Category Archives: crime

Chinese Box

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some stories hold

Such trauma

That in order to 

Tell them

You have to use a Chinese box

What, you ask, is a Chinese box?

A Chinese box is a 

Story

Within a story

Within a story

Not to be confused with 

Chinese handcuffs

(Which is a very different thing indeed)

For example:

Once there were some children who lived in an apartment with their (biological) mother and father.  They did not always eat.  Sometimes they were left alone.  The father beat the mother.

The loss was unbearable, said their foster mother.  The boy was mute.  The girl was cagey.

So small.  So damaged. So angry.

They called her bad mommy, bad mommy, bad mommy.

Because there was only the one.

One room, one closet, one subterfuge, one million wrongs

In the circuits of his mind

He tells the story of the bad mommy, who was (he says) too much drama.

As she pieces together the past she neglects the symmetry of hearts, circles, and peanut butter sandwiches among the survivors

Because, as an ordinary prophet once said–every trauma has its own story…

Within these concentric 

Chinese boxes.

Topiary Angels

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the trees are animate

Watching over

Us

Towering water fowl and prehistoric raptors

They have been 

Put.

       Under. 

           A. 

               Spell.

For millennia 

Slowed down so that 

They must rely on outside actors to

Shake them free–

The wind or

Small children shimmying skyward

Begin to give voice, lend 

momentary quickness

To these beauties

Tied to the wet, dark earth

Searching for treasure

So carefully, so slowly

Through the roots

Waiting for the Day

When we will all be

Set free.

The parable of good wakeboarder

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Years ago I had my first encounter with the way the parable of the Good Samaritan might need to be imported to wake parks, or at least my home park at the time.

A young man dangled in the water at the point of the pond furthest from the dock.  He cried out in pain.

I say this with no pride–I did not want to stop riding to help him.  They were about to close…I would have to stop riding for the day…there were so many other riders, surely someone else would stop and assist him?!

I stopped and so did his friend.  He had hurt his foot and ankle and he definitely needed help.

The first of many times that God would remind me that wakeboarding is not as important as your soul.

There were other ways to remind me of this–picking up trash along the shore, letting people cut in front of me even if it really bugged me, helping others to ride.

And after that first time it seemed good to just make the rule to stop and help anyone who needed help.

So when a Christian-labelled group started a Bible study at the Texas Ski Ranch, some of us discussed the way Jesus’ parable about an outcast who saves the day for a crime victim could be adapted for wakeboarders.

The guy who got beat up would be a new rider in need of help.

The priests and religious leaders would be the “really good riders” who become so focused on their tricks or their ride that they ignore the person in need.

But who was the Good Samaritan? Who would he or she be?

I am not going to fill in that blank.  You should.  If you are a wakeboarder you should find out who the “Good Wakeboarder” is. (Hint: He is much more famous as a Barefooter, doesn’t even need a rope.)

One day we will all need him, no matter how many trophies we have or tricks in our pocket.

And if you are not a wakeboarder you can pick your epithet for the good “guy” in Jesus’ parable.

The good reality TV star?

The good politician?

The good evangelist?

The good drug dealer?

The good alcoholic?

The good snob?

We get pretty hung up on our labels.  Jesus knew that and exploited the discomfort of his listeners to force them to see Him differently.

No one can be good the way Jesus can–God in disguise.

Reflect the sky 

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some things remain dark

Obsidian dark

No matter how much you try to put distance between

The two of us

The video footage cannot, will not excise your presence

Obsidian dark

Is not your chicken-scratch handwriting

The horrible story I made you write down

Or the things you left out…

That so many people helped to…diminish

None more than you

The damage which will always be

dead dog on my chest

Ghosts of dogs should haunt us both

But let yours bark incessantly outside the grainy film of your transgressions

While mine 

Returns whole, resurrected even,

To the cement driveway by the old house where the children played with the water hose and the blue plastic wading pool 

Joy

They fill the screen with joy

For a moment even you could see

The way the thinnest layer of water poured out on rough cement

Reflects the sky

Reflects the light from the endless sky

Reflects the glory of this endless day we

…walk toward the sun, my one-time-child

Before the night 

Falls forever

Vorkuta

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halo

One hundred miles above the

Arctic circle

So cold the sun

Will fail to even graze

Skin of men bound in iron and chains

Click of light and dark, tracks and ties

Train.

To a string of gulags

Resembling nothing less than

Rough pearls

Which are surely

The opposite of coal

Torn from the frozen chest

By men whose bone-deep desperation 

mix with their fear

As air bleeds out

We all dream of 

of fire 

Archangel

So far beneath the buried heart 

Of this vertiginous stone 

Planet

Cleaning house

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the lovely stranger

Tells us all

If this thing in front of you 

Doesn’t give you joy throw it

Away

I kinda wonder about the ordinary scrub brushes thrust into the most terrible places

Do you discard them too?

Replace them with newer ones without the dark history?

Maybe keep them away from the crap

Which tangentially reminds me of

Poor Thomas Crapper–

Bringing us into modern hygiene at the expense of the family name

Don’t worry, Thomas

Your job may be thankless

Your name synonymous with 

Well, crap

But I won’t forget you

Joy may be a too-strong word

For preventing public health catastrophe

But somebody gotta do it, TC

Somebody for all the rest 

Our ordinary demise

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While the crucifixion of Christ is overwhelmingly unbearable, the deaths of ordinary humans are awful enough.

We are all certain things when we die.

The cessation of breath is a terrifying thing.  Add to that helplessness and pain–most of us avoid death the way you would avoid the edge of an unforgiving precipice or an unguarded incinerator.

John the Baptist’s death is no exception.  He died as a direct result of powerful people’s sin.  He died in chronological and geographical proximity to Jesus.

The howl of the unfairness of it all is unmistakable.

Which is why I stick close to men like him.  What if John had not questioned Jesus?  What if his grief and doubt had not been recorded in the Gospel?

…I would have fewer answers for my lesser questions…and one fewer member of my support group.

And a narrower understanding of Jesus–no Santa Claus god.  Jesus commands us to focus on both who He is and what He does for us on the most primal level.

He gives us back the one thing we can never get back ourselves–eternal life.

The death of every human may seem inevitable, but who we trust with the forever after makes all the difference.

To John the Baptist and every ordinary me.