Despite my refusal to believe in the ghosts of the dead, stalking the yard, watching from the hill, beneath the trees where we have buried them, it remains the souls of the technically still living who haunt the before-and-after story of the man buried for another
never asking what exactly it is a carpenter does with
the disarray of
rails, posts, and sockets from the busted-in gates of hell
She mistrusts me now, with good reason. I took her smallest one and when I brought her back it was only to say goodbye. She moves the surviving ones to the back corner of the closet where they are surrounded by the fragrance of girls’ Sunday dresses, sashes the vines and tangles of a forest we can only see through the window. She shuns the crass plastic takeaway boxes for the Formica bowls we bought in South Korea before you were born, before you were the little ones stashed in the closet for safety. I wish more things were just metaphorical thought experiments and fewer things were laced with grief and its outsider ways.
I understand when she lets me feed her and when she growls be careful, lady, I am done with white man’s justice.
“Don’t worry, Girl,” I tell her. “No white men here anymore.”
I believe in regrief. I believe you and I will continue to regrieve the death of your mother. Recently we lost all four of our kittens to a fast moving, devastating affliction. In a week we went from joyful to devastated.
And I regrieved, the way I lost them reminding me of the way I lost you. The pain of one overshadowed by the pain of the other–even after 20 years.
Both griefs were characterized by my naive belief in the authorities in each case–the judge, the caseworkers, the lawyers for the lost daughters, the veterinarians for the kittens.
In your case I discovered that the entire system all the way to the state regulators was riddled with greed, prejudice, and corruption. You and your siblings were sold or bartered in exchange for federal subsidies for your care. Your adopted father had not only abandoned his first family, he had placed all of his assets in your adopted mother’s name to dodge child support. At one point he faced a jail sentence for failure to pay child support for his children. Things which should have hindered his ability to adopt you.
And the kittens?
Their veterinary clinic was indifferent, too busy. They were not seen in time. I could not get them any help until I found another vet, and by that time it was too late.
So in the midst of grieving for the lost kittens, I grieve for you as well–you and your siblings, you and your beautiful mother.
She had no chance in the rigged system. She had no chance but me.
And I was not nearly enough.
Even from a distance of 2000 years and a decent set of personal anecdotes about the constancy of God, not everything Jesus did or did not do makes sense to me.
Which helps when my prayers get different answers than what I want.
Because I do not need a Savior who feels the need to do what I find logical or necessary.
I just need a Savior.
Nondescript kitchen window transforms itself into stained glass as I overthink which teacup, settle on porcelain white so different from the non-Euclidean trees green, alive, and fierce in this hot summer wind
I drop
two bags into the single cup, pour water from the kettle, assess how full the tea tin used to be
Last time we were alive
Together.
The young fella folding library mailers eyes the old ladies as they cross the light-filled atrium. They are an exclamation point and a question mark traveling at processional speeds, arms entwined for mutual ballast. I take my own child’s arm, tell her that if we play our cards right one day they will be us, we will be them…while the young fella wears a reddish “cadet” tee and a off-grey beanie in the late days of May in the heart of Texas–bit warm for beanies, she says.
Better to catch the eye of all the pretty girls, I tell her on the way home.
The Congress of the United States passed by an overwhelming margin an act authorizing the US embassy in Israel be located in its capital–Jerusalem…during Clinton’s presidency.
He refused to sign it.
We decided this as a representative democracy more than 20 years ago.
70 years after the birth of the modern state of Israel and 73 years after the end of the Holocaust.
Matthew 1:1 NIV
[1] This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Matthew seems pretty confident that Jesus is the Messiah, a word with so much power to reckon with us and all that has captured us that I am not sure how big or long or loud our explanations of Messiah could be and still be only an approximation of the real.
Some synonyms: King, Anointed, Savior, Redeemer, Ransomer, Hero, Deliverer, Protector
The Reckoner.
After being accused of lying, or at least not stopping? lying, I looked it up–were CPCs nefariously posing as abortion clinics in order to dupe the unsuspectingly pregnant into not killing their unborn children?!
Maybe.
Interesting because it has not been my experience that they did that. I went through a CPC training course many, many years ago and was very impressed by the quality of the training. The leaders emphasized that the CPC counselors were there to
They seemed wise, kind, calm, and their cookies were warm and homemade.
That being said, let us be very straight on this–as far as I can tell (from the internet) not one single human being–ambulatory or prenatal–has ever been deprived of life by the machinations of any Crisis Pregnancy Center.
So perhaps we should ask ourselves this–if your pregnant mother had walked (in crisis) into either a very truthful abortion facilitatory or a very deceptive crisis pregnancy center, which would have given you, the still pre-birthday you, a chance at living long enough to read this blog?
We will all be judge by the sign makers of Auschwitz for we have had the power to speak freely on the behalf of our murdered unborn daughters…
Unwilling or unable to acknowledge which side Harriet Tubman, Corrie Ten Boom, or Anne Frank would take in this brouhaha over deadly truths and life-affirming deceptions.
I tire of us
Top of the food chain (for now)
And rendered myopic by shear foolish thinking
You think you will be made immortal by
What?
Clever rocketry, singing voice, signature ass?
Naw. We all just be
bits of fur
Here for a minute
Gone tomorrow
Best prepare for when we go
up or down
Yonder.
Carrying Light 