Is crying
I would bottle her grief
If I could
Bury it
No.
But it would bloom
Pour it out
Like a drink offering
Like a grief offering
Like a broken
Bottle
Alabaster keepsake
Dowry, maybe
For a child, a baby
Stolen
From our memory
Of happiness
And its careful
Lie- constructed
Illusion
I trace the veins
Once mined
Once quarried
Hewn from the ancient
Stone
Who would have known
Stone
Could be fragile
Indelibly etched
Like a lover’
s face
Lines traced
With the tips of my fingers
map a course across the rock/across the polished surface
That separates
You from me
Like myth from the living
Truth
full of silence
and broken pictures
a profusion of angry
words
until
the wind
rises
from the dead
you are a crime victim
your child is a crime victim
the family itself has been
smashed from the inside out
from the core of who you were
the sense of safety
is gone
and all that remains
is the awareness of sharp edges
hard objects
unfamiliar territory
fear
narrow ledges next to deep waters
where predators reside
everything has changed
simply because a truth has been revealed
no one is ever really safe.
no one
save Jesus
By the time M was two she had a fully realized world of people she had created. They were and are vibrant characters. This past year she wrote a story peopled by punctuation marks. Also quite interesting.
I say this because she is a beautiful survivor. She was being abused by Charles when she created her first kingdom. These people we still love.
But she is haunted as well knowing that Charles continued to abuse her little sister for a long time after she asked him to stop abusing her. She assumed he would not abuse her little sister. She was seven.
I am haunted by the abuse as well. There is a wall in my life that signifies S’s solitary hurt. One night this week I wrote on it, first a memorial, then a Bible verse, then a picture of a cross. Then I got an idea. I realized that my children’s vividness overcomes evil. Jesus brings new life. So I painted a chalkboard over my grief wall.
First we wrote each other love notes. Then M drew Mr. and Mrs. Whiskers. They are English cousins of Harvey and we love their accents.
When she tells me about the Whiskers, I just hug her really tight. It is grace to see an ordinary resurrection of something as pedestrian as a wall.
Grace.
There is a camp that we go to every summer. The kids love it. Years ago it taught me about heaven–
Beautiful place/people kind, generous, helpful/full of joy/few there are afraid to be childlike/exuberant
Good dancing/food/music
This year we brought home a bug which is now besetting my 4 yr old
When he threw up at 2 am he apologized
My poor darling.
I told him that was why I am here. No problem. I love him. I got it.
Jesus said in his Father’s house there are many mansions
Which is not an odd thing for a Carpenter God to say, but a very odd thing for a homeless non-materialist. Like many things He says it illuminates when a person walks behind Him.
He means shelters
Hangouts
Splendor
He means God giving us His own
Beautiful Heart
So….the atheists I know have gods. They tend to be egoism and stimulants, pride, and vanity along with other garden variety idols. I find these side roads into idolatry particularly sad when dealing with atheistic myopia.
I wonder, do they really not see how important it is for the world to revolve around them? When you are an atheist this is particularly sad because your life (by your faith’s disposition) has no more significance than a bit of plastic jetsam swirling around in the Pacific. Idolatry of a plastic toothbrush, let’s call it.
By contrast there is Jesus. His words are deep, warm, incisive, ironic, profound, and true, often all at once. His voice resonates over the course of recorded history. He is the antithesis of egoism. There is no, “and then Jesus sat down to a satisfying breakfast of fried eggs” verse in the Bible. There is some interesting stuff about Him NOT eating and casting out demons…oh, and raising the dead. The dead.
His smallest words matter. His weeping, His silence, His unbearable pain. And then there is His advice–keep the eternal, lay up treasure that will not rust or rot. He shows us how this is done
by dying to our egos and ourselves
by purchasing with our money, our time, and our hearts
treasure in Heaven.
treasure in Heaven…
What does God treasure?
Us.
we are His precious treasure
and just in case we did not see it, He makes His mark on the center of the map of human history
with a Cross
A friend asked me, do you put the kids to bed and at least get five minutes to yourself? No, I say, not really but I like them all…
Hours later I realize how strange that must sound, how incomplete. What I see in my head is thirteen years of eidetic episodes of unlikable events–bullying, tantrums, swearing, violent protracted rages, physical assaults, homicidal imaginary friends, routine larceny, and lies, cursing of the most egregious kind. Some stories so awful I do not want to write about the hurt. And all of this before the years of C’s sexual felonies were dragged to light.
Most sane and normal people would have known better, right? We believed if we did not give up on m and c they would be good, or at least better because of love. Because of Love.
Jesus said, greater love has no man than he lays down his life for his friend.
Somethings are easier than others to lay down, I say beneath the shadow of the Cross.
Those 13 years took things that did not belong to me from the most precious people I know. To say I like my children is an understatement.
They are my heroes.
Christianity Today has an article about several “Christian” sex offenders, including one man who recently committed suicide rather than face charges of molesting a young girl.
The first sentence of the article is “He loved children” then they describe a man who molested several of his 75 foster children. To me if he will molest one foster child, he is capable of molesting all 75.
So, yes, I am annoyed with CT because they have categorically rebuffed my attempts to get them to deal with this crisis-level issue, but more than that I am annoyed with that sentence.
You cannot love children and treat them as sexual objects.
you cannot love children and molest children.
This is like saying 4 and 6 are the same number.
False.
Jesus said the truth would set us free. We need to learn how to start living, speaking, and facing the truth.
This blog is dedicated specifically to all the children who have been sexually assaulted by so-called “Christians”
Matt 18, baby, Matt. 18…
Carrying Light 