The Relative Conversation

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Elea Lee

It happens sometimes. He encounters people with functioning extended family–they exist in movies and television. They pop up at the occasional birthday party.

He asks, do I have cousins? Or uncles, aunt, grandparents, depending on the occasion. And I find myself staring at the rock wall of truth.

How do you explain the FBI definitions of rape to a kindergartener? How do explain the way humans can run like roaches when confronted with the concept themselves? Or worse. There is always worse.

So I take time to answer, starting with the easiest part–You have cousins. You played with them before. You just don’t remember.

He makes an expression of mild exasperation. Why can’t he remember them?

I tell him he probably would if he saw them again. I tell him I will show him pictures.

You have pictures? he exclaims, as though I have been stashing chocolates.

Yes. I have pictures. And memories too. They are pretty lovable kids.

And this is the part I have yet to frame into words, into pictures on the wall of who we are–

If you love someone, and that loved someone gets hurt, badly hurt, it is your job to stop the hurt. Your job to stand up for that love. Whatever the cost. Whatever the monsters

If you don’t, you can’t call it love.

Darling, I am so sorry, it was our own family who taught me that.

The Whys

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Elea Lee

A million times a day
Is just hyperbole
For often
As often as it takes
For a smallish bird
To beat itself to death
Against this inscrutable
Window pane/rib cage

Hypothetical Mom

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Elea Lee

First you have to
Believe she believed
In mom-hood–

The theoretical belief that sacrifice and love can change children’s lives

And that this
belief led to
Lost opportunities
Abandoned careers
Messy hair
And chaos

Then you have to
Ask yourself
Has her belief has been tested
For its tensile strength?

Next you must
examine the specimen herself

Does she look and smell like a real mom?

Finally you have to ask
How much does it cost?
How much did it ever cost?

And is there a real
Alternative?

Jesus feeds the multitude

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Elea Lee

When I read the accounts of Jesus feeding thousands of people, his abundance and miraculous powers are preeminent.

But there are other things as well. He says that the disciples need to feed them.

He demands the impossible of the ordinary.

He has not provided (that we know) consistent meals and snacks. He waits until they are truly hungry.

He exhausts the resources of the ordinary.

He predicts that without Divine intervention they will “collapse on the way.”

He knows the limits of the ordinary and is willing to push those limits.

We are so ordinary.

I am particularly ordinary.

And I need to face my ordinary hunger, my ordinary need…

For this God, this extraordinary Savior. Jesus, who defines himself and winnows us by proclaiming that in his body and in his blood is the fulfillment of every human hunger.

With or without a little boy’s ordinary lunch, Jesus satisfies, Jesus is able to feed, every human heart.

Pamela Anderson’s Story

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Elea Lee

It is profoundly telling that we allow/promote a woman’s prerogative to overexpose her body for sexual purposes for years, but do not provide safe harbor for that same woman to tell the story of her childhood victimization.

I don’t care if Hugh Jackman dressed up like Wolverine for Halloween (..and no one noticed..), but I do care if Bryan Singer sexually assaulted teens and no one noticed.

The same rule applies to Ms. Anderson:

Not only do we need to examine why her body is of interest to millions of men, but we also must question why the identification and prosecution of her abusers is of interest to none.

If Anderson could not tell her story until now, how many other victims have been forced into silence?

And at what cost?

Consider the lilies

Image

300 Objects

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Elea Lee

I know that body
Of water
So big, so crashingly big
You would divide it up into
Parts, continents, islands
A string of pearls or teeth
Would be too small for a satellite
You can’t see the Great Wall from space
…or the Lido Hotel…so close to the
Airport I used to know
The “Snooker” room there
We were still young then and thought the term amusing
They had a post office.
I remember now
Somehow more civilized than the real one?
Where I once received the scrolls from him
And sent off the books–a New Testament? A dictionary
You wanted me to speak to you in English on that endless journey
As the satellite technician listened warily
Never letting on he understood
The families will grieve
For their children
First missing
Now gone
300 hundred objects
Floating across an endless
Endless sea.