you take it for granted–
All those exes and the whys
Algebra–the reunion of broken parts
When no one asks how they got
So broken
We must all search for that
Ancient mathematician
His ability to see how
To…
Piece us back together
Bone by bone
Until every x is solved
And every y has its
solution
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.
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.
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
you must believe in
The invisible world–
Atoms, neutrons, quarks
And other molecular angels
These bits of light and matter
Swirl around us
Halos of an inevitable world
You bend to kiss his brow
No longer visible with naked eye.
But what of the others?
There to receive him
Just beyond the scrim
Clouds of witnesses
The insubstantial irreplaceable
Eternal us
Funny how often Lincoln shows up in our
Iterations of heaven
And how young grandma always looks
As though you and I could
Stand the light
Ten million stars are just
This single flickering candle in
A fleck of night
He dusts off his shoulder,
Strong right arm
Gathers our once-mortal hearts
Into immortal, imperishable we
We who will stand
Candidates for this eternal
Song sung loud
By our six year old selves
Forever
Weddings are such artificial confections, but all funerals have a unifying element of truth–we are all prone to die.
The manner and time vary, the seeming finality does not.
Unless…
Unless Jesus is right. Unless He is the resurrection and the life. In that case the things we take for granted about the finality of the grave may not be all there is.
I went to a funeral recently. An untimely one. The priest gave the family a final story from Acts 3–the silver and gold I have none story.
Only he did not tell it right. Instead of the healing of the beggar and his resultant joy–physical, exuberant, unmissable dancing and jumping! The priest says that Peter says he will be there and pray.
Don’t get me wrong–Christians being there and praying is getting to be miraculous and rare, it just isn’t what Peter said or did. At least not all he did.
The thing that Peter did for the beggar was public, miraculous, transforming, and unmistakable.
And powerfully reminiscent of his Master. When Peter heals the beggar he signals that we are in AD now. He lets us know that any narrative that portrays Jesus just another victim of Roman torture is incomplete.
He lets us know that the flood of the miraculous has gushed into the ordinary.
A flood that should wash through every wedding and every funeral with the insistent song of redemption and resurrection and eternity.
Nothing quiet here.
stay in the box
All cardboard and glue
The bars you have hewn with your fingernails
Purely arbitrary
But wait still
Look for the way the open spaces
Casts shadows
Train your ears for approaching
Footsteps that
Do not come
You will be alone with the voice in your head
Telling you be still
And know that I am God.
used to be an ordinary name
A ship, an honor, champagne broken across the bow?
The rules change in war
Sharks in the water
Pick men off one by one
Hope mixed with hunger thirst despair
A hell of a lot of
Time, minutes, seconds, days
Become this feeding frenzy
No one is coming.
*What is so compelling and unthinkable about the sinking of the Indianapolis is that there were men who knew it was missing and men who received the distress signals.
For a variety of typically human reasons not a single one acted.
Resulting in the deaths of hundreds.
this is a parable
We are all parables
Stories of light and darkness
It takes only one
Candle lit in the dark
To make light
Someone always must be
Burning, held high
For all the dying
shadows to see
when I was wee-small I corrected the store name Goodwill to Oldwill. Also I once inadvertently hurt the feelings of a much-beloved pre-school teacher when I applied an age-equals-wisdom rubric to her chronological age.
She seemed exceedingly wise and kind and calm. So I told her she was 85. At the time this was the Nobel Peace prize of ages to me. I did not see wrinkles or old as a factor with humans.
Resale stores, absolutely, but people–not so much. My teacher was probably in her late twenties to mid-thirties?
I am going somewhere with this: assessment.
When I scan my junk mail for the misplaced real mail, I find message after message from hardworking Davises and Millers trying to give me some relief from student loans and a variety of entities using female given names and announcing their desire to date me or worse.
Oh, the anomalous anonymity of the Internet! These hardworking phishers and scammers just don’t get me.
We all want to be truly known and loved for who we really are, yet this is mostly a mirage. At least in my culture.
We are often not capable of deep commitment or unswerving faithfulness, and we are quite damaged by the sturm and drang of this flawed and broken world. We like empty images and cliches, not the challenges of maturity, restoration, and love.
Which leads me to Big Agnes tents…
After one disastrous night in a tent at the beach during a storm, I do not consider myself a camping girl, but when I saw the (again, junk email!) ad for Big Agnes tents it was love at first sight. Big? When seeking shelter, big is good. And Agnes? Agnes rocks. The name means pure but sounds a lot like the Latin word for lamb–agnus. Big Pure? Big Lamb? Lamb of God?
Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us...
…damaged goods
Damaged goods in a storm
In need of shelter
I will run to the Lamb, find shelter in Him.
Forever
Carrying Light 