triple heart prayer 11 on the sanctuary floor

you fight for your health, the one inside you is rejecting your devotion to God, not letting you feel his grace, but feeling the wrath of demons who make you expel everything you’ve received, in the holiest of holy places…you go home and attempt repose and detoxicity, but your body fights you, takes you to a place where death seemed imminent and you are surrounded by angels trying to do everything to bring you back to normal. you wake up every few minutes, covered in blankets to fight the winter, wondering where you are and why this is happening on a fast day, all you wanted was to show your love…now you are seeing people exorcise your demons in your dreams on the floor, your head facing your Lord and the women trying to keep you alive so you can live another day, they’ve tried eleven times to compel them out, triple heartstrength, fetch the heartstrings, we’ve got a body to save from temptation and isolation from God.

back from recipe hiatus…nordic mashed potatoes

4 Russet potatoes, peeled,

pot of water

sea salt

dill (fresh is better, but tinned/canned works too)

20 g Norwegian brown cheese (brunost/gjetost)

2-3 tbsp Brummel and Brown yogurt butter

 

How to: Peel potatoes and boil in medium to large-sized pot of water. Put about 1 tbsp of sea salt into the pot and shake the dill can for about five to ten seconds until a nice, thin layer of dill floats at the top. Boil the potatoes for about 20 minutes (might be a bit longer, pending on the oven), chop into bits with a masher (or a nylon whisk works!). Mix potatoes with yogurt butter, then grate brown cheese over bowl.

 

In the words of Gergana, det er fint!

a prayer for Tony Hardeman (1962?-2009)

with a matin rising, God

said, let’s get ready, my son

time to ease your pain

no more lonely days

no more lonely

no more

natcher parkway

load the car full of emotions

set its core on fire

push it down the street

and it starts churning

solitary driver

cigarette in someone else’s mouth

gravel on the speakers

keep on turning

strips of gray and yellow never

seemed so solitary

until the day you met them

at the door

and signs that break it down

make it all seem systematic

in a way you’ve never, ever

seen before

morning tri-scion

Sunday morning, wake up

prayers to the tune of Arcade Fire

have mercy on me, I live another day

eight forty-seven

the holy immortals three

rise with near-guttural piety

i touch the ground, asking for mercy

welcome, new day

i ask for healing

for all of those surrounding

i bow my head, fingers clasped

candle, out smoking

(untitled)

hearing wails of subfloor meetings

drown the morning atmosphere

wind brushing the house, the patriarch goes shaking

they say, wake up, you young fool

hear the sound of nature

pray silence for your makers- pray without ceasing

take that rope around your neck

and place it on your wrist

each little bead makes you something new

the fiddles become silent

giving way to ancient voices

the time has come to see your vision through

the old road

The gallon of Ice Mountain keeping watch over Olga’s back floorboards (Olga’s my car, in case you didn’t know) rolled around as we took the curves down Indiana 69, blaring the Warsaw Village Band into the wilderness of the most depressed place in Indiana. It is probably 20 F outside, -6 C if you’re Maxim, who’s in the passenger seat taking little digital videos for all to see. The sun shines, reminding us of its presence in this gray season and blanketing itself over the 400 or so people who still live in Point Township, or “down in Point.”

It’s hard to believe that, several centuries ago, a huge community of indigenous folk lived down here. Now all that Midwestern archaeology finds of them are small bits of pottery and food tools, taking them to Bloomington for “research” and leaving the bodies behind where they are supposed to be. The space behind the Hovey Lake ranger’s house doesn’t seem like a place where people have been digging every year to find more bits of things they have already seen. But there’s hope to find out something more, and in perpetuity.

We skipped the parking lot of the lake and looked for the old access road, the one that used to be the highway but has since been used as a boat launch road. The trees, stripped of their summer emotions and envy, reached out to the sky like fingers, serving as masters in a world where more of us need to be disciples. The fields, celebrating their off-season, lay bare, showing how the terrain is indeed a floodplain. It floods, and it is plain, screaming austerity.

“It looks like Russia,” Maxim said as we drove the path, worn from years of minor use. Olga’s wheels bumped, and our heads traveled with it. “Maybe we will see turkeys,” I said, and he said he did not know what they looked like. The last time I was down this way, I saw them, but that was in 1996, right as I was just hitting puberty. I hope to relive that day, but it did not happen.

As I drove towards the dead end where the ferry to Uniontown once stood, I thought Maxim would be bored by my attempt to make my homeland more important than it is. I’m from a county of 27,000 people, with no hospital, no hypermarket and not much in terms of entertainment. Apart from New Harmony, we have factories, trees and the river, the source of our heritage and current livelihood. We’re not a tourist destination.

But that day, it did not matter. Maxim would later say he missed Mount Vernon. And I have grown to miss that day. It was the day that I became reconnected with my own roots, the Quaker-Methodist farmer side that helped make Point what it is. I sat in the front seat of Olga on the boat ramp, looking towards Uniontown, seeing the river, as dirty and polluted as it is, keep on flowing like there was no tomorrow. It was like the quote on Orthodoxy I heard- it is going to be there, whether you choose to believe in it or not. And I can’t deny that anymore.