I do not have a strong enough constitution to be able to tolerate abusive environments for very long. While I regret moving on, I don’t see any way around it, sometimes. 

I am not perfect, you understand. Enough exposure to argumentative exposition by people who either cannot or will not hear or who insist that only people who fit into the mold created by their own image are acceptable make me worry that even though I seem to be among the acceptable, given the strictures I am currently aware of, at any moment someone is going to pounce on me, saying that I too, because of some variant of nature, am forever beyond the pall.

There was this priest I knew who kept going on and on for years about some bit of Roman Church theology, until I finally drew a topological map of time and eternity to illustrate what I was saying, and why I disagreed with him. He stared at me, then, and finally said that it had not dawned on him until then that the problem was not that I did not understand what he was saying, but that, understanding, I still disagreed with him. When we come to that point where each understands the other, but does not agree, are we able to enjoy an amicable relationship or not? 

For example, if a person who gets to know me and thinks of us as friends, then tells me in no uncertain terms that she or he thinks that all non-Whites are somehow inferior or inclined toward drunkenness or dishonesty or laziness or presumption–you know the endless list–do I or do I not inform the person that a quarter of my ancestry is non-White? Indeed, my father’s father’s people were Saami (Black Norwegian), shorter in stature with dark skin and blue eyes. I enter “mixed race” on the census form, every 10 years. How was that different, I wondered, than being a native American or native African? I couldn’t see that it would be. Evidently I am too naive to understand why it’s any different.

There are similarly tangled paths to be walked when it comes to sexual/gender identities. There are no discrete, definitive groups. There are all sorts of different spectrums. We’re talking Wittgenstein’s game theory, here! I read through the descriptions of sexual/gender variants and realize I don’t think of myself as being either male or female. I’m me. I’m myself, created in God’s image. “There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, there is no longer slave or free, there is no more male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Why doesn’t that make it a non-issue?

It obviously doesn’t end there, and the arguments will never cease. But I am called to live in the love that is mine through Christ Jesus, my Lord, and that is much easier to do outside a judgmental environment of endless debate. Only the Holy Spirit can change the heart and renew the mind.

Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

I’ve always figured this goes along with the admonition to put on the mind of Christ. The phrase “do not be conformed” is passive, rather than active, as is “be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” however, while putting on the mind of Christ is active. It suggests a process carried out or a decision made, rather than being acted upon by another.

I associate the verse from Romans 12 with the renewal (leading, illumination) of the Holy Spirit and the change of focus from the outward goals and activities to the ongoing inner dialog between me and God (Holy Spirit, Spirit of Christ, Inner Light). There was that prayer that Tim Begbie’s brother Ross always led with, talking with people about accepting Jesus as their savior, something to the effect of: God, if you exist, I give you permission to make me believe in you.  That’s passive, but not unaware.

Determined to look at situations and other people through Jesus’ eyes, we are, I think, prepared to do so by being transformed by the Holy Spirit’s renewing our minds. In the process of dialoguing with God and being led into new activities or lines of thought, among other things, we find out what gifts we have. What we’re good at. We find out what sorts of members we are of the Body of Christ. What we’re called to do. 

That implies there are things that I am not called to be or do, and it’s easy to become attached to those distractions, to be possessed with them, like a person who eats too much or compulsively buys shoes or whatever. When I take me eyes away from the Inner Light, I get wrapped up in things of no moment. My ego gets involved, perhaps? 

Need to stay grounded.

Most of my life I have sought time to think by walking, sometimes all night, sometimes talking to myself. There is something almost magic to the last hours before sunset. The quality of light is different. Colors

Con Trail

The con trails are more visible in the hours just before sunset, light reflecting off the ice into a deeper, darker blue. Lately I sometimes forget what I’d wanted to consider during my walk, and I just look around me, take it all in, and give thanks for the beauty of the day.

I am reminded, these past few weeks more than at almost any other time in the cycle of seasons, what a joy it is, not to watch the television or listen to the radio. I’ve never really been into passive recreation (unless reading a book counts). I haven’t got what it takes to sit there and let the sights and sounds pour through my senses unmediated. Furthermore, I simply don’t have that much time in the day. There are other things to do: thinking new thoughts, writing new poems, taking a walk whenever possible, taking photographs and going through the ones I’ve already taken. 

What effect does all that unfiltered sensory data have? Does it matter a lot whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral? Or is it the conditioning that’s significant? The conditioning to be a passive receptor, taking it all in and then sorting through it only if there’s time? 

Speaking of which, I’m out of here! I think I’m feeling well enough to take a walk/think break, this afternoon.

It is a marvel to me that fireflies and other creatures can directly transform bioenergy into light without generating heat as a byproduct. If only we could figure out how to do that on some sort of massive scale, perhaps it would help with the energy crisis in some way.

I’ve been writing haiku since I was in college. I didn’t run into SciFaiku until I joined the Science Fiction Poetry Association. “Luciferase” is a science, rather than a science fiction haiku; I trust that places it under the SciFaiku umbrella.

“Luciferase”

breath of summer’s night . . .
dancing fireflies transform
energy to light

I was reading Norman’s entry for today, Some Things Never Change, about the need for community. He asked the question, too, what one’s favorite sound might be, suggesting a response such as the voice of loved ones. I think this is not universally true. Community is so much more comfortably mediated electronically. That may call for an explanation.   

I’ve got fragrance/chemical sensitivities that make me ill when I am around people (or new construction or remodeling materials or exhaust fumes or candles or newly printed books, newspapers, magazines, etc.) I become dizzy, disoriented, panicky, practically speechless, and decidedly ill. It’s got the food and respiratory allergies and the gluten intolerance beaten all hollow. Nothing makes me quite so ill as civilization. 

I remember when I had to give up riding on a city bus…walking at times of the day when there was heavy traffic…attending traditional church services…taking part in Bible study circle. I spent 15 years attending Roman Catholic churches, but after the second time with blood poisoning from the incense fumes on my skin and no interest in having a holiday church service that didn’t have incense, I was out of there. At the next place, the flowers, candles, perfumes, lotions and hairspray drove me out. The visitation pastor comiserated with me, but said that unless I were a major financial contributor to the church, it was useless to even bring up the issue at a church meeting. 

It is not as though I didn’t take an active role in the life of the church, wherever I was–retreats, contemporary and traditional choirs, Stephen ministry, conducting workshops, writing Bible studies, meditations, songs, calls to worship, devotions, etc., etc. When I became “difficult,” I was no longer welcome. 

I wrote a poem, the day it became obvious what had happened at my church “home”: “Vision Stalker.” E-mailed a copy to my mother, and she wrote back: “It was ‘Rally Sunday’ at your church, last Sunday, too, wasn’t it.” She knew exactly what I meant by what I’d said. She was different in other ways, but she also didn’t fit in. 

Quiet. Solitude. Waiting rather than programmed worship. My favorite sound? Fast-moving water. The wind in the trees. The almost soundless sound of snowflakes falling on a too cold night. 

I experience community on the computer. It’s safer and longer lived that way.

Toward the end of June, this year, I got a puppy to take the place (if such a thing were possible) of my Cocker Spaniel, Regis Kennard Ladd, who was with me for nearly 15 years. Samantha has decided to attack and subdue my photography subjects, and so the leaves and sticks and dandelions take on a trampled look. (She’s eaten all my irises. I don’t know what I will do if she doesn’t outgrow that tendency!)

I very much look forward to the coming of winter, when all the allergens produced by nature are frozen away under the ice and snow. The black-and-white landscape looks so very tidy, right after the snow, and at night, walking along the sidewalk, the world is so very quiet, late at night. I think the snow must soften all the world’s sharp edges.

Except for the train whistles! During the other three seasons of the year, I never hear a train whistle unless I’m right downtown near the tracks. In the winter, the whistle of the train sounds as though it’s only a few blocks away, rather than a mile or two.

The crunch of leaves, before the snow falls, heightens awareness. In recognition of that effect, I wrote a poem, “Hunter’s Moon,” for the SFPA on-line Halloween poetry reading page, this year.

“Hunter’s Moon”
by Liz Bennefeld

Clouds across a Hunter’s Moon
cast shadows on the path ahead
where sharp winds set leaves free
from their icy cover
to flee in upward spirals
over dead ground.

The click of footsteps
ever nearer
on the road behind me
chips
at the silence.

(Copyright 2008-10-25)

I look at “the moments between” in several different ways. First, almost everything I do is accomplished in the moments between “necessary” activities of daily living. During the moments between, more than at any other time, creativity takes place. On a larger scale, however, these are the moments between birth and eternity, the only moments we have before time itself becomes meaningless. 

All moments are meant to be put to good purpose.