Darling, I have no right to
Look for you
At every bus stop, mailbox, broken sidewalk, out of the corner of my eye as night falls
No right but your love, so true
Been there all along
Been There All Along
Reply
Category Archives: God
This Little Girl
I want to say so many things to
This man who does not really see
“This little girl”
But I know You
See her, see me, see them
All the little ones who
Need a God like You
Take my sins away, heal my wounds, stay until I am well, bring justice in your wings, never blame the victim, never stop searching for treasure
You
who were, who are, who always will be
Just You,
and “this little girl”
Eschaton and testing for Covid-19
About a month ago I spent a day dragging my family through a crash course in coronavirus. It was appalling.
- The range of symptoms is highly variable.
- Carriers can be asymptomatic.
- With over 200 mutating strains, the range of severity in this disease can be highly variable.
- A person can be exposed to the mild strains, and still get hit by a secondary, more severe infection.
We put too much emphasis on testing. Testing would be great only if there were limitless tests and the tests were far more reliable than they are. If that were the case then we should all follow a protocol of weekly prophylactic testing.
Not feasible right now.
A few years ago my family started to play a modified version of a very complicated fictional tennis game from David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. His version was very apocalyptic (fitting); ours was as well but with a fraction of the complexity.
In our version two teams of as many people as you have (evenly divided, of course) face each other on either side of the net. We divided as many balls as we could muster and started hitting them across the net relentlessly. The opposing team did the same. At a predetermined point (like music chairs), we would pause the game. The team with fewer balls on their side won that round and then we would continue.
Great cardio workout. Quickly exhausting.
That is coronavirus. We will all face an onslaught of a relentlessly moving, mutating virus which can spread quickly, if not effortlessly, through contact and fomite transmission.
Eschaton is a fun game.
This is not. But if I know one thing about how to “win” at eschaton, it is organize your team and don’t stop lobbing the balls back across the net.
We don’t play eschaton right now. Our tennis court is closed. That is a good thing. The best way to “win” at this is to assume we are all spreaders and keep us all
Six feet apart.
Pray. Pray because our lives depend on it. Imagine what a simple game of eschaton would look like if
God were clearly on
The winning side.
Matthew 17:20-21 KJV
[20] And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. [21] Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
And all the pleasant pictures
I have been having the mildest of stress dreams–quirky, bureaucratic hotel check ins, attempts to gather the hard-to-shepherd, things washed away. I know why the dreams have come, and I doubt they will leave me soon, even if the heat and intensity of a gathering sun should cause them to lose their inevitable grip and dissipate
I turn to morning songs and croak out broken praises
Think I should listen to the Gospel, but chose Isaiah instead
Because these are old
And New Testament times
And we are all in wont
of fierce faces
Isaiah 2:16 KJV
[16] And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
Staring at the Door
I draw lines transecting the doorway
Vertical then horizontal
Drab, heavy old thing
I cannot open it, cannot move it toward me, as in this scenario I would have no opposable
Thumbs, thumbs dug into the wet clay of our terrible
Mortality
While You
Let me through every time
To this endless deep
Expanse of night, the wind, the grieving girl who would
Tell you never leave
One Goodbye, One Goodnight
Oh, darling, spring
Takes ahold a little
More each day
In the leaves over us, in the moon through the branches of this
Place you have been
All these years I
Will miss you
Welcome Home, Antarctic Explorers!
I was there when you packed your bags, when you got the passport pictures, (the garrulous postal employee who took them was a highlight!). I was there for all the worry–the mama worry–and there for the day when we drove to the airport all together
To see you off to
Great Adventure!
Despite all my trepidations, I was excited for all of you. I thought this will be cool and said take lots of pictures!
I went in with my eyes wide open
Too many emails back and forth with grownups
getting paid a lot to take you there
Not Mothers Teresas at all
But I didn’t expect this
The lonely road home
The uphill battle just to get you back home
You are home now, darlings
And never let anyone tell you
You are worth anything less than the whole world entire
I would tell you
If I could stand in every airport in the world
Homemade Sign held high and goofily askew
Letters spelt out–
💜WELCOME HOME, ANTARCTIC EXPLORERS!!💙
You mean the world to me
Winged Victory
When I was very young we were in Paris and the street vendor said we should buy a small tinny replica of Winged Victory. My mother demurred, said we were going to see “the real thing.”
When we walked into the Louvre and she pointed to it—massive, majestic, breathtaking. I asked how much did that one cost?
She said priceless.
You are my real thing, far more priceless than Winged Victory
The Feast of Thorns
Long before our terrible story your birthday was already
the feast of Servites pruning winter roses. I cling to that now, all the other days this day could be:
Obstinate mountains lumber into obeisant seas
Lame men whole, blind men see
Dead men rise and shake off their shroudy bindings
impossible things all around ya
If only you will
See
There All Along
By Ben Lee
I walk these streets and think
My love
But you are not here
I look for you
Around corners
In the cracks of ancient bricks
I descend the hill listening for you
I find the top of the mountain
Look back
At all I’ve traveled
And realize you were with me all along
