Month: January 2018

Creation of the Violin – Revisited

A while back during a writing class I was challenged to re-write a myth. Any myth. In any form.

I must have read twenty or more myths before I came across the “Creation of the Violin,” on Wikipedia no less. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_the_Violin But this was literally the only one I felt connected to in any way. I related to the disparity of poverty and wealth, sorrow and joy, longing and fulfillment. I felt the connectivity to all humanity, and as a singer and lover of music, the power of a song is not lost on me. As I wrote, I was able to sense the emotions from the boy’s perspective. While I don’t see it as anything spectacular, I really enjoyed writing this poem.

The Creation of the Violin – Revisited

By Regina Cyzick Harlow

She longed for me, my mother did

To hold her baby flesh and blood

When I was born into this life

She fell ill and shortly died

I lived without her twenty years

I cried ten thousand bitter tears

But I went off to find my love

Guided by mother’s hand above

I came across a palace grand

A rich king with a daughter’s hand

Men had tried the world around

To win his daughter and his crown

I trembled low before His Honor

What must I do to court your daughter?

He cursed at me and bellowed loud

And threw me in the dungeon crude

Foolish boy, I thought aloud

For I am just a peasant’s child

What right have I to royalty

A beggar’s life is fit for me

Doom, despair, despondency

My self-fulfilling prophecy

Poverty is all I know

Crept it’s way into my soul

Light pierced through the dungeon black

A Fairy Queen, and from her back

She took a box and rod of wood

In my hands she placed the goods

I plucked some hairs from off her head

And strung them o’re the box and rod

I tucked the box beneath my chin

And touched the bow upon the string

As music filled the dungeon chamber

Fairy Queen was filled with laughter

Then as I slowed the bow and string

Tears became her offering

I felt a surge within my soul

Another language took control

Tears and laughter came and went

Evoked by my own instrument

Into the box and rod I poured

My lonely tears my childhood joys

My mother’s longing and her death

The odds of poverty and wealth

The chorus of ten thousand others

Joined the song across the ages

Haunting voices throughout history

From the future, still a mystery

Hope, despair, joy, and sorrow

Amalgamated and crescendoed

When at last I took a rest

I could hardly catch my breath

We had no words, the queen and I

No cheers to laugh no tears to cry

The song transcended any language

Gave voice to my deepest anguish

I sat once more before the king

Touched again the box and string

Moved by the magic of the music

King gave his daughter to this peasant

Happily, our ever after

Peasants, Royalty, together

Joined in song by box and string

Creation of the violin

Poetry, Family, Creation Care

A few weeks before Christmas, I took Our 9 and 6 year-old on a walk through the basement of our house. The goal was to find ten items that I would eventually write a poem about. We play the “describing game” all the time where one person defines something without naming it, and everyone else guesses. This time, we described without defining and took it to a whole new level of fun for us!

Here’s the list of items we found: Globe, Horseshoe, Maracas, Christmas lights, Toys, Nativity, Clock, Presents, Coat, Glasses. I had no agenda for what the poem might become. The end result as words flowed from me, was a poem about Creation Care.

I snapped those pictures from some of my favorite places with my phone. I love the way God uses Creation to speak to me.

Treasure

By Regina Cyzick Harlow

Sphere rumbles, rhythmic

Marchers, move toward eternal

Tired, worn out, used up sphere

Capitulating to misuse and consumerism

Wilds waning

Countryside yawning

Cities bursting

Beneath the pounding beat

Blind marchers march

Caught in the flow

Ever consuming

Ever using

Impetuous, heedless, injudicious

The stage set

A junction, once in periphery, becomes clearer

Marchers arrive at the hour of decision

Hope, born into their world

Salvation, Eternal Gift

Birthed from darkness

Offering joy

Pointing beyond time

Gate of Perfection

Marchers, every tongue and tribe and nation

Gathered in orbs of jasper, ruby, emerald,

Emanating from the One True Light

Basking in the warmth of One True Love

Sight returns

Vision restored

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Finally the Marchers treasure the gift

Potpourri: no, yes, hope, food

Happy New Year!

Our family continues to heal from a grueling last half of 2017, but we are certainly here with more hope and peace than we’ve had in a long time. There are still remnants of illnesses, but overall we are much healthier now too!

I have been learning a lot about self care and setting realistic boundaries for what I can and can’t do. This work empowered me to say no to two seemingly great opportunities to serve our denomination and local church district. I love our denomination, but the heart of my ministry has always been with the local grief community outside the context of church and denomination.

Saying no in turn allowed me to say yes to more with the non-profit my husband and I founded to provide non-clinical peer support for those grieving the death of a child. Just a few days of laser focus on that work and multiple doors are opening that will guide us into the future. Our non-profit turns ten years old this year! Lots to celebrate, even though the work is related to much grief and sadness. I have been contemplating how many people I’ve come to love and cherish that I would likely have never learned to know outside of our deepest sorrow and greatest pain.

This has long been one of my guiding quotes.

In my personal work and soul care, I’ve also been having some fun trying to reconcile the multiple and diverse streams of culture and influence in my DNA. My dad is from an Eastern European immigrant family, Mom from generations of horse and buggy Mennonites in which faith I was raised and colors my understanding of God. Learning more about my whole identity has been fun, but I’ve also been reminded that my true identity is a child of God and the ultimate “Home” I long for is being at home with God.

As always, I’ve been enjoying making some great food! I’m posting some on my recipe blog, The Cultured Country Cook. My purpose for the blog is simply to share great recipes. I’m not a fancy food photographer, but we sure do eat good around here. I was thinking this evening, I sure hope there’s a kitchen in heaven, cooking and baking and enjoying good food are some of my life’s greatest pleasures. Simultaneously I pondered how my husband might hope there’s NOT a kitchen in heaven since he usually ends up doing the dishes.

I read through English veterinarian James Herriot’s books last year, so one evening I made roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and creamed peas. I had read some chapters and paragraphs aloud to the family and we had a great time with that meal, recalling specific stories from his books.

We’ve had extremely cold temperatures here the past few days so tonight’s comfort food was cheese ravioli with mushrooms and browned butter, a simple spinach salad with strawberries, oranges, a drizzle of olive oil and a fresh-squeezed lime. Dessert was a homemade maple walnut pound cake with light maple cream cheese icing and homemade coffee custard. I had subscribed to the emeals menu planner several years ago, but haven’t used the recipes a whole lot. Tonight’s ravioli and last night’s Spanish Chicken Soup were both from emeals. I’m hoping to utilize that more!

I made cinnamon rolls for the pediatrician’s office who care so wonderfully for our children.

And a “poop emoji” cake by request for some friends who knew I had made one as a joke for Our son’s birthday last fall.

I continue to work out what it means to be fully present in my life and the invitations to be are all around me, if my eyes and heart are willing to see.

I’ve been delighting in the following words from Bob Goff in Love Does: Discover a secretly incredible life in an ordinary world.

“There is only one invitation it would kill me to refuse, yet I’m tempted to turn it down all the time. I get the invitation every morning when I wake up to actually live a life of complete engagement, a life of whimsy, a life where love does. It doesn’t come in an envelope. It’s ushered in by a sunrise, the sound of a bird, or the smell of coffee drifting lazily from the kitchen. It’s the invitation to actually live, to fully participate in this amazing life for one more day. Nobody turns down an invitation to the White House, but I’ve seen plenty of people turn down an invitation to fully live.

Turning down this invitation comes in lots of flavors. It looks like numbing yourself or distracting yourself or seeing something really beautiful as normal. It can also look like refusing to forgive or not being grateful or getting wrapped around the axle with fear or envy. I think every day God sends us an invitation to live and sometimes we forget to show up or get head-faked into thinking we haven’t really been invited. But you see, we have been invited — every day, all over again”

People might choose to turn down invitations to the White House these days, but I refuse to decline this invitation to fully live. May it be so. Amen.

%d bloggers like this: