creative energy. I've got all these ideas for things I want to do, and I'm so excited about them that I'm sharing them with you!

• I'm working on the story I told you about on Wednesday, and I like it :)
• I've got a new feature for the Byline that will debut later today. I'm calling it WithOut Words, a weekly Friday post of a photograph that's reflective of what's going in my Life in General that week...but no words, just the photo. (eek, that's pretty scary for me)
• Remember how ladies in the Victorian era would "take up" something or someone? I love that phrase, and I'm about to take up a new creative project ~a craft project~which is also scary for me because I'm not usually very good at anything crafty.

I'm so excited about all these new things, that I'm not even thinking about the "T" word - as in where will I find the time to do all this :) It's a new year, and I'm ready to venture into some new territory. So, off I go...