Suddenly I see us
Traipsing in,
Blankets, flotsam of ourselves
Trailing behind us
We are like children
Dazed and shellshocked
By the dust of a falling world
Still crashing down
Behind us
But we are Here Now
And as we wipe the tears and soot
From our brand-new-eyes–
We recognize
This strong family
Resemblance in a sea/a star
Filled sky full of Light.
When I was a very little girl I thought religion was an insurance policy. I figured God was too busy for personal communication but that church and prayer were our way of joining his club.
I had a stuffed animal named Mouse who was my best friend. I could not imagine life without Mouse. Mouse was a great friend and I could say anything to Mouse. In fact, I worried a great deal about Mouse not going to heaven. I knew that faded bags of foam padding and chintz were not eternal. It was a rough dilemma.
When I was 10 I went to a charismatic prayer group at one of the Catholic churches. I was used to formal prayer but this was wilder–singing, hand raising, speaking in tongues. I did not know what to do.
So I closed my eyes and said, “God, I don’t even know if You are real or not, but if You are, show me.”
I immediately felt an intense love. It was like He had put a blanket of love around my shoulders. Not only was He very real–He loved me!!”. That was a life changing moment.
The rest has been a beautiful love story–perfect on His side, deeply flawed on mine.
I tell people Jesus loves them because He does but also because He has saved my life. I am crazy about Him. I want everyone to get to know Him–the God who is Love.
And Mouse? Well, mouse was always really Jesus
In disguise<3
Some days I almost forget it is there
Protruding as it does
Through my sternum
La-la-la I think
For about, um, 30 seconds…
Then it all comes back
When you say oh, I don’t do that anymore
Like it was a hobby you grew out of
Or…oh, the movie was fun
Like you are at summer camp with your pals
I must breathe
Which hurts the freaking sword
In-my-chest
When you..
When you..
Oh that is right
You don’t remember
his conversation with the devil
his last meal
the things He gathers with his hands
broken treasure
if you being evil
He asks
(rhetorically–don’t answer that…)
give your children good things
stones for bread
our history
my dear
my darling
if I could only roll
all the stones away
and find you living
Bread among the stones
bred among stones
my love…
And by pain I mean grief, and by grief I mean the loss of someone who is so essential to your well-being that breathing hurts,that everything turns dark.
Sometimes that someone can be you.
The heartlessness of grief lies on the endless horizon. One day of loss is hard, a wasteland. But when we grieve we know (or part of us knows) that the endless sea of brutal days without the beloved is part of the weight of sorrow. We desperately want a reprieve, and when there is none there is a madness in sorrow.
This is Jesus on the Cross. He is the focal point of endless loss–Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? We know our grief feels endless and unbearable. We know His was.
I once looked up the valley of the shadow of death. I wondered if it was an actual geographical location. It is not. And this is why–the shadow of death is the place we walk through when the loss of our loves leaves us there–feeling alone and abandoned.
But it is only the shadow. The pain of grief ripping through the core of our souls is merely–merely, the shadow of death. Real death we see only from a distance as a Man agonizes on the cross of history. He walks through the valley of death…so we never have to…
What if they were like
Objects?
That you could touch with your hands?
Wipe a counter or a brow with Love?
Or spread an ermine Mercy
Over the body
Of a sleeping child?
What if anger had a bifurcated
Tongue
Lighting
Either chaff
Or
Home on fire
What word?
What ordinary word?
Would stop the fire
Speak peace to the wind
And rebuke
The dogs of loss
So….the atheists I know have gods. They tend to be egoism and stimulants, pride, and vanity along with other garden variety idols. I find these side roads into idolatry particularly sad when dealing with atheistic myopia.
I wonder, do they really not see how important it is for the world to revolve around them? When you are an atheist this is particularly sad because your life (by your faith’s disposition) has no more significance than a bit of plastic jetsam swirling around in the Pacific. Idolatry of a plastic toothbrush, let’s call it.
By contrast there is Jesus. His words are deep, warm, incisive, ironic, profound, and true, often all at once. His voice resonates over the course of recorded history. He is the antithesis of egoism. There is no, “and then Jesus sat down to a satisfying breakfast of fried eggs” verse in the Bible. There is some interesting stuff about Him NOT eating and casting out demons…oh, and raising the dead. The dead.
His smallest words matter. His weeping, His silence, His unbearable pain. And then there is His advice–keep the eternal, lay up treasure that will not rust or rot. He shows us how this is done
by dying to our egos and ourselves
by purchasing with our money, our time, and our hearts
treasure in Heaven.
treasure in Heaven…
What does God treasure?
Us.
we are His precious treasure
and just in case we did not see it, He makes His mark on the center of the map of human history
with a Cross
A friend asked me, do you put the kids to bed and at least get five minutes to yourself? No, I say, not really but I like them all…
Hours later I realize how strange that must sound, how incomplete. What I see in my head is thirteen years of eidetic episodes of unlikable events–bullying, tantrums, swearing, violent protracted rages, physical assaults, homicidal imaginary friends, routine larceny, and lies, cursing of the most egregious kind. Some stories so awful I do not want to write about the hurt. And all of this before the years of C’s sexual felonies were dragged to light.
Most sane and normal people would have known better, right? We believed if we did not give up on m and c they would be good, or at least better because of love. Because of Love.
Jesus said, greater love has no man than he lays down his life for his friend.
Somethings are easier than others to lay down, I say beneath the shadow of the Cross.
Those 13 years took things that did not belong to me from the most precious people I know. To say I like my children is an understatement.
They are my heroes.
The house is quiet. I can hear the wind outside but inside it is warm, almost safe. My house would feel safer if the world was safer. If police officers were brave. If money were no object; instead: justice.
I can see Him look at me when I begin to whine internally.
His expression is wry when He has every right to be fierce
you know this belongs to Me, He says
I know.
I know it is His because of the pain
the plunge into darkness
swallowing the abyss whole
He returns to us
if this were a poem
instead of survival
i would call it
“unfair”
Many of the traditional Christian catechisms define people as being totally depraved. It is archaic for us–we are used to seeing people through the rose-colored glasses of publicity and media packaging.
I remember seeing a famous person on tv telling an interviewer that she was a wonderful mother (or something like that).
I had a vociferous critic of my parenting so I thought about what the woman was saying. Even without my mother’s voice in my head I knew the catechisms–I am not great, good or wonderful. I am broken. My whole life is broken. The only way it works at all is when I let God in to the broken spaces. He is the antidote to my sin, fear and selfishness.
Jesus was utterly forsaken so I would never have to be.
I used to think that His story could have been more humane–we politely give Him our gratitude and stand by broken by His death on the cross.
Now I realize that the horror of every lonely place and abuse in His story is the way He walks through and bears the trial and death I have earned.
And in return He gives me my life back.
I give Him death, He returns my life to me.
For the first time whole.
Carrying Light 