the deeper magic

it’s the small epiphanies I remember: 
staring at a purple weed
        and seeing a dragon’s face
running down the boardwalk	
	and stepping into a sanctuary
singing a Latin chorus 
	and hearing my true name
it’s the chills I got as a child and still search for,
hoping the magic still thrums through everything,
the unsaid prayer that you will still surprise me
	that beauty really will 
        save the world

my photo

When I was probably six or seven, I discovered a weed growing in the field across the street, an inexplicably undeveloped patch of land at the entrance of our suburban commuter neighborhood. It had a slender stem, strawberry-shaped leaves, and the prettiest purple petals. The structure of it reminds me a little of an orchid—a delicate natural origami that creates an interesting concave almost-tube with flaring petals at the top and bottom.

But I didn’t have any of those words then. All I knew was that it looked like a dragon’s face.

I remember being crouched close to the ground, foraging for who knows what in the dirt, as all kids should, and seeing little stalks adorned with my favorite color. I remember plucking one and staring at it more closely and feeling a shock of electricity run through me. It looks like a dragon! I felt I was making contact with an alien race, like I was stepping into all the fairytales I grew up on. The darker purple spots in the center of the petals looked like eyes and nostrils, and the sunlight hit the translucent fibers so that I could almost see a fire kindling in its gut. It was glowing, and I was glowing.

The feeling that rushed over me in that moment, I clung to it for years. I almost wasn’t sure it happened or that those flowers were real because the magical haze that surrounded that memory was so potent. Eventually, much later, I googled “purple weed east coast” and discovered the name of my portal to the land of Faerie: purple deadknettle. It’s almost too good to be believed. It’s a straight out of a myth, portending curses and doom and heroism. Beware the Purple Dead Knettle, bane of the suburban lawns. If you look at it once, you’ll never be the same.

You might see that there’s magic in everything, that we live one breath away from the world we dream of.

purple deadknettle

I have other memories of moments like those, the ones that steal your breath and tip your brain over like a jar of marbles and suddenly you’re spilling into a new reality, or rather you’re rearranging yourself to embrace the reality that was always there around you. Moments of transcendence. And the theme that runs through all of those moments is beauty.

Beauty is a shock to the system, it’s a defibrilator, it’s a crisis intervention, it’s Narcan for the overdosed soul.

Beauty, as Sarah Clarkson says, is God’s theodicy.

I’m reading Room for Good Things to Run Wild, the new book by Josh Nadeau, creator of Sword and Pencil , and it’s all about this. What transforms us is not ultimately head knowledge—it’s encounters with God, which are often sparked by beauty (and, paradoxically, by deep brokenness too—the collision of beauty and pain). The head knowledge is important because it anchors us when we don’t feel what we want to. But the head knowledge isn’t sufficient to change us either. Fortunately we serve a God who is the great logician and the great artist all in one.

As I have surveyed the areas of my life where I long to be transformed, this prayer keeps coming to mind: Surprise me. I can’t even imagine how God will answer my prayers; I have no suggestions for him on what healing and hope will look like. So surprise me, I beg him, as you have so many times in the past, with a shock of beauty that I could never have seen coming.

Surprise me now like you did when I was six and saw in a weed a dragon’s face.

In Other Words…

I have several writing updates I keep forgetting to include so here we go!

First, I’m incredibly honored to have received second place in Fare Forward’s annual poetry contest. My poem, “childless in Prospect Park,” felt vulnerable to share but they treated it with such tenderness, and this magazine was the perfect landing place for a poem that is close to my heart. Here’s the first stanza:

I thought I’d have children by now and today at noon my white sneakers
press the fallen petals deeper into the impressionable dirt—magnolia,
I think, or some cousin, waxy and wide, pink stains spreading like fairy
blood, like communion bread dipped in wine or those third-grade science
projects where you spill some water on coffee paper and look! a rainbow
seeping through your fingers, spreading unstoppable across the fragile film.

And be sure to check out the other winners, because I’m still thinking about them. A magnificent set of poems that I’m rather floored to be a part of.

Second, I also had a poem published in the lovely Prosetrics winter journal Apricity. You might recognize the poem. ;) Prosetrics has been a warm, supportive community, and I’m looking forward to flipping through their gorgeous journal and reading other poems winter light during these last few days of February.

My Book—Title Reveal!

I mentioned this a couple months ago, and I’m very excited to be back with an update: I’m putting the finishing touches on my first poetry collection (eek!!). This isn’t anything fancy: I just wanted to hold in my hands some of the work I’ve poured myself into the past several years, a physical testimony to where I’ve been. And I wanted to be able to share it with the people who have cheered me on along the way.

I’ll do a whole separate post once this little collection is ready to see the world but for now, how about a title reveal?

Velocity: Zero

A Poetic Journey

Velocity: Zero is a collection of poems but more than that, it’s a journey through what I only semi-jokingly call my “years of woe.” It’s the before, during, and after of the dividing line that chronic pain cut into my life. It’s a chronicle of my starry-eyed beliefs, my raw midnight questions, and my slow and wondering reconstruction of hope.

It’s for anyone who has held the embers of their dreams in their hands and wondered, what now? It’s for anyone who feels stuck and would do anything to move in any direction at all. It’s for anyone who longs to believe but has slammed up against the silence of God. It’s for anyone who wants to dance again.

I’m so excited to share this with you. More coming soon!

Goodreads (book reviews)

No new movies this time but a couple more book reviews:

• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin | 3.5 stars

• Becoming Friends of Time: Disability, Timefullness, and Gentle Discipleship by John Swinton | 5 stars

One more thing: if you have your own purple deadknettle moment, I’d love to hear it. :) Stay awake, friends.

Aberdeen

P.S. The “beauty will save the world” language is all Dostoevsky. The Idiot. Highly recommended read. And this poem’s title is a play on the “magic deeper still” in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.