Sibling Day

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Elea Lee

I always see a rather dour group of chocolate, flower, and card execs huddled together in a dimly lit office…

(Think Brando in Godfather)

Coming up with new holidays–world chicken day? Classic sitcoms day? Creative tie day?

So there. You have my context for Sibling Day. Notice I have waited until the celebrations have subsided to comment.

Years ago I had to buy a book called Sibling Abuse after my adopted daughter revealed that my adopted son was abusing my youngest daughter. And others. He had a list of victims.

He had used his siblings. He abused their trust and their innocence.

And the aftermath was scorching. Our family has stood in a lonely place for a long time now.

My sibling did nothing.

My husband’s sibling as well.

So “sibling day” is kinda painful for me except for one thing–

The children in my family now have the best siblings. They shelter each other and enrich the lives of their brothers and sisters.

They give me hope.

I just wish I could give them the uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, and friends they so richly deserve.

Dear Veronica Badamo,

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Elea Lee

In the fall of 1998 I lost you. Since I was your foster mom, I never had much legal right to you anyway.

What happened to your real mama. What happened to your whole family was awful. Criminal awful.

I was just a broken bystander.

You were, for one precious year, my baby. And when they took you away I was broken.

Barely survive broken.

Whole world changed broken.

I was pretty sure the people who took you would erase me, but I could not let you go without a benediction.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published it. I knew that they would change your name so I called you Little One.

And for year I have been calling and calling, Little One.

I missed you. I missed the years, days, hours with you.

You were my lost treasure.

One good thing happened; losing you gave me a plumb line for love.

Anyone’s child could be you. Suddenly the world was full of Veronicas.

It was a painful gift. I would have rather had you, real you.

But I was the ghost. And I can give you these two promises–

I loved the world better because of you.

And I love you. Always, always, little one.

Forgiveness in pieces

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Elea Lee

The news article announced–a person guilty of mass murder in Rwanda had been forgiven after 20 years.

A cause for celebration?

Perhaps. If you don’t want the survivors to languish in the grips of anger and a desire for revenge–perhaps.

Beware of cheap forgiveness.

What do I mean? I mean that anyone genuinely harmed by another person has to forgive at a terrible price. The price of rape and murder is unthinkable.

It is too big a number. Too large a sum.

Which brings me to Jesus.

I understand that however we humans talk of releasing the debt of pain and loss caused by irrevocable harm, what we mean is let go of it.

We do not have the power to undo it. We do not have the power to expiate. We do not have the power to redeem.

Only Jesus can do that because he does and he did.

He has the power; he paid the debt.

Prophesy to the Breath

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Elea Lee

Well, to start with you should know: Ezekiel’s life was no walk in the park.

Stroll in the bone-strewn valley, perhaps.

He lost people he loved.

He was constrained by God to do wacky, uncomfortable, challenging, and humbling things.

And in return–visions. Beautiful visions.

And here is God, taking him out to the dead husks of a human wasteland to challenge his faith.

Do you believe God can raise the dead?

Do you?

Sometimes people can still have a pulse and seem so dead. The idea that a murderer or child molester could be resurrected to a compassionate life?

Almost feels harder than Ezekiel’s bones.

But God makes the injunction:

Ezekiel 37:9-10 (NIV)
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” [10] So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

I confess, I believe God can make these dry bones live.

I believe Ezekiel can prophesy to the breath.

Lord, help my unbelief.

In You, dear Ransomer.

What does it cost?

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Elea Lee

I struggle with a voice in my head telling me that a woman in my ramshackle physical condition has no business hitting ramps on a wakeboard.

It is a powerful voice.

And yet I cannot help thinking that challenging that voice and hitting those structures is a victory of the heart.

Victories of the heart are often costly victories. We are challenged to face our deepest fears of loss and humiliation, pain and failure for love.

And so with the even objectivity of a math problem you could say–the measure of our love is the measure of our willingness to overcome our fear.

Or better said by a Braver Man–perfect love casts out all fear.

Tell me you love someone and I will ask you, what dragons have you fought to preserve your beloved?

Community College

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Elea Lee

You used to stand
In the doorway of winter
Receiving the Russian men
With their flowers and words of love
As transparent as their motives

Never letting on
You were a sucker
For their swarthy accents and abundant facial hair

But not that much
That you would fail

To mark each hour of rising light

Not yet
The full Twelve
He speaks of so casually
Before dark.

Unsay Me

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Elea Lee

Unsay me
Uncall my name
Unbraid this coil of hair
Unspeak these things
Unspell these words
Untie this knot
Unhand me, fear
Unbreakable Love
Unquenchable fire
Undo this curse
Under this tree
Unbearable pain
You spoke for me.

A Terrible Christian

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Elea Lee

The essay appeared to be heartfelt–urging people to brook the barriers of their resistance to organized religion and find a church, any church…because churches do good things.

Do they?

I spent the better part of my (Christian) life believing this. I still do, generally, on principal.

There was one thing missing from the impassioned church essay. One Person, actually.

You should go to church to see Jesus.

You should do everything to see Jesus.

“Christian” means “little Christ.” What happens to us when we excise Christ from our identity? All that is left is the “little” in us.

It is not easy to follow Jesus. Recently I gave a dramatic depiction of Jesus to someone who would definitely identify as a believer. This person rejected my gift with forthright disgust.

Did not actually watch the DVD….

I thought, huh…not an unusual reaction really.

How many of us would dare stand at the foot of his disfiguring Cross? How many of us have the courage to identify with our naked, broken, bloodied Savior?

I am a terrible Christian, unwashed and unlovely. But no one said redemption would be pretty.

Just absolutely essential for life
Eternal life.

In the presence of mine enemies

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Elea Lee

I linger over little bits of cake. My gentile version of honey cake, my American girl version of lebkuchen, all thanks to Peg + Cat.

The honey on the cake reminds me of John the Baptist’s least emulated diet ever.

I think of him scooping honey from the hives of desert bees, dipping his locusts in the honey. Wild food for a wild man? Or deliberate food for a grave robber? Was he eating that way as an afterthought or a prophesy?

At table with our enemies.

I don’t know when I began to identify the enemy of Psalm 23 as death and his minions–sickness, pain, grief, and loss, but I do.

These are our true enemies. And the answer, the only answer I have when the pain of this world’s griefs become unthinkable is to look at Jesus at the head of this table and know that he owns the meal: bugs and honey and all.

The Stories We Tell Each Other

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Elea Lee

I am up too late looking for Jesus.

A friend of mine has lost someone she loves and I write about this kind of loss, knowing I tread on hallowed ground because I have walked there before, myself.

Took my shoes off and wept there. In the valley of the shadow of death.

I look at words, priceless words, captured in time by social media and I think of Malachi 3:16–one of my favorite verses and the verse that defines my faith in the power of us, telling our stories.

Malachi 3:1,7-8,10,16-17 (NIV)
“See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. [7] Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, `How are we to return?’ [8] “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, `How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. [10] Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. [16] Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. [17] “They will be mine, ” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

I find and grab more than I was looking for.

Sure, I need sleep. But I need Jesus more. We all do.

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: grief