@jordansimons4 Rapping “A Fly Went By” by Mike McClintock! #rappinrhymebooks #DrSeuss #foryourpage #fyp #FYP #rap #bars
♬ She Share Story (for Vlog) – 山口夕依
“Come with Me”
“I’ve had so many rainbows in my clouds. I had a lot of clouds. But I have had so many rainbows. And one of the things I do when I go stand up on the stage, when I stand up to translate, when I go to teach my classes, when I go to direct a movie, I bring everyone who has ever been kind to me with me — Black, White, Asian, Spanish-speaking, Native American, Gay, Straight — everybody. I say, ‘Come with me. I’m going on the stage. Come with me. I need you now.’”
— Maya Angelou
The Beauty of Change
I was driving around my town. With a smile on my face, some words just spontaneously tumbled out of me. “I know you,” I said, and then I smiled some more.
I spoke this to Ann Arbor, the place I’ve called home for the last ten years. My car windows were down, and I took an enormous, intentional breath of air. Then I put my arm out of the window to feel the breeze. I felt very alive.
The reality of spring called those words forth from me.
“I know you.”
I continued to enjoy the warm air, but the visual scene was most responsible for bringing those words into being. In Michigan, we have entered an aesthetically gorgeous time of year. The six month period from April to October brings continual changes in scenery.
Each week shifts as a variety of flowering trees and plants emerge, soon accompanied by the newborn leaves of trees which grow in gradual ways. After these leaves progressively paint our town bright green, they rustle in the wind for a few months and finally give us a swansong, bursting into a variety of colors as they shed their photosynthesis process and reveal the red, orange, and yellow colors hiding underneath it.
For this half of the year, every week is gorgeous, and every week is gorgeous differently.
I’ve experienced this many times in Ann Arbor, and I’ve lived here long enough to know the order of this unfolding process of change. That’s why the words tumbled out of my mouth that day in my car.
“I know you.”
I know how one set of flowers and blooming trees emerge and seem to reign for mini-era of time, only to be replaced by another set of flowers and blooming trees. It’s a beautiful procession.
I know that the daffodils,
soon give way to the bradford pears,
which soon give way to the tulips,
which soon give way to the tulip magnolias,
which soon give way to the day lilies.
This process continues to unfold.
In the midst of so much collective distress and disruption, I’m glad to observe this procession right now. It gave me an impromptu burst of joy when I spontaneously said, “I know you,” to Ann Arbor on that day.
Sometimes, we need to feel at home in the predictable changes, especially when so much is changing unpredictably.
“Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
by Mary Oliver,
House of Light
Beacon Press,1990
This Week in Nature
Tennessee
Sundogs
I snapped a photo of the sky, seen above. There’s no filter here. Through the clouds, the sun is shining like a rainbow halo. Apparently, some call this “sundogs.” That’s new information I had never heard before, and upon cursory googling, I still don’t know how this phenomenon got its name.
Its scientific name is parhelia, a concentrated patch of sunlight that can sometimes be seen at 22 degrees on either side of the sun. This is refracted light through hexagonal ice crystals in cirrostratus clouds.
When I looked up to take this picture, I only saw the sun and a very blue sky. I suppose there’s usually more than we can perceive with our own senses.
–Renee Roederer
Loved and Capable of Loving
“Everyone longs to be loved. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving.”
― Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Wit And Wisdom From Mister Rogers
The Universe
Sometimes, I marvel at who is in my life.
Sometimes, I am stunned to ponder that I could begin alone
then
become
connected
to
who after
who after
who after
who.
And this never ends.
It’s like a Big Bang, really.
A Whole Universe of Belonging.
We each start as a singularity.
Then
each one of us
bursts forth,
brought into an abundance of connections,
born anew bit by bit
through the particularities of relationship.
And these particularities
create
build
form
nurture
cultivate
and
renew.
They expand.
This is an ever expanding Universe —
this Cosmos
of
who after
who after
who after
who.
Table Flipping Monday
A blessed Table Flipping Monday, y’all.
A few years ago, my friend Sarah made a suggestion that the Monday of Holy Week ought to be considered Table Flipping Monday. Of course, that’s a pretty humorous title, but Sarah also helped me think about this . . .
During the last week of his life, when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the very first thing he did was walk into the center of communal, religious life and hold it accountable. He went into the Temple, the most holy place, and was horrified to discover that some were making unjust money as they oppressed the Jewish people in their religious devotion. He turned over the tables and chased out the money changers, quoting Jewish scripture, saying, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made a den of robbers.’”
I want to be careful about how I talk about this story, in large part because throughout history, Holy Week has been an occasion when Christians have oppressed Jews and even caused violence. When I think about this day, I don’t aim to criticize the Temple or the religious heritage of which Jesus was fully a part.
Instead, I want to consider the ways in which my own religious tradition ought to be held accountable. That includes this painful history we have caused our Jewish siblings. And it includes a host of other abuses fully expressed in the present.
Religion can give life and meaning, and it can be twisted as a tool for oppression.
There are a multitude of ways in which tables ought to be flipped over. In fact, accountability and truth telling can be acts of spiritual devotion in and of themselves.
Jesus rages against the oppression and manipulation of others. Today, we need prophets and holy agitators to follow into this calling. I offer my gratitude today for people who hold my tradition and our actions to account.
One of Christianity’s foundational teachings involves a holy leveling – an inverted shift where the marginalized become the most empowered and the most powerful are brought into humility.
But way too often, we fall far short of this vision. Today can serve as a day of confession.
May Jesus and a host of others flip the tables.
Smuggling Grace 