Category Archives: grief

The character of the king

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Pastor Chuck Jacob preached a sermon recently on a particularly amazing portion of Isaiah 52 and 53. Much of Isaiah sees the future to the face of Jesus. And thanks to Handel, much of what Isaiah saw is put to soaring music as well as words of hope.

But. There is one small catch. Maybe two. First, Isaiah is thought to have been martyred for his prophecy, and second….

Jesus gives us hope by becoming our disfigurement. That is what Pastor Jacob describes–God made flesh and then made Calamity for us.

I often think about The Princess Bride Not only does Westley endure the unendurable in the quest for love, he then gives one of the most apt descriptions of disfigurement ever–

Wrong! Your ears you will keep and I will tell you why…so that…”Dear God, what is that thing?” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what “to the pain” means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

Tough stuff for a romantic fable, but an efficient echo of redemptive agony–Jesus became disfigured and unrecognizable as the real embodiment of the sin, filth, violence, and casual cruelty of Man. We, if we dare to look, see him as a monster as he dies for us. We fail to recognize the monstrous signature of our own clawing sins.

He goes to hell disfigured. But what would be a dreadful, eternal quietus for us is the force of redemptive power–him for us, God poured out for me.

Part 1 of 2

After the Sea

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We sleep in boats
Strewn out across
An unending sea
Cling to blankets, shelter, each other

An archipelago of contained air
All that holds us
Up inflatable dinghies,
Flotsam unstable

We call to each other
Sun-drenched dazed
Testing our new words
Like… beach balls….
Flood….
Antediluvian–
post-apocalyptic always

Cup your hands
Across your eyes
Look to the deep
Where the leviathan hides

Home.

An Interventionist God

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Mark 9:1 (NIV)
And he said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”

I don’t often suffer from writer’s block. I am bossy enough to write about something. But I do suffer from faith block and I do suffer from what-is-the-point-malaise. This is a malady wherein you seriously doubt you are doing lasting good. it has a nasty kick–discouragement and grief, loneliness, spiritual myopia.

This pronouncement of Jesus’ is enigmatic. All the disciples would eventually taste death–some quite unpleasant. What did he mean?

The kingdom of God is Jesus. His power over hell is defining–AD versus BC defining. We all must see this power–this complete and perfect ability of Jesus, king of heaven, to rob hell and death of their eternal sting.

That is power indeed. All else falls in behind.

The Bad Days

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Some days are just hard. You could tell me I need more sunlight or you could tell me that I need to leave the past behind me. I wouldn’t advise it, but you could.

But what I would say–

Grief is a big dog sitting on your chest
An arrow lodged in my sternum
The shadow on my daughter’s
Face
Lost people
And the dream of a family where everyone is safe
Someday.

The elision of ordinary evil

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Years ago a friend described his parent’s divorce–“it was like a bomb going off in the livingroom.”

His description was vivid and devastating and it came back to rest on my shoulder when my adopted children wreaked violence on my family.

The dust, the debris, the shrapnel of crime and violence rocked my own family.

I think about the steroid-bloated image of Uncle Sam, I think of the empty rhetoric and cries for both caution and justice. To me so few of the words are useful. They will not restore.

They will not restore limbs to the wounded.

They will not restore peace to the shattered.

They will not replace trust or safety like vases fallen and broken after a blast.

Do you want to help the victims?

Then shut up and listen.
Listen very carefully and stop congratulating people for being heroes.

We are none of us heroes.

We are fragile, easily broken and we take great care to heal.

And if we want any kind of justice or restoration we must first mourn our dead and then we must think, really think, in silence and humility–

if I had lost my safety, my loved ones, my dignity, my limbs, how would I want people to respond–to my pain and grief and loss?

Think hard.

Then do something.

This is you.

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I know people would prefer I not write or talk about what happened to my family. I know because they tell me to shut up. I know because they tell other people I am a liar or crazy or at fault. The lines of thinking are terrible and wretched. But the abuse itself….

Is haunting.

I write about what it feels like to have adopted a predator because predators are common. Yesterday I saw an arresting picture of a “shark circle”–hundreds of fish in schools carefully leaving a distance of a few yards between themselves and the shark.

You gotta know a shark to avoid a shark. What if the sharks could assume the shape of an ordinary fish? What would happen to the schools?

I write to stay off of drugs. If I articulate the enduring pain and hauntedness of what happened to my babies I am debreeding a deep and terrible wound. I don’t know if it will ever truly heal.

My adopted son made himself out to be safe. But he wasn’t. My children were victimized. That does not go away.

But I think somehow that if I cry out, mourn, and wail for the things we have lost in trust, hope, and community perhaps my children will not have to.

Or at least they will not grieve alone.

The parable of the lost…iPad?!

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I went on a trip today. God took care of everything. He got us to the airport(s). He got us to and from planes. He let little ones play when they should and sleep when they should.

I praised and thanked Him for each step of a blessed and safe journey. Sure there were some scary times, some kids with spring coughs. Even some upset stomachs. They were troopers.

I doubt my kids noticed the consternation on some people’s faces–so many kids!!! Young! What if they cry? They did not. They were amazing.

But.

We left an iPad at the airport….we think. Coulda been car rental? But no, we figure it was Dallas. That is a big airport. But we figure we left it in the waiting area of C terminal, Gate 37? That is what we think.

It is a pretty beat up iPad and there is a reward for it’s return. So let me know if you find it.

I love it because it has stuff on it that matters–my children’s stories and pictures. But make no mistake–I would rather have the children. I can live without the iPad. But if I lost my kids it would break my heart.

I know this because I have already lost a few.

Don’t wanna lose anymore. In fact I have a crazy idea that the ones that have slipped away will one day return.

Isaiah 49

Finding

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Pretend you are just a wisp of a thing
Standing in a maze
But…
Someone you
Love is looking out for you.

He says–

Mark 8:34-38 (NIV)
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. [36] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? [37] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? [38] If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Which can be translated–follow Me. Trust Me.

He can see the whole maze so I do. I do trust him. Sometimes in my life I have hoped there was an easier way through. I have always known that others wandered through their mazes and had to slay monsters…or be slain by them.

The ultimate question for me is not how?

He answered that when he came back from hell with my life in his hands.

No. The only question is when?

When will we all
Walk into the Light?
Glorious Light.

Rev. 22

Losing

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We all hope it will turn out ok. We will be the ones–long full life, no pain. We optimists.

You have to be an optimist to foster and adopt kids you already know have problems. You have to believe in miracles.

Our belief in miracles went something like this: yes, we know they are tough kids, but consistency, love and faithfulness combined with God’s healing power will help these kids.

My goal was a picture–all my adult (stable, law-abiding) children gathering with their families for thanksgiving dinner.

So you may imagine what a blow to the gut it was to find out our plan hadn’t produced the picture. Our adopted kids hurt our family, hurt our other children. They committed crimes before they graduated from high school.

I still remember the old me, the believer in the miracle, the picture….

Part 1 of 2

Hell.

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Yesterday an atheist told me he thought it was “arrogant and offensive” to believe in Hell.

Funny, I thought, hell is hard to miss. It has left clues to its existence scattered throughout history.

Genocide is hell.
Pestilence is hell.
Racism is hell.
War is hell.
Abortion is hell.
Child abuse is hell.

These things are not hell in it’s entirety, just clues to it’s easy reality.

Here’s how I would put it–somewhere there is a garbage dump where my personal trash goes. Every week on a certain day a big noisy truck comes and takes away my garbage, my neighbor’s trash, the neighborhood garbage, the city refuse.

I have never seen the landfill, don’t even know where it is located exactly, but the trash, the cans, the truck, and my municipal payment for “garbage collection” all suggest somewhere there is a dump for our foul-smelling discards.

Hell means “garbage dump.” It seems to me the arrogant and offensive thing is to disregard the trash, the stink, the truck, and the brave Man who comes and takes it all away and refuse to see what is clearly apparent–I do not take away my own garbage. Someone does it for me.

Make no mistake. It has been years and years of faithful service and I have never taken the Trash Collector for granted.

How could I? I need him so.