Category Archives: grief

Stormaphobe

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Mark 6:50-54,56 (NIV)
because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” [51] Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, [52] for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. [53] When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. [54] As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. [56] And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

I have to get out of this chapter.

But I haven’t yet because I need the reminders-

Sometimes God does send us into deadly storms
But he never abandons us
He walks through them, abides with us, then commands the storms to cease
Because he is God.

The people Mark describes in this story have an almost comic energy–they run en masse to and around Jesus. Like a school of fish or a herd of sheep…only in this case their lack of dignity and frenetic searching make perfect sense. Jesus means God saves.

They run to an offer they would be silly to refuse.

And ultimately I am with them– no dignity left, desperate and silly, running to the God who saves.

Chapter 6.

Lights Out

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Make no mistake. In the heart of the God of love, a stadium in the dark matters less than a child found strangled and bare in a park.

The child is a girl. The girl is thirteen. A foster child. Nameless. A mere silhouette.

Lost child.

So when you remember this amazing, expensive game we all stand still for.

Remember the dark.

Not a failure of technology; a failure of heart.

God in the dark.
Grieving

Moving Mountains

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Dear Sir,

You are my dad’s age. He died after a helicopter crash a few years ago. Actually, around the time little Ethan was born. And pretty close to Newton–he died in Dothan.

You need to know that God has an answer to what is troubling you. A peaceful answer.

I am praying for both of you.

Please, Sir, let this little boy get home safe. His mama needs him back safe.

When I pray for you I see my dad. You traveled in a truck. He traveled in a helicopter. He flew over Dale County all the time.

Both you and Ethan are scared little ones to God. He loves you. And you are both precious to God. You are both in my prayers.

Please sir, move this mountain so Ethan can hug his mama soon.

Please.

Mom

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I have mostly modest gifts, but one that is extraordinary but of no monetary value is my ability to understand, remember, sort through who I was at 2 or 5, 4 or 7.

I still can see through mine younger eyes. Only now I see all the other stuff besides.

It is painful. No one is perfect. You tried. I know you did try. And when you tried you succeeded.

It took me a long time to realize that God always saw me clear–beautiful and lovable, valuable and dear.

The picture of us taken by dad’s cousin. The picture you must’ve taken of all of us–I am wearing a wild blue coat. Fuzzy.

I can look at these pictures now and feel the fierce heat of God’s love for that little girl.

I have always loved you. I cannot and won’t stop.

Your monster pictures of me are not real mom. They. Are. Not. Real.

What is real is this–

Somewhere in the world you have a grandchild who is your twin.

Resembling who you were when you were three. Adorable. When I look at this child I think–gosh, I was a cute kid.

When I look at this child I see you. And I love you both.

Think about it mom.

When you see me you see the Minotaur.

When I see you I see a beautiful little girl with a head of dark curls.

Beautiful child
Mom.

I almost

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I see men who resemble you often. Like really close. Sometimes their wives resemble your wife. Sometimes the kids are even close.

Last weekend the impatient fruit seller was a dead ringer for H. H, who is also impatient with me.

I am afraid.

I almost call mom a few times. Just to say

I love you.

Ironically, even if I shouted it in German she would probably still understand.

Ich liebe dich!!!

What stops me is this terrible memory–a night in late summer, an infant and a toddler both held in my arms as I face an unknown accuser.

We now know it was mom. But then all I can think is–

what if they make me stay away from my babies?

I am jittery with an irrational fear. Because mom reported me when M kept running away.

M abused me, mom reported me as the abuser.

And she taught me that all the money in the world was not worth the risk. The labyrinth of her mind.

So I tell my kids about my fear. I tell them about my year in China and the million ways God took care of me.

Then I think of you. You standing on the bus, towering over the Chinese men, like you were their oversized parent or some strange incarnation of Snow White among the post-Maoist dwarves.

Overshadowing them.

Or how stingy and mean I was to you–making you climb the Great Wall with me but refusing you soda for water.

I should have got you the coke.

And while I can see us there together like an old woman watching a perfect movie about her own life…

The truth is I have lost you. Lost you so long ago I wonder if you were ever real.

When did you stop being real?

The Rest

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Mark 6:30-31 (NIV)
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. [31] Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

He fingers the cheap rhinestone nose ring. Asks me about it. I say, I got it when you were a baby after something really bad happened. I got it to remind me that even when bad stuff happens, God is good.

My definition of quiet rest.

Savage Paradoxes in a Broken World

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Mark 6:29-30 (NIV)
On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. [30] The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.

When I write, when I look at the pairing of words, I look at the incongruities–the disciples are cruising around healing people while…the last OT prophet is imprisoned and murdered?!

Why not storm Herod’s palace? Kick some apostate butt?

😦

God sees the big picture. I don’t. I just have to keep my eyes on him, on the Cross.

He died. For me. For you. For John.

The Big Picture: Calvary.

Twisted Lines

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How did they get tangled?
The long lines reaching out and up to the scaffold
Not cloudless but wind-fierce
Like blue could be fire.

I ask my son to count
Them, he gets the number wrong–says six for seven
When number eight shuttles around in a lost circle
Infinite forgotten

I watch this man
Patiently untangle them
Cords missing air balloons
Lines, ropes, braids

Carrying clumsy morons like me

I ask him about the scars along his knuckles
Painful looking
He tells me his story
…one more way to be brave

I am not

I can tell you exactly when I knew
I was a coward
The day I let go of the rope

Forever as you swore at me loudly in this crowded terminal
The people raise their eyebrows perhaps

I only remember the pain, you
A promise
Never to rise again
with the white noise and anger

Airplanes pressing physics
across this merciless deep
Sky

Fiction, of course

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Mark 6:10-13 (NIV)
Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. [11] And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” [12] They went out and preached that people should repent. [13] They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

Once there was a town. And in the town there were some kids. They were from another country. There was a family in the town who took the children to the beach, or to the park, the pool, or just to play at their house.

They loved the kids, but there were a lot of them. They filled the family’s van.

One night the family was stopped by a policeman. The police officer took a long time and decided to give a ticket for something fabricated.

The family fought the ticket, but the judge would not lift his head to make eye contact. He told them to talk to a fictitious character. A lawyer he dubbed, the municipal prosecutor.

The mama said, we have to go. I cannot take the children here or there if this is what happens when I am trying to follow the rules.

She misses the children. Worries about the paths they will traverse.

Wonders over how dust can cling to a body. Some testimony of love…

Real Ghosts

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Mark 6:13-16 (NIV)
They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them. [14] King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” [15] Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” [16] But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

These verses are about a ghost story. Herod is worried he has a ghost–John come back to haunt him.

It isn’t John, it is his cousin, but never mind that. Herod is spooked.

He deserves to be. He is a rat–adulterer, bully, pedophile. He is one of those tidy historical villains who leave little doubt of his destination.

A bad guy. But that is the irony–when he was alive he was haunted by the possibility his victim would return. When in truth he is the ghost.

John died for no good reason, but he went to heaven. Herod lived for no good reason.

And hell became his habitat.