Category Archives: grief

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.

He came in disguise

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I have told my kids (on too many occasions) that I would love to see a spy movie in which the main character’s spy skills are demonstrated by the character’s thorough-going appearance transformations.

He would become she, young and handsome would morph into old and frail, fat to thin, and tall to short…by assigning entirely different actors to play the part in unbroken succession.

Then it occurs to me that is what Jesus did–He came in disguise.  Clues for this theory are in the Gospels–the transfiguration (why take only three disciples?), the times when He prohibits the healed from blabbing about their transformations, the healing of Jairus’ daughter (again, only three disciples?) and then those times after His resurrection when people don’t recognize Him.

God in disguise.

It makes sense when you see Him described in other places in the Bible.  Excuse my French, but Jesus in His “real form” is unmistakably bad-ass. 

Which brings me to the most haunting part of this story of voluntary disguise.  

The Lord of glory, Creator of the universe, Beginning and the End, Lion of the tribe of Judah, naked, eviscerated, gasping on the Cross.

My death.  This is the purest place for me to see who I really am–the person who deserves this terrible end.

He wraps Himself in the vortex of hell to give us access to heaven–undisguised.

Apparition 

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after years measured in either sabbaticals or fists

The woman in the box 

Realizes she has only been an apparition 

Sorting through previous 

Versions of “her”

She sees one to nurture– 

No lines around the eyes or heart

An ordinary girl

Who believed in human intervention

Fragile thing, scoops her up

Just a bird in the hand;

Looks for a place to set her down

If only to assess 

the utility of wings

Older Brother

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My son tells me his fears and I tell him mine are remarkably similar–fear of the tragic loss of love.

Sometimes he and I get to the end of an ordinary day and he says our crew is still together, Mom.

We are citizens of a dangerous and lonely kingdom.

But only because the true King travels in disguise.

He is this magnetic force–scarred forever by his tragic love for us, hole in the chest and again in each Vitruvian extremity.

Stranger at the party.

You should get to know this guy.  His words and actions may seem either simple or radically divisive, but His gaze is irrevocable.

He is the perfect older brother, fierce in both love and justice.  When I dread this fallen world I turn to Him.

Knowing He will never fail.

Monsters of righteousness

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Imagine them as you will but never

Assume your scepticism will make them 

Mythological again

In the smoke of our discarded daughters 

/commerce of indifference 

Shoots craps in crowded rooms

Sweat-palmed cash for common shame

Summon  these 

Monsters of righteousness

From this fire we

have made of love.

Hey Miss Veronica

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When I first saw Finding Nemo it was so much about you.

And after all these years, Finding Dory is much the same.

I may have been your brief and most arbitrary mama, but I will love you forever.

And your foster dad and I will never stop laying down the shells…not just for your way back to us, but as a mosaic for how you changed us forever.

You, beautiful girl.

Underestimating Dragons

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I love them when they snake totemistically through the clouds, smoke before the storm

And when they are filigree-perfect by the pool, along the slender branches of new trees

Skin the same green as the leaves

But when it is the serpent 

Climbing vertically toward the sparrowlets,

I cannot either 

Turn, ignore 

Or observe with the objective skill of a naturalist

intervene

Knowing grace is more than words before a meal

Or a sticker you wear to church on your lapel

Grace is the Hand that

saves the sparrow

Even at the mortal expense

Of the dragon.

The Comfort Machine

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by then their civilization had evolved to ruthless efficiency

Injustice and oppression had been outsourced to less developed countries

Leaving them only to

Eradicate grief

They tried all the usual suspects–

Hot tea, warm milk, kittens

Yet the mothers still grieved

So “They”

Invited the white coats to come

Put their heads together,

build the perfect

Comfort machine.

It worked of course, they were prone not to failure

As they stood at the scene of each tragedy

Bystanders on the side

…the Comfort Machine churned out its magic

Combed out the violence

scrubbed the murder

Bleached out the violation

Unthreaded both deceit and apathy 

Established a perimeter of fire

Around self-preservation

Passed a final round of shots

Among the dignitaries-

Bone bourbon, tequila, absinthe

They murmured in approval the way a barkeep might shout

Last call

As the music continued to pulse hard and fast through the crowd

Everyone turned 

To the mothers for some final sign it had worked

As the Comfort Machine idled and purred

Over the still deafening sound 

Of silenced hearts

The victims’ impact statement 

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they said they lost them 

Tossed in the trash?

Recycled?

Whatever

I see  them clearly

The shape of ordinary Syro-Phoenician

Cursed on lined paper

Wtf.

How do you lose

The story of the rape of children

In parking lots

Playgrounds

Public spaces as well as cannibalizing

The geography of “playing house” and “family?”

You should know that the state of f#cking  Texas 

Can “lose” the words we wrote 

All they want

But the story belongs forever

To the indelible

Victims’ statements.