God of the Impossible

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Elea Lee

John 11:4 NIV[4] When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

What is impossible? Is gravity? The suspension of gravity? Space flight? Sea urchins?

We live in a world filled with wonder and darkness. The wonder feels improbably miraculous until the darkness throws an extreme curve ball and bam!

Death takes all.

Or so it seems.

When Jesus says this sickness will not end in death it seems like he knows what he is talking about.

Several days later when he weeps with the mourners he seems like a total nut job. Until…

I am going to hold that until–single note sung in the dark.

Some of the untils we weep through are excoriating, catastrophic…terminal.

It is important to pause at Jesus’ pronouncement. If you know the story you might be tempted to breeze through to “the good stuff,” but in this case time takes the stage–time for Lazarus to go from well to unwell, time for Lazarus to go from unwell to fatally ill. Time for Lazarus to die. Time for Lazarus to be prepared for the grave. Time for grief. Disbelief. Sorrow. Anger.

And the apparent absence of Jesus.

But…

He is not absent. He is impossible. He is the God of the impossible.

Wait. Impossible means powerless, the opposite of able.

How can God, by his very nature omnipotent, be defined as not able.

Deliberately. He was intentionally…

“not able” in death.

“not able” on the Cross.

“not able” for us.

Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave in preparation for his own death. He gave his followers an impossible four day route through death and burial so that when it was his death they would only have to wait three days.

The three darkest days of history. Three impossible days.

Until…

Sunday morning and the God of impossible things walks back in.

When you were little your foster father would throw you in the air above him. Within one second your face would register fear, exhilaration, joy, laughter.

It has always been a picture in my head–this God of sea urchins and dwarf stars throws us high up in the air for each single looped thread in the seam of all eternity.

The fear and uncertainty only bearable when we know, know, know…

He will catch us in His arms.

As He has already caught your beautiful mama, let Him catch us too…

Forever.

Safe in the outstretched arms

of Love.

Luke 18:27 NIV

[27] Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Calling Grief

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Elea Lee

this is what I would say,

If I were your real mother–

Use the pink phone with the rubber buttons

the canned voice locked inside it

–May I help you? She would ask gamely

Each time you rang her up

She would

Drop everything

Just to hear your voice

At the other end of the line.

Little Sister

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Elea Lee

for seven years

in the back of my head

there has been a terrible

Terrible story

started a long time ago

When a 15 year old boy

hurt his little sister

(Bad)

and then…

Our paths separate at this point.

And I only know the story of the other 15 year-old-November-16-2009-boy

Because I talked about you, Charles, my-used-to-be-son

All the time

Until tonight I did not know your doppelgänger’s name–

Jamar Pinkney, Jr.
Or the queasy details

No, not the terribly private awful

…the public strange

—don’t call a child molester “Teddy Bear” or put his face on your t-shirt

Ask instead–

How in God’s name…

Is his little sister?

A Fortress is a fortress is a fortress

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Elea Lee

I walk into the house just as the smallish bandits, pirates, and cowboys dash through the living room brandishing colorful weaponry.

Some tend to be softish, others–bullets made of foam, none lethal, although all inspire the requisite awe in the dogs, certainly held at bay.

There is a formal request for pillows to be requisitioned for a fortress. The Quartermaster readily assents, asserting that a fortress is a fortress is a fortress.

Suddenly every camp, garrison, base, castle, encampment, barricade, stronghold in the annals of history forever bound to this laughter, this moment of joy, this pillow…

Fortress.

Jacob Wetterling

Posted on September 7, 2016 by Elea Lee

they say you should not

look directly

at the sun

ignoring the real possibility

that it is the night

that has already

blinded us

To the scared, cold,

Ordinary child

In each photograph

Owned by

This oddball monster

While the dying sun,

Claw-handed scribe, failing light,

Scribbles justicejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejusticejustice…justicejusticejustice

Into one kind of eternity

Or another

Minotaur

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Elea Lee

these stories we tell

of bartering children for the status quo

are older than the Minotaur

dark, iconic monster

who most resembles our complacency

As long as the child sent into the labyrinth is not my own

we mutter, a sotto voce offering

To the god of what it would cost to save them all

He, unlike the Minotaur, is a natty dresser

With advanced degrees and a split-level colonial

He tsk-tsks about the rising price of safety

Rams our collective shame into his artisanally-crafted

Italian briefcase

pets his children and standard

Poodle

with the same idle indifference

Ignoring the growing sport

Of hunting children

In the labyrinthine

minds of men who have traded

The suffering of this human child

For their own eternal

Souls.

little girl gone

Posted on September 1, 2016 by Elea Lee

you search for a word for this kind of thing–

boat lost at sea

balloon gone untethered

the appropriation of breakup

…songs

we used to sing as lullabies

now ectoplasmic

only you are the ghost in your own

skin

house

grief

rolls this monster

wave over you

grief-stricken mama

trapped inside this Chinese box

feel the wounds born into

each wrist

howl, howl, howl

hours before dark

Poem

Posted on August 26, 2016 by Elea Lee

“Poem”

would be a

Beautiful name for a child

The kind of child

You must imagine with

Ringlet curls,

Head bent over a book

Or just the small legs dangling

From an open-armed tree

We forget that the word itself means

Create

Like fiction or the epic

Story of lost children

We created, engendered, if you will

Then destroyed

Through shear absence

Of imagination

The Real Girl

Posted on August 25, 2016 by Elea Lee

You always used to say I was not

Your “real mom”

And I say,

“Tropes!”

What you really need to study are tropes.

For instance–

all the insinuating places

Fairy godmothers turn up:

Mitigating curses
Magically changing the appearance of the most ordinary pumpkins
Mending what has torn and broken
Saving a girl from “steps” of one sort or the other

(…Or in your case just your own lost-girl soul)

Changing epithets into flowers
Or mirrors into enchanted doorways for the…

The forever, the divine, the set-free, the

Real girl you

Should recognize in the faces now of your own

Bewildered children.

(Wake up, sleeping beauty…wake up)

In Plain Sight

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Elea Lee

If tragedy is a long-shot and comedy is a close-up

Then what is the Facebook shot of a young mother slumped

Out cold over the body of her own

Wailing child

On a van

On the way

To the methadone clinic?

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: parenting