The moon recites the prayer with me, tethered to a God who never sleeps Our Father, who art in heaven…where does the slivery-thin-orange moon go when it passes below the shoulder of the hill? To all the other insomniacs…hallowed be thy name…indeed You hear me, Maker of that smoke wisp moon, Maker of the metonymy of darkness, a body can rob a body of light until You are here …Thy kingdom come…thy will be done…among the sleepless…on earth as it is in heaven.
Deep porch for rocking. Wrap around so that the boy with the ol’ stick horse can barrel around each corner. A telephone nook even though we both know nobody calls anymore. And the unwieldy kitchen in the heart of it all-ghost-kitchen attempting to take natural light from the living and sun rooms respectively while even the closets have seen things, terrible things
As if an old house could ever just stand by and
say nothing at all.
Given the choice between
Chilling with
A flock of wolves meticulously dressed up in sheep’s clothing
Or a pack of sheep
Aiming to pass for wolves
I would always pick the latter
how about you?
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.
Numbers 6:22-27 NIV
[22] The Lord said to Moses, [23] “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: [24] “ ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you; [25] the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; [26] the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. ” ‘ [27] “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
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.
Sometimes I can hear them through the digital quilt of my son’s smartphone, San Antonio songbirds not unlike the full-throated prophets I hear in the backyard, not minor prophets, like Micah or Nahum, although come to think of it these would be good names for the night birds. No. They are small, easily overlooked, not altogether heard which leads me to my theory about Isaiah, not a minor prophet at all but must’ve wanted to be for awhile in the naked days when his voice competed with the spectacle of it all–ordinary-man-naked, not rendered complete until the blood-and-agony Redeemer he sang about
Proves true.
All the million things I leave undone, my own personal Pacific swirl, Bermuda Triangle, fourth dimensional hole filled with things I should organize, give away, relinquish or abandon
Like anger or the mold that grows along joints and fissures
I would call the same band by two names
Pascal’s Wager or T-shirts
They would sing exactly the same songs, be beautiful and wise beyond their years, know why two names for the same band …have their
father’s ear for music
their mother’s words
And a cleaner house once all our borrowed stories are returned
In the mid- to late 90s President Clinton pushed through legislation to streamline and monetize public adoption from foster care.
People who adopted sibling groups, minorities, and special needs kids from foster care received free adoptions, public healthcare benefits for the children, and variable daily payment of ten to over forty dollars per day, per child. And in some states, like Texas where the Hart kids were from, college benefits.
Before this legislation (and the change in the ethos on adoption) children remained in foster care for years and parental rights remained robust.
After the legislation some enterprising judges saw a way to monetize the adoption of low income, disadvantaged children.
I lived in a county and fostered in a system where the abuses crossed every line of protection to include coercing disabled mothers to relinquish their rights or face the threat of criminal charges. Women would be targeted while pregnant, their babies taken from the hospital after birth, and adoptions processed within 6 months.
The Clinton system was designed to move foster kids out of the system. It was designed to monetize the adoption of children who were normally left in foster care. While it may have helped some, it harmed many.
There is a greater than 80 percent chance that the Hart mothers received generous federal payouts to take their “kids from hard backgrounds.”
Which means tax dollars would have funded their household, bought the car they drove over the cliff, and have been significant source of income intended for the benefit of the children.
No one should get paid to beat, starve, and murder children
Who never had a chance.
I can’t help but stare at the picture of this family swept out to sea. I know what it is like to attempt to parent children from “hard backgrounds.”
And yes, I have often tried to assuage my deep grief about the damage caused by my adopted children by telling myself that we have survived (so far).
None of this is fun to talk about, but I did talk–sometimes unsparingly, because I hoped that if people heard our story they could do something to prevent tragedies like ours.
More than the average mama, I can put myself in the shoes of these mamas, and I have two things to thing to say–
Just: a story of the lost and found https://www.amazon.com/dp/1468123459/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_JPNWAbDZT3TR5
Carrying Light 