..awakened today to bells ringing and rain sounds-typical winter sonic landscape, but for my dreams last night. In one, my car could fly. i knew exactly  where i would drive. Here,

rain, books, listening…an introverted monk, waiting eagerly for a sunny day…not just for sun, but for illumination. i like that moment when God said, let there be Light, so He could see His own creative process!

even what i dream here, it mingles with the bells, gulls and words. this morning

i sit for a while and remember back turning pages and tossing through oversized art books, looking at what others saw here…

at least before the wars came, and turned us

towards forward, the downward spiral towards up, towards a true ending…these bells are also ringing for us here now-they contain compress and resonate the past present and future and keep time still, in lament, and a certain hope.

So, i pull my phone out and try to put the bell tones inside it, to press and compress some record icon, or something which holds what’s passing…always….

so i can carry them with me.

like those who pray at night carry the dead.

And the piano player next door, who has been here for years, is already practicing this morning-the warmth of piano tones sound like Chagall, and

with the sight of cold north sea rain spewing on the vast window, it’s whole in mourning, as are we—that’s what it’s like, just next to an enormous room we can barely see, but know we already live in.

Even today’s sea gulls are trembling in the never finished church tower of St Jakob’s across the street, the old pilgrimage way with its imprinted golden seashells. Besides and anyway,

the old people (the few who still go to church) couldn’t make it to church to pray today, as the stones are just too cold and slick on a day like this. So i’ll pray for them, as those who are unseen in prayer.

or like those who pray at night. I’ll be like them one day, ok with being entirely unseen, some sort of accidental saint.