Cool

Being cool.

It was the first illusion I left behind 14 years ago when I became a foster parent. There is no way to be cool when a small irate child is freaking out in your direction.

Now that she is older my adopted daughter’s preferred term for women is b!t?h. When she was mad at me as a child it was bad mommy.

No way to look cool when a small red-faced human is screaming that atcha.

But the truth is: cool is an illusion. Sure you can look great in skinny jeans. Sure you can own a hot tub. Sure you can buy a car, house, watch that defines you.

But make no mistake. Cool is an illusion.

There are no cool ICU patients. No cool nursing home residents. No cool corpses.

We humans are frail, helpless and bound to our mortal ends.

Cool is an illusion.

So if you love cool, if you crave cool, remember this:

There was a guy once who was cool. He was that Guy, the one who said–

Matthew 5:5-7 (NIV)
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. [6] Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. [7] Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Nothing cooler than Jesus.

Because let’s face it. It is easy to say,

greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friend

Easy to say it. But if you can do it? If you did do it? If you did it for me?

Freakin’ cool.
Because it cost Him everything
And He didn’t even blink

Christmas Stories

I truly believe Christmas is the hardest season of the year. It is a characteristic of humans–our ability to make the most joyful event in human history into a frenetic, stressful, lonely race for the trappings of glee without the core of joy.

So this month I am giving myself the gift of stories.

My favorite storyteller was my paternal grandfather whom we called Papaw. My favorite thing about Christmas was his stories, his kitchen. For a nomadic military brat, his house, his kitchen was home.

Flawed, aging, ordinary home. But something about the combination of warm food aromas–coffee, pinto beans, brisket, pies–still comes back to me through all these years.

Home. The very place Jesus left to save us.

Super Powers

Isaiah 27:1 (NIV)
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

No, it is the child
Raised in a shambled house
With the dark monsters of uncertainty
Humorless play fellows

I want to say
Promise me
You will not hurt
This living child
This eternal being
Already bound
For sorrow

Forgiveness

Definitions of forgiveness
1. The Man on the Cross bleeding love out in each dying breath
2. The little girl abused until she was five who is so afraid of hell (thanks to Dante Alighieri) who says:

Even though it still hurts
To know what Charles
Did to me
I don’t want him
To go to hell

The pain of it all
Never ebbing
From her beautiful
Face.

Family Picture

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.

God stories

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

About the sword

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

stones for bread

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…

 

A note on pain

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…

Ordinary words

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